Excerpted from the book "On the High Uplands: Sagas, Songs, Tales, and Legends of the Carpathians" by Stanisław Vincenz. Abridged slightly for length.
The Verdict of the Song
The court records declare that Dobosz died in Kosmacz, and that afterwards his body was taken by cart to Kolomyja, and that the sentence pronounced by the voyevod Jablonowski was announced and Dobosz's death was "proclaimed" at all the crossroads; and that then he was exhibited in Kolomyja to the public view, as a warning to all the people.
But the song says, and all the people believe, for the mountains themselves bear testimony, that Dobosz was buried in Kiedrowaty upland, among the rocks and the treasures, not far from his seat.
Let the gentry talk their nonsense if it does them any good; let the upstarts yap, let the paper-people write their papers. No one will ever believe them.
The young men of his band carried Dobosz on their axes; tending his wounds, weeping over him they carried him to Kiedrowaty. For that is what he himself had commanded them to do before his death, as the song testifies:
Lift me on your axes of glory,
Carry me to Czornohora.
Well? Is anybody really going to search for his bones in the Kolomyja and Zablotow districts, when his body was said to have been chopped into little bits and scattered over the fields, as the gentry boasted?
Empty talk! Anyone who wants to know anything about Dobosz, who wants to find the least trace of Dobosz, will go to Czornohora. For Dobosz himself said:
Up to the highland carry me;
Where I lived, there bury me.
Two maples there you'll find,
They are my brother-kind.
Two fir-trees flower there,
They are my sisters fair.
There you will find the great Dobosz family, there are Dobosz's monuments, there too is Dobosz himself. The earth will not forget Dobosz.
But let the children of the Highland rend their breasts with a groan.
Like eaglets without their mother,
Like children without their father.
Let them despair, let them lament that the beauty of the ancient days is scattering into dust, that this world is perishing. The torrents are drying up, the stones are blocking their channels, the meadows are covered with slime, the Czeremosz is strewn with boulders. The waters will not flow down to the Rainbow Sea,[^1] the decorated Easter eggs will not be carried away to the holy Rachmans,[^2] our guardians; but the children of the mountains, robbed of their birthright, will pour along the roads and there break stones. The daring, youthful heads will bow to the ground... until they burn out freedom to its last embers—until, released from the chain, the monster... the patron of oppression... breaks loose...
But let [this monster] prove whether the world can live without freedom, without thought, without beauty, without song and without laughter! If he does not prove that, he will be returned to the chain once more, for all the ages.
And then from Kiedrowaty the trumpet will sound out the upland watchword, summoning the people. The youthful Dobosz will arise, and will laugh. Thunder Cloud will fly to him, his snowy mane gleaming; he will neigh with a voice of thunder, he will drum his hoofs on the rock. And at that sign all the thunder horses will be set free by the brave old Elias, the prophet thick-beard, patron-saint of youth. The cliffs will open, the treasures will begin to burn in the womb of the mountains, and then the great young world will arise. Dobosz's song will stir, will begin to flutter, will go flying down through the forests into the valley.
And so the people continually make pilgrimages as far as that chair in the rock of Czornohora, and they are always waiting expectantly, straining their ears for news of Dobosz.
But that time has not yet come.
It is not Dobosz's song that goes thundering from the cliffs. It is not the little drops sounding from the yew pipe, from Dobosz's chair, that go fluttering and sowing. It is the waterfalls of the Kizia that thunder as they fly through the forest. It is the waves ringing on the rocks in the wilds. Thus these waters rejoice you, brother, and soothe with their playing. For together with them, other, sincere assistants, mighty guardians are working: thunders, winds, and the sacred sun. With hammer they forge, with magic chisel they carve the Dobosz monuments.
It is all the Highland that… plays [unceasingly] to the glory of Dobosz youth.
[^1]: The Black Sea. [^2]: Elsewhere in the book it is explained that pysanky (eggs which are painted every spring for Easter) are sent along a river so that the Rachmans can receive them. The Rachmans seem to be a supernatural race of people that live parallel lives to the Hutsuls, like guardian angels.