Sometimes Marko's adversary is a Moor--for example, the Moor who wishes to marry the Sultan's daughter and the other Moor who demanded a wedding tax from the maidens of Kossovo. He cut off the head of this Moor with one touch of his mace. At another time he is imprisoned by a Sultan whose daughter releases him. He has promised to marry her. But when they have started on their elopement, and she lifts her veil, he is horrified to see how black she is. There seemed nothing for him to do but to run away. Yet he knows that he has committed a sin in breaking his promise--and he confesses this sin to his mother: "Then I sprang upon the back of Sharaz, And I heard the maiden's lips address me-- 'Thou in God my brother--thou--oh, Marko! Leave me not! thus wretched do not leave me!' Therefore, mother! wretched do I lowly penance: Thus, my mother! have I gold o'erflowing, Therefore seek I righteous deeds unceasing." In these pesmas one has glimpses not only of all the neighbors who warred upon the Serbians, but of Christian malcontents going over to the Church of Rome or sowing dissensions at home. A careful reader can get an almost complete picture of the Serbian life after the Conquest, painted, to be sure, in high colors. In most of the Serbian heroic pesmas there is little of that superstitious element that marks the ordinary life of the Serb to-day, except in the almost constant presence of the Vila. Marko's Vila never loses an opportunity to help him, to warn him, and even to scold him. The Serbian Vila, so conspicuous in Serbian song and story, may be roughly defined as a guardian angel. She is a vaguely beautiful maiden born of the dew and nurtured in a mysterious mountain and seems to combine qualities of both classic and northern mythologies. She has qualities which are even essentially Christian, for sometimes she expresses her belief in God and St. John, and always she has a deadly hatred for the Turk. No higher compliment can be paid a lady than to say, "as fair as the mountain Vila," and a steed "swift as a Vila" means one of great value. Occasionally Marko reproves his Vila Rayviola and once when she has shot an arrow through the throat and another through the head of his friend Milosh, he pursues her among the clouds on his horse Sharaz and brings her to earth with his club, ungallantly adding: "Thou hadst better give him healing herbs lest thou shalt not carry longer thy head upon thy shoulders." But generally Marko's attitude is more affectionate: "Where art thou now, my sister-in-God, thou Vila?"