Wędrowni lirnicy i ich czułe pieśni: Legenda o Matce Bożej i zbóju oraz Niesamowite zdarzenie. Panna żywcem pochowana [...]

The article aims at describing the phenomenon of wandering beggars (“dziady”) and their songs in the context of sentimentalism. It presents various ways of understanding the concept of “dziady” as used in the Polish romantic literature. Authors of beggar songs found their sources of inspiration in the Bible, Apocrypha, Boccaccio’s novels, and texts of Polish anonymous authors as much as used the sentimental tradition. In consequence, the moral considerations of these songs have been subordinated to their aesthetics. Two of them, namely, the song entitled Legenda o Matce Bożej i Zbóju and the song Panna Żywcem Pochowana…, have been comprehensively analyzed in order to prove the thesis in question.