Ural (a tale)In the days of old there lived a hunter named Yanbirde who had two twin sons, Shulgan and Ural. They looked as if they would make real baturs, when they grew up. Yanbirde promised to take them along hunting, when his sons came of age, to teach them to track down and slay fur and feather.
The hunter had a habit of drinking the blood of the game he had laid hands on, in order to be as strong as a beast of prey. He used to tell his sons: “Beware of drinking wild blood until you go hunting wild beasts; otherwise you may get into trouble!”
Shulgan did not believe his father and one day, while Yanbirde was away hunting, he tasted of the blood of the snow-leopard that his father had killed. He turned into a leopard there and then! Back at home, Yanbirde realized what had happened and said: “To get back your human look you must drink some water from Tere-hu, the Spring of Life, and mind that you must forebear from other evil doings, lest the spring should dry up!”
Shulgan promised to follow his father’s counsel and prepared to set out on a long travel. His father let his brother go with him to keep him company.
As they set out, Shulgan said to Ural:
“Be a horse, brother, so I may ride on your back and save time!”
“It fits you better, brother, to be a horse, for you are four-legged, while I have only two legs”, said Ural.
“Then let us take turns”, Shulgan suggested, “but yours will be the first turn!”
Ural consented and walked on, with the leopard on his shoulders. Shulgan told him to gallop, and gallop Ural did, only his brother went on urging him to go faster. He said that a real djigit must be able to turn into a horse if need be, so Ural broke into a run with all his might and main. When the tired horse suggested alternating, the rider said that, his feet being asleep, he could not make a step! So the simple-hearted Ural had to carry his artful burden still farther. A proverb says: there is no finger to match a finger and no man to match a man!
They saw an aqsakal, a wise old man, walking towards them, and he asked Ural:
“Why should you burden yourself with that leopard?”
“My bewitched brother can’t walk, so I am taking him to the Spring of Life to help him recover his human look,” said Ural.
“It will take you a year to walk there,” said the aqsakal, “Aqbuthat, the winged steed that belongs to khan Katil, might get yonder there within a mere hour!”
“What does the khan want for his steed?” asked Ural.
“He says he will give his tulpar to anyone who can tame his magic bull, but there is no trusting him!”
“Why not?”
“A crooked birch-tree will keep no snow, and a crooked man will keep no word!”
“Thank you for being so thoughtful, father, but my brother, the leopard, will cope with any bull, and a word of pledge is as good as an arrow shot!” Ural said and made onward in search of Katil’s aimaq, the khan’s domain, which turned out to be east of Kuf-tau, Mount Kuf.”
Sitting at the maidan, the public square, that was crowded full, khan Katil, a short man with a huge belly as large as a kumiss-skin, thus proposed to Ural:
“Take any horse from my stock in return for your leopard and be my kunaq, my dear guest!”
“I can’t give you my brother, the leopard”, said Ural, “but to keep your word, khan, you will have to give Aqbuthat to my brother for taming your bull!”
“A nice joke it is!” and Katil burst out in a loud laughter that sent his belly heaving and shaking. “How can I let your brother, the wild leopard, kill my brother, the harmless bull?”
He clapped his hands, and a servant brought out a speaking raven from the khan’s tent and placed him on the khan’s fur hat. The raven cleared its throat and croaked that only a man that coped with the bull would get the winged steed. The khan pretended to be upset and shed tears, and wept like a woman, and, addressing the raven, he spoke in this wise: “It looks, raven, that you are fated to revel on the flesh of my good bull that is to be tamed, hands down, by this fine young man!” The baturs standing round the khan and his retainers burst out laughing, while the sinister raven rose suddenly from the khan’s fur hat and, swooping upon Ural, pecked him right on the top of his head. Everybody roared with laughter, and the khan roared loudest of all!
Then the giant bull with terrible horns came to the maidan with the help of eight mighty djigits who could hardly restrain his wild fury. And then Ural’s heart caught the fire of battle and flared with it, and he felt his body infused with the strength of a batur, as strong as the Earth herself, and out he came to face the bull!
Foaming with the frenzy of rage, the mighty bull kicked his hoof, and the earth shook beneath him, and he roared addressing Ural:
“If you choose to die an easy death, I will trample you down with my hoofs, and if you want to die a slow death, I will dry your body on my horns and turn you into dust blown by the wind; so tell me what you choose!”
Then Ural spoke and told the giant in this wise:
“You are wasting your voice, bull, for no earth creature can outrival man, and I will overcome you to be your master, so that you and your kin shall work forever for the sake and by the will of man!”
The bull threw himself at the batur to crush, and trample, and pierce him with his horns, each as sharp as the point of a sword, but the batur seized him by the horns and began to bend and bow him towards the earth. And the bull gave a roar of rage and shook his head violently as he strained, sinking knee-deep into the ground, and black blood showed trickling from his mouth and his upper tooth fell out because he could not withstand the man’s pressure!
The people at the maidan were amazed to see Ural now drive the bull into the ground, now pull him out by his curved horns, and everybody saw the bull’s tooth fall out and his hoofs split. There since has the bull’s posterity acquired curved horns and split hoofs and the missing upper tooth, and there since has the bull been working for the welfare of man!
“I claim your promise, khan, for you promised to give me the tulpar, the winged steed, for my victory!” said Ural.
“Can I have promised a stranger anything and that after the first trial?” the khan asked his retainers, and with one accord they all yelled that he had promised nothing!
“But I will change my mind if you beat the strongest batur from my aimaq, and then Aqbuthat will be yours!”
Ural agreed to wrestle with the strongest batur, and suddenly facing him stood four mighty men, each as strong as a bear!
“Is it fair that I should wrestle with four instead of one strongest man?” asked an indignant Ural.
“You know, this way it’s easier to see who is the strongest!” said the khan, grinning, and waved a towel.
The four mighty wrestlers surrounded Ural and teased and mocked at him:
“Where do you want your dead body lying, brother?”
“Shall we feed you to your leopard, brother?”
“That leopard of yours will hardly eat his brother, but the khan’s raven would relish a dead body all right!”
“After the raven picks out your eyes, you dead man, you won’t look so angry, will you?”
“The cuckoo that cries too early will have a headache!” said Ural.
He seized one of the mockers who stood closer to him, lifted and hurled him over to the khan’s feet, and the mighty wrestler lost his senses from falling hard against the ground, and everyone was amazed to see that. Then he hurled a second wrestler who landed on the first one and remained motionless, and then a third, while the fourth, the last one, stole into the crowd!
When Katil-khan recovered from his amazement he shouted in an angry voice: “This doesn’t count! But if you manage to defeat my daughter, I will change my mind. Take the tulpar then, but mind that if she overwhelms you, you shall never lay hands on my winged steed!”
The fair Aihlu, the khan’s daughter, came down to the maidan responding to her father’s call, and as Ural saw her charming looks his head turned. Like sweet flowers swaying in the wind were her luxuriant tresses, and no star could rival her eyes in brightness, and even the moon, jealous of the pearl-white of her skin, hid away in shame and shyness behind the clouds, and the night fled, scared by the pitсh-dark of her finely chiseled brows, and she was all perfection!
“Aha!” the khan exclaimed as he saw his daughter’s beauty strike the djigit. “Good riddance, djigit-without-a-horse, take a goat from my flock, you will have less bother saddling a goat than your leopard!”
With his head bent low, the amorous Ural acknowledged his defeat.
At that moment Aihlu looked the djigit full in the face and snatched an apple from the dastarkhan laid out before her father. She approached the bewildered djigit and gave him the apple; and everybody knew that the khan’s daughter had chosen a husband for herself!
That maiden was everything to the crafty khan who always let her have her way, and that was why he began to play up to Ural. He went as far as to promise that he would give him Aqbuthat if he married his daughter, even without the usual gift-giving followed by the wedding, even without a fox-fur coat for the bride’s mother!
The amorous batur would not object to the proposal, so the khan made arrangements for a grand tuy, that is, wedding festivities. He ordered that the fattest mares be brought down for boiled meat, and qaz, dried sausage, as well as tuqmas, qurmas, chaq-chaq and other dishes, just as delicious to tongue and delightful to palate, be prepared and cooked.
The wedding feast lasted twelve days, and the guests enjoyed kumiss and mead, and the races, and kuresh, the belt wrestling. They all extolled the beauty of the bride and the prowess of the bridegroom. But Shulgan felt jealous of his brother, as he did not think it fair on the part of Tengry, the heaven, to treat his brother with such benevolence. Why should Ural, seated beside his beloved, with her brow as fair as the moon, enjoy the richest dainties, while he, Shulgan, had to make do with the leftovers that the light-headed guests tossed over to him? And no one cared to understand that the leopard was a man, too!
On the last night of the feast, the angry Shulgan growled to Ural demanding that they resume their quest for Tere-hu, the spring of live water. Suffice it to get Aqbuthat under the saddle, he said, and in an hour’s time the leopard would turn into a man!
“The khan has done nothing but promise to give me the sky-racer”, Ural returned, “I have no gift paper yet.”
“Why would Aqbuthat care whether you have the gift paper or not, once he gets saddled?” Shulgan snarled.
“It does not befit a djigit to steal a horse”, said Ural, “the whip will make a horse run, but a djigit will not whip his conscience!”
As she heard that wrangle Aihlu came out and told Ural:
“Aqbuthat is my property, and I give him to you, my beloved man, without any gift paper, so that you may help your brother regain his human look, and if you get into trouble I will help you!”
“You won’t know”, said Ural.
“My magic kurai will keep playing a cheerful melody if you fare well; if not, I shall hear a sad and wistful melody, and then I will know what to do!” replied Aihlu.
Then she brought over a magnificent tulpar, a winged stallion, adorned with a gilded bridle and stirrups of gold, with a gorgeous saddle all trimmed with nice silverwork, and a sword of damask strapped to the pommel. Bidding farewell to her husband, Aihlu said that he would have to fight a dev of six heads who kept guard over the Spring of Life, and she told the tulpar to make his way there. The winged steed neighed gladly at the sight of the worthy hero who promptly mounted him, and no sooner had Shulgan sprung up behind his brother’s back, than the tulpar shot upwards to fly, like a bird!
An hour later Aqbuthat landed near the six-headed dev watching guard over the Spring of Life, lying on the earth, his belly as large a hill. The batur regarded this terrible monster with awe and bewilderment: there were two heads wrangling; two other heads kept cutting in with their observations, and the snoring of the remaining two heads, sleeping on the sides of the monster’s shoulders, made a hell of a noise. It was obvious that the dev took no heed of the brothers!
Ural took a deep breath and shouted: “Dear dev, let my brother take a gulp from this spring to get back his human sight!” The dev sprang to his feet making the earth shudder and shake beneath his tremendous weight, and Ural heard a deafening uproar through all his six throats: “What shall I get in return?” – “My brother will be thankful to you for your favour!” Ural shouted in reply. “Oh, come on, you are making me laugh my head off!” cried the dev roaring with laughter, and he fell back on the earth, and the earth shook again and shuddered, and there was a flash of lightning with a crash of thunder, while he rolled on the ground splitting his sides with laughter. Then one of the heads, probably the smartest, stretched out on its neck and said, “One has to pay what one owes; only a good deed doesn’t pay!” – And a second head said, “Your brother had better remain a leopard, for a human does not have a leopard’s fangs!” – And a third head, a more stupid one, said, “Thank-you rings no gold!” – And the rest of the heads, the silliest of all, produced most ribald sounds to insult Ural!
“I will have to take water without permission then,” Ural thought, drawing his sword. – “There is no pinching with one finger,” he said. “You, leopard, attack from the left side cutting the monster with your fangs, and I will attack from the right side with my sword, while Aqbuthat will be crushing the enemy with his hoofs from above!”
“Wait, brother,” Shulgan said, “there is an urgent need I must attend to!” – And Ural could hardly say knife as Shulgan disappeared behind the bushes. The batur had no time to lose, because the dev was approaching him, as huge as a mountain, with eyes burning like lamps, and grinding his awful teeth! The batur then mounted his horse with the swiftness of a lightning, and soared up just escaping the sweep of the dev’s sharp-clawed paw.
Aqbuthat swung round and approached the right-side head, and Ural cut it off with his sword, then Aqbuthat approached the dev from the other side to let Ural cut off the left-side head, and then, flying behind the dev, Ural cut off two other heads at a swing. Only then did the dev realize whom he was dealing with. It was at that time that Aihlu heard a cheerful melody from her magical kurai, and she rejoiced over her husband who had crushed the enemy!
The dev saw that he was losing the battle, so he called, and howled, and yelled with his two remaining throats, “Hey you genies, get out of your pools to slay the bloody djigit!” – And the genies got out of their wild thickets, and marsh pools, and lake deeps, and hurled themselves on the sky-rider and whirled him and his tulpar in their fiery whirlwinds. The batur could hardly cope with that swarm of devils, and so the magic kurai played a sad melody, so that Aihlu learnt that it was getting too hot for her beloved!
She took the kurai and began to play, and she played the melodies of the wedding festivities and the spring festival, and the melody that called djigits for wrestling. And that music flew and floated like a bird above the earth, and the genies stopped fighting and began to dance. The music grew faster, more inviting, more cheerful, so that the evil forces of the earth, from North to South, danced till they grew frenzied and spent, and worn out from dancing!
Meanwhile, Ural crushed the genies that could still hold on with his sword, so, small and large, the monsters dropped dead. The dead body of the six-headed dev turned into Yaman-tau, the Bad Mountain, and the bodies of the other monsters also became mountains, and all those mountains, which were later named the Urals, point to the amount of evil force that pounced on Ural!
At long last, the way to the life-spring, Tere-hu, was clear. At that moment Shulgan appeared from the bushes and began to complain to Ural about his fangs. He said that he had been seized by a terrible fang-ache and could not tear the enemy to pieces with his fangs, so he had to withdraw from fighting! “It happened because at the wedding dinner you ate meat without bones, while I had to pick bones!” he said.
Ural gave no reply to it, he just led his artful brother to the life-spring, and with the first gulp Shulgan turned into a man. Only his tail had not disappeared. Shulgan lay down on his belly, his face in the water, and lapped it up, like a pig, hoping that more water would rid him of his tail. He drank a lot of water and nearly drowned himself, but the tail would not get off. So, in a fit of despair, he cursed the spring, and spat into it, and gave off a foul spirit, and it made the wondrous spring dry up!
“You have ruined the life-spring!” cried Ural. - “I need it no longer,” Shulgan replied, bidding farewell to his brother. Before leave-taking he spoke to Ural in this wise: “You have married a khan’s daughter, because you have no tail; now I do have a tail and it naturally prevents me from marrying into a khan’s family, which makes me feel inferior, and I can’t put up with it, and though I’m getting used to my tail, I can’t live among humans, so farewell, brother!” – Thus Shulgan said and left Ural, and made his way, his tail wagging, to the nearest forest.
The sorrowful Ural mounted his tulpar and went back to Katil-khan’s aimaq to live as a married man with his wife, the fair Aihlu. After his father-in-law died, Ural inherited his aimaq, and the world had never, before or after, seen a more upright, honest-minded and wise ruler, than was Ural.
Ural sent a man to find his father and bring the old man Yanbirde to his country. The ruler paid him homage, and presented him with valuable gifts, and arranged a feast, and the whole aimaq welcomed the great batur’s father with true deference and affection.
The batur’s wife, the fair Aihlu, bore four sons unto her husband: Idel, Yaik, Hakmar and Nugush. Their boys grew not day by day, but hour by hour, and they grew into real baturs, so Ural had as much confidence in his sons as he had in himself.
It once so happened that Ural had to go to war again, because rumour had it that evil on earth was still alive. Many a day, a month, and a year had the hero spent astride his faithful steed Aqbuthat, side by side with his sons to release the earth from devilry. At last, there was only one lake left in which the remaining evil forces were lying low.
Ural thought hard about how to clear the lake of evil and at last he thought it out. He lay down on the ground and began to drink the water and never stopped until he drank the whole lake dry, sucking all the lurking monsters in with the water! He swelled up to the size of a mountain and told his sons to slash to pieces those malicious creatures that he was going to squirt out with the water, and out did he squirt the water, and with it, out sprang the genies. The young baturs standing on both sides of their father slashed them to pieces, and last of all sprang out their uncle Shulgan!
“Thank you, brother,” he said to the great batur, “for releasing me from the hands of these damnable genies!” - “How did you happen to be here?” Ural asked him sharply. - “To defeat the enemy one has to know him,” answered the cunning fellow, “so I made friends with the genies, and I kept to myself what I had in mind, to learn their ways and habits, to learn their magic, to learn what designs they have against man, in order to relate all this to you, to pave the way for your victory!” – “Show me your tail, brother,” said Ural, and he was amazed to see a fish tail instead of that of a leopard. - “One has to get one’s tail fitted to one’s element!” explained Shulgan. Ural doubted that his brother spoke sincerely, yet he trusted him, because he wanted to trust his brother, so he forgave him.
Suddenly the batur felt sick, and sweat broke out on his forehead, and his face sallowed, because the genies had gnawed through his guts, making holes in his belly and tearing his insides to pieces. Ural gathered his last strength to mount his horse and go home, and Shulgan propped him up from behind to keep him in the saddle.
They placed Ural on a carpet laid out on a meadow, and Aihlu cried bitterly, with her head on his breast. A crowd of people came to welcome home their hero, but it turned out a sad and cheerless welcome. Some wept aloud, some shed the muffled tears, and some rolled on the earth scratching their faces against rocks, and djigits dashed about on horseback in their frantic gallop giving free play to the common grief!
“My children, I am dying,” Ural spoke to his people, “but spare me your sorrow, while I am still alive, cheer my heart, kurai-players and songsters, with your songs, fill my ears with your folk tunes!”
So forth stepped famous artists: kurai-players, songsters, and dancers, to cheer the father of the nation before he died. His children played, and sang, and danced, with tears in their eyes, and they put all the folk’s love for Ural into their art, and never before had a folk tune so moved a human heart, and never shall!
Suddenly, emerging from the clouds like a bird of feather, Aqbuthat came down from the sky, and Idel, Ural’s elder son, alighted and came running up to his father. It appeared that he had taken a ride to the life-spring, Tere-hu, to collect some life-water, drop by drop, and he had gathered a hornful of the magic water!
“Drink this life-water, father, and live for ever to make your people happy and to spite your enemies!” the young batur said as he handed over the horn to his father.
Ural-batur took the horn in his hand and, leaning on his son’s shoulder, stood up and looked around. Then he took a mouthful of the life-water and sprayed it around so that it covered the surface of the earth with little drops. And all the trees turned green, and green grass sprang up, and flowers covered field and mountain, and birds came flying and began to build their nests, and the whole country turned into a blooming garden, and spring came kindly on!
Ural-batur saved the last drop of the life-water for his brother aiming it at his tail, in his last attempt to make a man of him. But instead of making a man, Shulgan turned into a lake of somber water, and since then it has borne the name of Lake Shulgan. No one takes water from this lake because there is a rumour of a force hostile to man, lurking in its gloomy depth.
Ural spoke to his nation and said in this wise, “Happy is he that lays down his life leaving a blooming garden behind him; and I desire, my children, that you should take good care of this garden and guard it, so that cheerful songs in it may never cease, so that it may become home to man and to his friends, the animals!”
Just before his last breath, Ural said, as he sank to the ground: “Seek clean river-courses, beware of lake water that causes pestilence and death, for lakes have a baneful power in them, so avoid lakes!” – Thus Ural said his last word and died, and the mournful people bowed to him. His remains buried in the earth later turned into precious rock and stones, and since then the Urals have been famous for their immeasurable resources. And the legend of Ural, the great batur who gave his life for the sake of his people, passes from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation.
Then Idel resolved to free river-water by cleaving rocks asunder with his father’s glorious brand, and water, as white as silver, broke through a mountain and streamed forth, babbling cheerfully. When Yaman-tau, the Bad Mountain, blocked its passage, Idel tore it asunder, so that the river might flow freely, gathering force. The people called this river Aq-Idel, the White River, because its light water could wash away black sorrow and bitter tears, and gave sweet water to drink. That was how Idel-batur won his glory, and glorified were also his brothers Yaik, Nugush and Hakmar, who tore and cleft rock and stone with their swords to release the waters of the rivers which were later named after them. Ural’s people settled down in the valleys of those four rivers, enjoying their land, as beautiful as a blooming garden, making it even more beautiful, adding to its treasures, defending it from enemies, in keeping with the will of their father, the great batur that gave his heart and name to this land.
GLOSSARY
aimaq - country with its people under the rule of a khan
Aqbuthat - literally “white-grey”; the name of the famous winged horse of Bashkir legends
Aq-Idel (Aq-Ithel) - literally: “white-river”, the major river in Bashkiria
aqsakal (aqhakal) - literally: “white beard”; wise old man
batur - a brave man; man of great personal strength
chaq-chaq, qaz, qurmas, tuqmas - Bashkir national dishes
dastarkhan - Eastern table with food and drink in the form of a table-cloth spread on the ground level
devs and genies - wicked or cruel supernatural beings, capable of magic, in the Eastern fairy tales
djigit (yeget) - (as a form of address ) young man; brave, temerarious man
Hakmar, Nugush (Nogish), Yaik - names of smaller rivers in comparison with the river Aq-Idel
khan - Eastern ruler; (in olden times) title used by supreme rulers in Bashkir and other Eastern cultures
Kuf (Kuf-tau) - mountain haunted by fantastic characters in Eastern fairy tales
kumiss - beverage made of mare’s milk
kunaq - guest, esp. venerable guest
kurai - Bashkir wind instrument traditionally made of a long hollow reed
kuresh - Bashkir national belt wrestling
maidan (maithan) - place where people rally for public celebrations; a rally, a public celebration
tulpar (tolpar) - in epic legends and fairy tales of the Turkic peoples a winged horse
tuy - wedding feast; wedding festivities
Tengry (Tangry) - heaven; superior deity
Tere-hu (Tere-hyu) - Spring of Life; in Bashkir “live water”
Yaman-tau – literally: “Bad Mountain”; a massif in the South Urals Sagit SHAFIKOV |