Note 14 — Chapter IV · : Kralyevitch Marko; or, the Royal Prince Marko (continued 2)

Kessedjiya means ‘fighter’ or ‘bully,’ and is the nickname of an Albanian chevalier-brigand Moussa, who defied for years the distant power of the Sultan. The incident described in the poem here referred to recounts—according to some Serbian historians—an event which actually took place in the beginning of the fourteenth century. There is hardly any inn or tavern in the villages of the Southern Slavs on the front wall of which one cannot see a rough fresco illustrating the duel between Marko and Moussa.