Jerzego Ficowskiego Bajędy z augustowskich lasów

Abstract

In the 1980s, Jerzy Ficowski listened to some stories told by an elderly tale-teller, encountered accidentally on the Mazurian lake Serwy. He noted them down, trying to retain the atmosphere of the original. He thus created the collection of six stories, entitled “Bajędy z augustowskich lasów”. The word “bajędy” is a blend of “bajki” (fairy tales) and “gawędy” (folk stories). However, the last two stories in the cycle do not fit the canon, since they are characterized by realistic motivation. Everything is serious, the dominating atmosphere is one of longing for the extinct world of coexistence of nations, cultures and religions. The first four stories are imbued with magical beliefs, fantastic motivation and folk worldview, according to which the evil must be punished, and the good prevails. “Bajędy...” are styled so as to resemble a dialect, they contain comic elements, and sometimes linguistic play. They also contain sentences that might be counted among aphorisms, or quote popular proverbs, in a didactic function.