In his writings, Felix Philipp Kanitz retold the legends and stories he was listening to during his Balkan trips. No doubt that he was fascinated by them and he processed what was for him an encounter with Balkan or Serbian history in his papers and books. This chapter investigates Kanitz’s perspective on Serbian culture. In addition to Kanitz’s neutral descriptions as a factual scientist—about travel routes and the “physiognomy” of a place—in which he lists schools and other important institutions and gives insight into population statistics, mountains, rivers, plateaus, etc., the Balkan traveler provided his European readership with traditional and legendary stories about places and people, but more often about castles, churches, and monasteries. Kanitz described traditions and rituals that he felt represented the central elements of Serbian culture. Two narrative strands can be found in Kanitz’s works that illustrate the influence of folk poetry on Serbian culture. On the one hand, there is its influence on everyday and ecclesiastical rituals; on the other, there are the mythically charged legends that aimed to prove that the Serbian nation had existed through the centuries. Both strands produced similar receptions in the West. For the first case, Kanitz paints the picture of a family idyllfamily idyll, including the family’s adherence to what were apparently important values. For the second case, he sketches a mosaic of positive-mystical and negative-superstitious narratives that create the notion of a romantic fairy-tale world on the one hand, and backwardness on the other. The folk songs, legends, and stories nourished the Kosovo myth, which was not only instrumentalized by the Serbian establishment, but was also received and reinterpreted in the West and flowed into the historical narrative of Serbia and the Balkans.