Were settled following a great decision
Of the highest deities
To increase unbridled horses and white furs,
To look after whole-hooved horses,
With long bushy manes,
Which graze on the meadows
And along the rivers.
Straight to the west if you go,
Where the double yellow sky
Like the comb-shaped clouds
Hangs down sluggishly,
Breathing out rain and snow,
Where the rim of Mother Earth
Becomes round
Like the rim of a leather vessel,
Where nine great violent rivers converge,
Roaring,
Eight mighty remote rivers join in,
Swirling and bubbling,
Seven rivers with green grass banks
Meet together.
A blacksmith was settled
To forge the weapons
For the thirty-five tribes:
Hard, bloodthirsty edges
Ready to attack thick flesh,
Grinding and choking,
Steely, fiery weaponry
Ready to go after fresh blood,
Yelling avidly,
Violent, bloodthirsty blades
Obsessed with fresh, red blood,
Armour and an arsenal for warriors,
Quivers and bows,
Clothing for fortune-telling.
The blacksmith’s name was
The old man Kytai Bakhsylan56
With gloomy thoughts and an evil disposition
He was settled to be the forefather
Of three malicious tribes.
At the passage to the three worlds
On a hideous hill
Icy Muus Sorun the mound 57
Of awful reputation
With bumps in three places,
And a hole on its top,
As if from the Ajarai tribe of the Under World
From its divided eight kins,
A young mare of two years
Was brought and slaughtered there
As it was walking proudly
On the white snow,
And it fell on its side
Its blood gushing
Crimson red on the snow.
The flames in the furnace of Kytai Bakhsylan
Were dancing with red fire…
The iron surface of his anvil
Was as solid as the forehead
Of a six-year-old bull
Struck on its head as it was
Staggering along the alaas
And it fell on its knees…
His gleaming anvil
Was clanking and clinking
From the hammer blows,
The famous noisy and deadly bellows
Of Ketteny blacksmith,58
Were made of the hairy skins
Of forty-four stallions’ backs.
His black bloodthirsty sledgehammer
Was like a huge post
Of a wealthy house,
His pincers were shrieking,
His file was squealing,
Like his wife
Fire-Uot Kyndyalana59
Of the tribe Uogan Khan,60
With whom he shared his bed,
So they were settled at the far side
Of the hazardous Middle World
To be the source of the
Three vengeful clans…
Straight to the east if you go, Where the radiant white sky becomes as soft As suede and hangs down smoothly, Where the sky borders the earth…
The master of humans,
The best of the Upper World,
The one who was of the wisest,
Who had ink made of eagle blood,
A pen made of an eagle feather,
The one who had records made of stone
From that very time
When the Motherland was created,
The bow-legged,
One-kharis-bearded,61
Old man Serken Sehen62
Was settled here to be a fortune-teller,
To predict the future,
To
