“We’ve come after Dyngus”

“We’ve come after Dyngus” is the opening line of a short song sung by a group of boys as they make their rounds through the village. Its significance lies in the way it brings together religious language, a recognizable festive occasion, and a performance carried from household to household. The line announces why the singers have arrived; the verses that follow turn that arrival into a communal act of singing about Jesus and asking for a customary contribution.

The song in its setting

The song is heard during the boys’ post-Dyngus rounds. They set out from the road and go first to the priest’s house, following a route that farmhands had taken in previous years. The performance belongs to a repeated village custom rather than to an isolated burst of singing: after visiting the priest, the group proceeds to the organist’s house and then continues to the cottages.

The wording names the occasion directly. “We’ve come after Dyngus” makes the singers’ arrival part of the song itself, while “To sing about Jesus” gives the visit its devotional purpose. The remaining lines invoke Jesus and Maria and point to the cap held out before the singers. In four brief lines, the song moves from occasion, to religious subject, to invocation, to the practical token of the visit.

The text does not explain the custom’s full history or prescribe a single fixed performance. What it shows is a song embedded in action: the words accompany a group arriving, arranging itself, singing, and receiving a response. Its meaning therefore comes not only from its devotional reference but also from the public exchange it helps organize.

The boys’ performance

Witek the Stork-Keeper leads the boys, who carry sticks and bags. He has dressed smartly, wearing shoes and a cap belonging to Boryna; Pietrek’s fiddle is tucked beneath his arm. The other boys include Maciuś Kłąb, the Gulbas boy, Jędrek, and Grzela’s son Kuba. Their procession arrives at the presbytery garden, where they line up and push the cockerel to the front.

The staging gives the song a clear, collective shape. Witek plays the fiddle, the Gulbas boy winds up their marvel and crows, and the boys beat time with their sticks and stamp by turns. Their voices are described as shrill, and the performance grows louder and bolder as it continues. The cockerel is not incidental: it occupies the front of the line, attracts attention, and becomes a focus of the children who later crowd around the group.

These details make the song more than a lyric detached from its singers. Its repeated lines are supported by fiddle-playing, rhythmic movement, and the conspicuous presence of the cockerel. The boys perform together, but their roles are not identical: Witek leads and plays, another boy supplies the crowing element, and the rest sing and keep time. The words are thus part of a small, coordinated spectacle.

Exchange and continuation

The boys sing for a long time, growing louder, until the priest comes out. He gives them ten groszy each, praises the cockerel, and dismisses them kindly. He also sends out a girl with sweet cake. The group answers with a song of thanks before trailing away toward the organist’s house.

The visit makes the song’s appeal concrete without reducing it to a demand. The lyrics mention the cap, and the priest’s response includes money and food; at the same time, his praise of the cockerel acknowledges the performance’s playful display. The song helps establish a reciprocal encounter: the boys offer music and a festive visit, while the household responds with gifts and recognition. Their thanks-song marks the exchange’s close before the procession moves on.

The custom continues beyond the first two houses. The boys visit all the cottages, followed by children who cluster around them. The crowd becomes so dense that the singers have to protect the cockerel from the crush; the children want to touch its feathers and move the stick. The song therefore accompanies a moving village event whose audience expands as the procession proceeds. Its opening line is both an explanation of the visit and an invitation into its festive activity.

Oral form and communal meaning

The song’s compact form contrasts with the longer tales Rocho tells elsewhere in the novel. His stories unfold slowly before gathered listeners and range across marvels, kings, and supernatural happenings; this boys’ song is brief, repeated, and tied to an immediate occasion. Both forms depend on spoken performance and an assembled audience, but the song’s function is especially practical and public: it marks the group’s arrival, gives its visit a devotional frame, and accompanies a customary round through the village.

Its combination of sacred invocation and lively performance is visible in the scene rather than explained by an abstract statement. Jesus and Maria are named in the lyrics, while the fiddle, stamping, crowing, cap, and cockerel place the words in a festive encounter among neighbors. The priest’s response confirms that the singing is received as a recognized custom, and the children’s eagerness to approach the cockerel shows how the event draws in people beyond the original singers.

The phrase “We’ve come after Dyngus” thus works as an opening announcement, a marker of seasonal custom, and the first cue in a communal performance. The scene preserves the song not as a detached piece of folklore but as an action unfolding through movement, sound, giving, and repeated visits. Its words are brief; their social life extends from the first line at the presbytery garden to the procession’s progress through the cottages.