The Romanian pastoral ballad Miorița (The Little Ewe) is first transcribed by Alecu Russo and Vasile Alecsandri from oral tradition in the Moldavian region. The poem tells of a shepherd forewarned of his murder by his magical ewe, who accepts death with cosmic serenity. This cornerstone of Romanian folklore encodes Dacian beliefs, fatalism, and transhumance culture.

Miorița became a foundational text for Romanian Romantic poetry, inspiring Mihai Eminescu and later symbolist poets to weave folk fatalism into national literary identity. The ballad's lyric-narrative fusion—where a domestic animal speaks prophecy—exemplifies how folk anthropomorphism generates sophisticated poetic voice. It remains taught as the archetype of pastoral folklore poetics.