The son of Ajarai
Dodged the blow clumsily,
Smashing his wide hand
Into the heavy black fist
As big as the side
Of a sacrificial bull;
He kneaded his enemy
Like damp clay…
They fought furiously
For three days and nights:
It was a bold, useless fight,
A blind, senseless uproar…
Up to their hips
The soft soil
Was trampled down,
Up to their knees
The frozen soil
Was trodden down;
Tall became shorter,
Short became taller,
Mother Earth rocked like water
In a birch-bark bucket,
A deadly, skirmish,
A relentless battle took place here…
The strength of the mighty
And powerful warrior
Kun Jiribineh
With the grey horse faded;
During six days and nights
He tried to escape the blows…
The spirit of icy Muus Kudulu
The bottomless ocean,
The brave warrior Uot Uhutaki,
Breathing deeply,
Cried out:
‘This paltry scoundrel,
This wormling of the earth,
Made me pursue his shadow,
Wasting my time,
My marriage and the birth of my child!’
Saying so he fell,
Face down, on the ground,
Rolled up and down three times
And turned into a huge, fiery dragon
With three heads and six legs.
He turned round and tore away
The left side
Of their golden dwelling,
Which was seen
From a distance of one day.
He knocked down
The eastern side of it,
He gripped fair-faced
Tuyarima Kuo roughly
By her nine-bylas-long braid,
Whose body could be seen
Through her clothes,
Whose marrow could be seen
Through her bones,
Who was covered
With a sable skin
So as not to lose her lustre
In the sun,
Who was wrapped up
In a sable skin
So as not to burn her face
In the bright sky.
Holding her firmly,
Screaming and crying,
The son of Ajarai
Disappeared quickly
Beyond the low edge
Of the western sky…
Destined to engender
Three kins of Sakha,
Sakha Saaryn Toyon
And Sabyia Baai Khotun
Stayed there shouting
And burst into tears;
Their cry was heard
In the Upper World,
Their grief was known
In the Under World…
The relatives of Ala Buhrai
From the Under World,
The descendants of Nuken Buhrai99
Who were miscreants
Trampled down
Relatives of Aiyy-Khan,
The kind-hearted tribes
With the reins on their backs,
Straight-nosed and front-faced;
The fire in their sacred hearth went out,
Their warm home was ruined…
The sons of Arsan Dolai, the demons,
Broke the orders of the Upper Deities…
Then the Deities decided
To send down
To the Middle World
The warrior
Nurgun Botur the Swift,100
With the fleet of foot black horse,
Born standing on the border
Of the clear, white sky,
They got him as ready as an arrow,
They fitted him up as a bow,
To defend the Sun tribes,
To protect the Aiyy kin.
If you want to know who was sent to be a shield
Here is his story…
Since his childhood he promised,
Since the time he could barely sit
That by making a sharp wooden spear
He would trample the Upper World,
Since the time he started crawling
He threatened
He would rock the Under World,
Crushing it with his legs…
He roared violently,
They say…
1Traditional epithet, part of the so called ‘epic formula’ that would appear regularly in the description of the earth, that is compared to a sewn birch bark container or bucket with rims to strengthen it. ‘Rim, brim’ would also imply the mountainous edges of the country. The epic number ‘eight’ conveys the idea of infinity; according to some scholars, it could also be the directions: north, south, east, west, north-east, north-west, south-east, south-west
2There are three worlds in the Sakha cosmology: Upper, Under and Middle
3Front-faced, two-legged, two-eyed, etc. – traditional characteristics of human beings
4Ability to foresee – intellect
5In the world of demons everything is perverse, even their clothes
6The Lord of the Under World
7His wife
8Traditional epithet highlighting the kinship between the Urankhai-Sakha