With rare, delicate shrubs,
With lovely crossbill songbirds,
With its gentle folk, renowned for its singers,
Oyunsky, the young prodigy,
Descendant of shamans,
Sat down, enlivened by sudden inspiration,
Scribbling furiously, he roughed out:
‘The great hero Nurgun Botur the Swift
Who rides the fleet of foot black horse,
Born standing on the border
Of the clear, white sky…’
The legend of Olonkho
Thus told to the Sakha
Over the generations
As their favourite saga
Made up of thirty Olonkho pieces.
An Olonkhosut, a dear old man
Sitting cross-legged, hands holding his knees,
Improvises his Olonkho so eloquently,
Recounting the creation of the Universe,
How it prospered and flourished,
As if embroidering a golden-yellow canvas
With ornate colourful words.
Soon, the wandering eyes of the audience
Start glistening, imaginations run wild,
And the strong Toyon hearts
Of my dear Urankhai Sakha
Throb excitedly as they exclaim ‘Noh!’
In surprise and admiration
Encouraging the narration…
Song 1
The eight-rimmed, eight-brimmed 1
Full of discord-discontent,
Our Primordial Motherland,
Was created-consecrated, they say…
So, we do our best to tell the story…
***
In ancient times
In warring, bloodthirsty times
Before the world changed,
Beyond the evil horizon
Of the awful earlier years,
When the Middle World2
Was not yet known,
As the thirty-five tribes
Emerging from everywhere,
To become the front-faced,3
Two-legged
Human beings
With an ability to foresee;4
The people of the Under World
Born wearing worn-out,5 ragged fur coats,
With teeth as sharp as a knife
Descendants of the famous tribe
Of Arsan Dolai6
And the famous old woman Ala Buhrai,7
Not yet known as the thirty-six tribes
To the people with the reins on their backs8
With foreseeing eyes;
The descendants of the Kun Aiyy family9
The great old man, Ulutuyar Uluu Toyon,10
Born in the upper, inaccessible sky,
And Khotun Kokhtuya with a shrill voice,11
Not yet known as the thirty-nine tribes
To the people with the reins on their backs.
Tales about them were by no means on the tip of their sharp tongues.
The inhabited Middle World was created,
They say…
It is unknown if the smooth, white sky12
Is held together by its edges;
It is unknown if it hangs on radiant ropes,
It is impossible to see
Where it begins at three shiny locks
Where the steps rise into the air,
It is impossible to see how it floats
Above the deathly nyuken etugen.13
No wings can be seen
Which lift it into the air,
The axis cannot be seen
Which rotates the earth,
But a mournful song,
A sorrowful toyuk is heard.14
The great old man Ulutuyar Uluu Toyon Born in the upper inaccessible sky, And Khotun Kokhtuya with a shrill voice,
The great cold ocean lies beneath this World,15
The edge of the ocean cannot be seen,
The opposite side of the ocean
Cannot be seen.
The Middle World is washed
By the frightening waters
Of by the deadly Odun Baigal16
The
