Mickiewicz’s series of ballads makes innovative use of Romantic folk motifs, customs and ideas of the commune. Supernatural forces meddle with people’s everyday lives, making the commonplace and domestic mysterious and dangerous instead. The interference of the supernatural world is often of an ethical nature, where human actions influence supernatural forces.
They introduce moral order into the drama of guilt and punishment – a frequent motif in the works of Mickiewicz and other Romantics. They enforce responsibility for deeds committed, judge justly and pass sentences for evil (e.g. Lilies, Little Fish, Świtezianka). The forces of nature are often the guardians of moral order in human life.
The miraculousness of the world presented in Ballads and Romances becomes here not so much an ornament, as a philosophical and moral metaphor of the author’s attitude towards the world. In his opinion, only through everyday contact with the forces of nature are people able to discover the moral sense hidden in the violent events taking place. The atmosphere of mystery and horror is also created by the descriptions of nature: wildness, darkness, howling winds and moonlight illuminating the landscape, such as an old Orthodox church or a cemetery.
There are 14 pieces in the collection: