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1. es weiß kein Mensch, (es introductory or grammatical subject, the logical subject kein Mensch following after the verb) = kein Mensch weiß.

2. der Dniéstr (Russian, pronounce “Dnyéstr”), a large river of south-western Russia, emptying into the Black Sea near Odessa.

3. klein und krumm, flache Gesichter, gelb wie Citronen, kleine Augen, unmistakable characteristics of the Huns, a savage race from Asia, who about the year 370 A.D. for the first time burst into Europe.

4. sie waren mit ihren Pferden zusammengewachsen, so it was fabled, because they lived and were always seen on horseback. Comp. the ancient Greek myth of the fabulous race of the Centaurs.

5. wo sie hinkamen (separated) for the more common wohin sie kamen.

6. ein Volk von heller Haut, blauäugig, hoch gewachsen, mit langem, gelbem Haar, refers to the Getae (“Goths”), a Teutonic tribe which, in the second century after Christ, had left the shores of the Baltic, their original home, and had taken possession of the land about the Black Sea, thus becoming the Eastern neighbors of the ancient Roumanians.

7. einige konnten mit dem Messer in Holzstäbe schreiben, some of whom knew the art of cutting (or scratching) letters in (willow-)sticks, with reference to the runic characters, which by the priests of the ancient Teutonic tribes, for the purpose of sorcery, were cut in pieces of smoothed wood, generally willow, and which were called “rûn-stafas.”

8. wie viele auch (idiomat.), no matter how many.

9. den Tod, no article in English.

10. einen, refers to Pfeil.