The historical interest and value of many of the folk-songs of Modern Greece has been often acknowledged, and historians have not disdained to quote them as evidence either of facts or of popular feeling. It is therefore desirable in the case of any ballad supposed to relate some historical event to determine as exactly as possible to what event it really refers.
In Passow's most valuable work, as was inevitable in so large a, collection of popular traditional poetry, a few errors seem to have been made in naming, dating and classifying the pieces. Some apparent cases of such error I propose here to examine.
Three ballads numbered by Passow cxciv., cxcv., cxcvi. are headed
Literally translated they run as follows:—