Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Project (FAIRY TALES): Recent Episodes
Cambridge University
The Kalmyks have a rich fairy-tale tradition. Fairy-tales were composed by tuulchi, or story tellers, who lived in great numbers in Kalmykia until the mid-20th century. In the study of Kalmyk folklore there is a convention to divide fairy-tales into the following genres: magical, heroic, every-day fairy-tales and those about animals. Although many Kalmyk fairy-tales are universal, they have their specificity stemming from the nomadic lifestyle, traditions, worldviews and history of the Kalmyks. In terms of story length, which correlates with the number of events in a given fairy-tale, Kalmyk fairy-tales are divided into 'long' (ut tuul') and 'short fairy-tales' (ahr tuul'). Magical and heroic fairy-tales usually belong to the former category, with everyday fairy-tales and those about animals to the latter. Many fairy-tales start with stories originating in the real world – for example, at the khan’s court or in the steppe – and then shift to the afterlife or to other worlds, such as the so called 'upper' and 'lower' worlds, or to the 'water kingdom'. The central character or hero of a story is sent off on a difficult mission to carry out the orders of, for example of the khan himself, an evil step-mother, his parents or those of his older brothers. The fairy-tales have happy endings, with good triumphing over evil, a poor man becoming wealthy, a fool becoming wise, an ugly man becoming handsome, etc. Heroes in Kalmyk fairy-tales are blessed with extraordinary skills, can move between different worlds with ease, can understand the language of animal and birds, and can transform themselves into creatures of various types. Regrettably, the tradition of telling fairy-tales and their oral transmission are gradually disappearing, being increasingly replaced by other forms of entertainment and methods for imparting knowledge.
72 Fables Among Kalmyk fairy-tales a genre called the '72 Fables' stands out with its originality and humour. Uttered either in poetic or prosaic form accompanied by short poems, this genre has enjoyed great popularity among the Kalmyks. It has the following content. The khan announces that his daughter is to be married to a man who can tell seventy two fables in the most entertaining manner. A commoner takes up the challenge and does a brilliant job in storytelling. The khan, however, refuses to give his daughter away, arguing that the commoner had told seventy three fables instead of only seventy two. The fables consist of a series of absurd, impossible, comical situations and events. The happenings, actions and objects in the fables do not reflect earthly reality. For example, time runs backwards, both animate and inanimate objects share the same characteristics, etc.
Once upon a time, there lived a khan who wondered whether or not there were any couples that never quarreled with each other. Thinking that such couples must exist, the khan’s son sets out on a journey to find such people. After finding such a couple, the prince brings them to the place. The khan asks the woman whether she indeed does not quarrel with her husband. She relays the khan the following story. One day, in order to protect her sheep from an attacking wolf she picked a bone from the ground and tossed it at the predator. Later she found out that the bone was of a man’s bone. She vowed to herself that she would always obey her husband and never quarrel with any man.
Yuriy says that a fairy tale called ‘Nuskha Mu’ cannot be relayed by one’s own words but has to be retold exactly in its original form. Yuriy heard of this fairy tale from his grandfather. From his father Yuriy heard a fairy tale called ‘The wealthy Kalmyk and the wealthy Kazakh’ which is a very long one.
A fairy tale: Once upon a time, there lived a fox, a bull and a crow. One day, envious of the bull’s ability to find food easily, the fox decides to kill it by sending it to a distant pasture presumably abundant with grass. On its way, the bull falls into the fox’s trap but is rescued by the crow. Unaware of this, the fox runs to feast on the bull’s intestines just to fall into its own trap.
Once upon a time, there lived a khan called Arza-Burza who judged people’s disputes. One day Arza-Burza misjudges two cases just to be corrected by the boys who were herding calves on a nearby hill. The khan orders his servants to dig the nearby hill. At the bottom of the hill, his servants find a golden throne with eight legs. Arza-Burza sits on the throne and becomes wiser.
This fairy tale is about an old man called Kedya. One day he sets off on a journey riding his ram. On the way he finds a sheep’s skull and thinking that he may use it later puts it in his bag. He stops for a break at the yurt of a wealthy man and asks the host if he could drop his meat provision into their pot which is boiling with dinner. Kedya puts the dried sheep’s skull into the pot, and then argues that its meat has been dissolved in the dinner. He is offered to share the dinner. At night he kills his ram, and smears the mouth of the wealthy man’s sheep with blood. The next morning he accuses the wealthy man’s sheep for attacking his ram. As a compensation he takes the wealthy man’s flock and lives happily thereafter.
That was a long time ago. One girl got married. At that time, it was customary for daughters-in-law to eat leftovers only. The girl’s in-laws ate well, leaving almost no leftovers for her. With each passing day the girl became thinner and looked sadder. Thinking that she was homesick, her in-laws tried to cheer her up and even showed her a hare without hair. But she still looked sad. Unable to bear it, the in-laws went to see one wise healer to ask about the reason for their daughter-in-law’s sadness. Having listened to them carefully, the healer pondered for a while and gave them the following advice: ‘After you finish eating, leave more leftovers on the table, and I think your daughter-in-law will recover soon’. The in-laws did just what they were told to do. After eating enough leftovers the daughter-in-law cheered up and said: ‘Well, now I feel better, let’s look at your plucked hare, shall we?’
Baira says the following: Professor A. Sh. Kichikov classifies ‘72 fables’ as myths. Another famous Kalmyk folklorist, M. E. Dzhimgirov, sees them as fairy tales about animals, because ’72 fables’ often narrate about animals and insects. In general, this is a special genre of Kalmyk folklore, which is difficult to classify. Edyge Tursunov, who studied Turkic folklore similar to Kalmyk ‘72 fables’ also believes that this genre should be classified as myths, because they tell us about the afterlife.
Once upon a time there lived an old man with his wife. They had a fat red-haired daughter, a son, 5 goats, and a red cow. Since his son did not have any toys, the old man made a wolf out of dark wood and its tail out of wire. The boy played with the toy for 3 years until the wolf came to life and said: ‘For 3 years you have tortured me, now bring me something to eat!’ The boy offered the goat. But the wolf ate all of their livestock. Ivan says that Kalmyks knew many fairy tales in the past. Today children do not even know Kalmyk words. If we forget our language, we will only have Kalmyk faces.
Ivan says that in the past old people were very knowledgeable and knew many fairy tales, legends and riddles. Ivan’s favourite fairy tales are ‘The stingy rich man (Khatuch Bain)’, ‘the old man Keedya (Keedya gidg ovgn)’ an others. Ivan also reminisces that his mother taught him many riddles, including: Here is a droplet, there is a droplet and over there is another droplet. What is it? (answer: a camel’s droppings). Having climbed to the top of the drawer, it calls out Adyan (a man’s name). What is it? (answer: a mouse)
Dordzhi relays a legend about two best friends: One day the angel of death takes one man and flies with him to the afterlife. Not wishing to depart with the man, his best friend follows them. The lord of the afterlife, Erlik Khan, asks the angel: ‘Why did you bring the second one? Was he not supposed to live 80 years? He now is only 20!’ After learning that the second man volunteered to join his friend, Erlik Khan becomes touched by such a strong friendship between the two mortals and declares: ‘Divide 80 into 2 and send these mortals back into the world of the living!’
The Kalmyk fairy tale about the crow and the eagle is mentioned in Pushkin’s famous novel called The Captain’s Daughter. In the novel the rebel Emelyan Pugachev recounts this fairy tale that he heard from an old Kalmyk woman. One day the crow and the eagle meet each other. The eagle asks the crow why it lived for 300 years whereas the eagle itself lived for only 30 years. The crow replies, “I drink the blood of the dead, that is why I live 300 years”. The eagle proposes to the crow that they should swap their lives. The next day the eagle returns to the crow asking to return its life, “I’d rather drink warm blood for 30 years than feed on corpses for 300 years”. Ubush says that many Kalmyks have a similar mentality of preferring to have a quick and eventful life. Hence many Kalmyks like gambling and get easily bored from routine work.
Bembya displays two pictures of Geser and explains that there are many legends about this epic hero. In 1802 during his trip to the Volga Kalmyks, the German scholar Benjamin Bergmann wrote down the 8th and 9th chapters of the epos Geser and published them later in 1804. Bembya relays two legends about Geser. Legend One is about how Bogdo Mountain helped Geser. When the Kalmyks arrived in the Volga region, they fought with various tribes. Geser decided to come and help the Kalmyks out. In Kalmykia he stopped at the foot of Bogdo Mountain near lake Baskunchak. The mountain had a mortal power and anyone who looked at it died. Before climbing up the mountain, Geser covered it with fog. Once on the top he saw in the distance the palace of an enemy khan. He shot the palace with an arrow slashing it into two. That is how the Mount Elbrus was created with two peaks. Legend Two is about Geser’s trip to the Azov Sea. When Geser reached the sea, on its shores he met a woman who was half human and half snake. The woman bore Geser three sons. Before leaving his family, Geser gave his bow to his spouse telling her to test their sons with it. Only one son who could pull the bow could stay on the shores of the sea. The others were supposed to leave the maternal place. It was Geser’s youngest son who successfully passed the test and stayed with his mother. The two other sons had to leave the sea. In faraway places they started their own tribes.
Once upon a time there lived a khan. His name was Naran Arslan meaning ‘a solar lion’. He had three dear friends – his younger brother, a yellow elephant that could fly, and a horse that could talk.
Once upon a time there was a Kalmyk man who lived by a dried up well. He had an old cow that had stopped giving milk. One day the old cow fell into the well. Since he was thinking of digging a new well and buying a young cow, the man decided to use the opportunity and bury the old cow alive. As he was filling the well with earth, the cow mooed vigorously. At some point it stopped mooing. The man thought it must have already died. All of a sudden, the cow jumped up out of the well and landed near the man. Invigorated, the cow shook the earth off its back while angrily stamping the ground with its hooves. A moral of this Kalmyk tale is that those who struggle to the end can get themselves out of any predicament no matter how impossible it may seem.
Badma studies a Tibetan version of the epos Geser which is stored at the Russian National Library in St Petersburg. One of the oldest versions of this epos, the Tibetan version, is little studied and requires further research, translation and publication. There are two other versions of the epos in St Petersburg that are both kept at the Library of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts.
An elderly couple had a stupid son. The father was so frustrated with his son that one day he dies prematurely. The mother asks her stupid son to go to a market place and buy red cloth and a sheep for the funeral. The son buys what he was asked to. On his way home he passes by a lake and sees that the cane bushes are moving. Thinking that it was girls dancing there, the son offers the red cloth to the cane bushes. All of a sudden a wolf jumps out of the bushes. To save his life the son decides to offer the sheep to the wolf as well. After learning what had happened, his mother also dies from frustration. The orphaned son asks his protecting angel how to atone his guilt before his mother and promises to bear a red-hot stone on his back for three years. After three years the son again asks his angel-protector whether it was enough to atone his guilt. The angel answers, ‘Out of thousand nights, one night when you were a baby your mother woke up to breastfeed you. This (small sacrifice of your mother) you have repaid (but not others)’. A moral of this story is that it is impossible to fully repay your mother’s kindness and sacrifice for you.
Fairy tale One. In the past, the Kalmyks used to ask Buddhist monks for help in all life situations. One day a woman came to a monk to ask for fertility, saying that she had been living with her husband for a long time but did not have children. The monk looked at a sacred book and said that she had a mole on her waist that should be removed. After the woman did what she was asked to do, she became pregnant and gave birth to a girl. Fairy tale Two. One day a young man saw a beautiful girl near a well. He fell in love with her at first sight. After some time, he returned to the well to ask the girl to marry him. The girl replied that she had also liked him but had one condition that after marriage she would sometimes disappear from the house for a day. The man did not accept this condition and left the well. Unable to forget her, after 3 years he came to see the girl, saying that he was ready to accept any condition as long as she married him. Soon they had a beautiful wedding and lived happily thereafter. 8 years passed and the couple had 3 sons. One day the man woke up only to see that his wife had disappeared. He remembered the pre-wedding condition and thought to himself that she must have been disloyal to him. He took his soldiers and set out searching for her in the steppe. Soon they found her transformed into a huge snake and hissing across the steppe.
Once upon a time a Buddhist monk set out on a journey to a distant settlement. The road was long and the weather smoggy. As he had been travelling longer than it usually took to get there, the monk began to think that he must have got lost in the smog. Finally, he arrived at a camp full of people that he did not recognize. On his horse, the lama looked through the window of a house to see women playing on the dombra instrument. Soon the women came out of the house running and greeting him, ‘Dear brother, is it you that has arrived?’ They took away his horse for him, invited him in, and offered him a cup of kumis. ‘What settlement is this?’ asked the monk. ‘Makhs makh bard, it is called’, was the reply. After a drink, as soon as the monk began reciting prayers the people around turned into shulmus-spirits and scattered in all directions. Only the head of a ground squirrel and a shoe heel was left lying on the floor.