a tale of the opryshky told by the cantor Andrii Borysiuk of Zelena, from Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (1910)

Oleksa Dovbush, killed at Kosmach in 1745, is the greatest of the opryshky, the outlaws of the Carpathian mountains, and the Hutsuls tell many tales of how he slipped through the hands of those sent to take him. Andrii Borysiuk, the cantor of Zelena in the Nadvirna district, told this one to Antin Onyshchuk. Near Pasichna the outlaws run into a pursuit of jägers, riflemen; they escape up the mountain Sokolovytsia, and from the top Dovbush strews money down the mountain.

Translation

Once Dovbush was going with his young men over there below Pasichna. But they ran right into the pursuit, into the jägers. When Dovbush looked closely and saw that they were jägers, he shouted: "Lads! On to Sokolovytsia!" Up the rocks they went like bilytsi (squirrels), and in a minute they stood on the mountain. Oleksa says: "Lads, to Staryi, to the clearing!" The young men scattered, and Dovbush set to on his belt and his leather sack, and began strewing money from up there, down the mountain.

That pursuit came up under Sokolovytsia, and those jägers, the moment they saw money on the ground, started gathering it up over there... Those leaders (of the jägers) at them (the jägers) with whips! with whips! But they don't even feel it, they're gathering up the money...

And so, before they had climbed the mountain, behind the opryshky, as they say, even the trail had gone cold.

Colophon

Translated from the Hutsul of Volodymyr Hnatiuk (ed.), Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk 26, Lviv 1910), no. 70, p. 100, told by the cantor (дяк) Andrii Borysiuk and recorded by Antin Onyshchuk at Zelena in the Nadvirna district; Hnatiuk gives no year. (The record line prints Ант. Онищук; Hnatiuk's preface, p. V, gives the name in full.) The text was transcribed from the page images of the Internet Archive scan. Hnatiuk notes that Sokolovytsia is a mountain near Pasichna. His own glossary to the volume settled лєґри, "riflemen", from the German Jäger ("the jägers"); бордюг, here бурдюг, a leather sack "of various sizes, unsewn, made from the whole hide of a calf, goat or roe deer" (з телячої, козячої або сарнячої цілої шкіри), rendered "leather sack"; and прилука, a small clearing in the forest. Білицї is the teller's word for squirrels, and the printed text adds in brackets the common word вивірки; the English keeps both, as it keeps the other bracketed words, "(of the jägers)" and "(the jägers)", which tell the reader who is whipping whom. Вата́шки is read from the context as the leaders of the jägers; Hnatiuk himself uses ватажко for the leader of a band in his table of contents ("Ватажко опришків"). Черес is the broad leather belt of the Hutsuls, in which money was carried. Трафили са́мо на погоню is "they ran right into the pursuit", the stressed са́мо being "right, exactly". Старий (printed Ста́рий, у Ста́рий на прилуку) is taken as a place-name, from the capital letter and the stress on the first syllable, where the adjective старий, "old", is stressed on the last; the English keeps the teller's two phrases, "to Staryi, to the clearing". Нїм is "before" (Polish nim), за опришками is "behind the opryshky", and слїд застиг, "the trail had gone cold", is literally "the trail had set" or "stiffened", as a thing cools. The teller writes леґінї once as Лиґінї; the English reads "the young men" both times.

No English translation of this narrative is known to us.

© 2026 Tianmu Anglican Church. This English translation is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it for non-commercial use with credit to the Good Works Library, tianmu.org. The source text keeps its own terms. For other uses, see Rights and Reuse.

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Source Text: Як Довбуш змудрував погоню під Соколовицею

The Hutsul text as printed by Hnatiuk (1910), no. 70, transcribed from the page images.

Раз ішов Довбуш з леґінєми онди під Пасїчнов. Але трафили са́мо на погоню, на лєґри. Як сї Довбуш придивив, шо то є лєґри тай крикнуў: Хлопцї! Далї на Соколовицю! — Тоти як білицї (вивірки) по скалах тай у мінутї стали на горі. Каже Олекса: Хлопцї, у Ста́рий на прилуку! — Лиґінї розскочили сї, а Довбуш узєў сї до череса тай до бурдюга и став розмітувати відтів з гори гроші.

Прийшла тота погонє під Соколовицю, тай ті лєґри як уздріли гроші на зимли, зачєли туди збирати... Тоти вата́шки (від лєґрів) тото (лєґрів) нагайками! нагайками! — Але тоти и ни чуют того, збирают гроші...

Тай так, шо нїм вішли на гору, то за опришками — як то кажут — і слїд застиг.

Source Colophon

Volodymyr Hnatiuk (ed.), Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk 26; Lviv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1910), no. 70, p. 100. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the Internet Archive scan (identifier etnohr_26). Hnatiuk's phonetic spelling of the Hutsul is kept as printed, with its ї, є, ґ, ў, its stress marks and dialect forms, and with the bracketed glosses of the print; line-end hyphens are joined, and Hnatiuk's first paragraph is divided at the same place as the English. Hnatiuk's footnotes are not reproduced: his one note, to the title, reads «Соколовиця — гора біля Пасїчної». His record line reads: Зап. в Зеленій, Надвір. пов. від дяка Андрія Борисюка Ант. Онищук.

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