In one of the commonest Slavic ballads, a girl, who finds her brother an obstacle to her desires, poisons him, at the instigation and under the instruction of the man she fancies, or of her own motion, by giving him a snake to eat, or the virus in drink. The object of her passion, on being informed of what she has done, casts her off, for fear of her doing the like to him. Bohemian: 'Sestra travička,' Erben, P. n. w Čechách, 1842, I, 9, No 2, Prostonárodni české P., 1864, p. 477, No 13; Swoboda, Sbírka č. n. P., p. 19; German translations by Swoboda, by Wenzig, W. s. Märchenschatz, p. 263, I. v. Düringsfeld, Böhmische Rosen, p. 176, etc. Moravian: Sušil, p. 167, No 168. Slovak, Čelakowsky, Slowanské n. P., III, 76. Polish: Kolberg, P. L. p., I, 115, No 8, some twenty versions; Wojcicki, P. L. białochrobatow, etc., I, 71, 73, 232, 289; Pauli, P. L. polskiego, p. 81, 82: Konopka, P. L. krakowskiego, p. 125. Servian: Vuk, I, 215, No 302, translated by Talvj, II, 192, and by Kapper, Gesänge der Serben, II, 177. Russian: Čelakowsky, as above, III, 108. Etc. The attempt is made, but unsuccessfully, in Sacharof, P. russkago N., IV, 7. A version given by De Rada, Rapsodie d'un poema albanese, p. 78, canto x, resembles the Slavic, with a touch of the Italian. A man incites a girl to poison her brother by pounding the poison out of a serpent's head and tail and mixing it with wine. In a widely spread Romaic ballad, a mother poisons the bride whom her son has just brought home,--an orphan girl in some versions, but in one a king's daughter wedding a king's son. The cooks who are preparing the feast are made to cook for the bride the heads of three snakes [nine snakes' heads, a three-headed snake, winged snakes and two-headed adders]. In two Epirote versions the poisoned girl bursts with the effects. "Τα κακα πεθερικα," Passow, p. 335, No 456, nearly==Zambelios, p. 753, No 41; Passow, p. 337, No 457; Tommaseo, Canti popolari, III, 135; Jeannaraki, p. 127, No 130[149]; Chasiotis (Epirote), p. 51, No 40, "Ἡ βουργαροπουλα και ἡ κακη πεθερα·" p. 103, No 22, "Ὁ Διονυς και ἡ κακη πεθερα." (Liebrecht, Volkskunde, p. 214.) An Italian mother-in-law undertakes to poison her son's wife with a snake-potion. The wife, on her husband's return from the chase, innocently proposes to share the drink with him. Her husband no sooner has tasted than he falls dead. (Kaden, Italien's Wunderhorn, p. 85).