5241597
Alrighty

S.W.B.

5237981

You know that feeling when there’s something so obvious that you end up surprised you didn’t connect the dots? Well, I’m getting that feeling right now. It makes a lot of sense.

I call that "The D'oh Effect".

5237924
You've given me a whole new perspective on peasants.

The further east I go, the more respect they'll get.

5245220 Ussually peasants are in the right state of mind, as opposed to the crazy nobility. Poland is once again an exeption, because we always had a high ammount of nobles in society (10-8%) and a huge load of them were extrememly poor. They eather served other nobles who had money or had a small field which they cultivated, as on the west such persons would be stripped off they're title or we're given money from friendlies to continue their lazy lifestyle. Even in the fucking National Epopeja that is "With Fire and Sword" three of five main characters are fortune-less nobles:
-Mister Podbipięta is a lituanian noble who's family was never weathy, in the books he is mentationed to inherit a small village and that is barely enough as he is expected to own a multitude of things as a noble and when the king calls he is expected to arrive with at least 3 sevs, all mounted and armed. A small village doesn't generate enough income to support this stuff.
-Onufry Zagłoba is essencially a homeless noble. A gloryfied hobo, so to say. He is of the serving type of nobility who advises others, fights for others and once he wanted to adopt a kossack and give him his nobility just because said peasant paid for his upkeep. Hands down Zagłoba is the funniest character in the book, cares only for alkohol and is a big historical comentary abaut most of polish nobility.
-Rzędzian, the servant of Skrzetuski is like Podbipięta but much, much poorer. His family owns not even a village but a single residence and that's why Rzędzian is serving. He also picks up a lot of ussual skills, like he is also a Witch Doctor and with the flow of the story he buys a lot of silver from the kossacks for vodka.

5245794
Whoa...and the book is called "With Fire and Sword"? Is there a version in English somewhere? I could probably look on Amazon, but I haven't had a card in over a year, and I don't think they take cash.

5252083 The English Translations of Polish books are ussually a bit pricey. Well, there is an old film that can be found with subtitles and it's an ekranisation by Jerzy Hoffman. It's propably the best option.

Here is a verison I found and it has subtitles. It could load up with Slovakian ones but it works. It's a long film [orginally divided onto 4 40min episodes] so you may like to watch it a chunk at a time.