Message #19167

[Bianca]

Myths and Legends


Let us try to look into the distant past as it is reflected in epic poetry. As the legends passed on by word of mouth testify, in the remote period when everything began, the area was inhabited by a small number of Tungus nomads. Once upon a time, their distant neighbours saw that their land was suddenly wrapped in impenetrable darkness and the surroundings were shaken by a deafening roar. A hurricane of unseen force arose and the land was riven by mighty blows. Lightning crossed the sky in all directions. When everything calmed down and the darkness dispersed, an unprecedented sight met the nomads' eyes. In the midst of the scorched land, glowing in the sun stood a tall vertical structure that was visible at a distance of many days' journey.
For a long time, the structure gave out unpleasant, ear-splitting noises and gradually diminished in height until it disappeared under the ground altogether. In place of the tall structure there was an immense, yawning, vertical "orifice". In the strange words of the legends, it consisted of three tiers of "laughing chasms". Its depths supposedly contained an underground country with its own sun that was, however, "waning". A choking stench rose from the orifice, and so no-one settled near it. From a distance, people could sometimes see a "rotating island" appear above the opening, and this then proved to be its "banging lid". Those who were tempted by curiosity to take a closer look never returned.
Centuries went by. Life went on as before. Nobody anticipated anything extraordinary, but one day a small earthquake occurred and the sky was pierced by a thin "fiery whirlwind". At the top of it, a dazzling fireball appeared. Accompanied by "a succession of four thunderclaps" and leaving behind a trail of fire, this sphere shot off along a shallow downward trajectory and, after vanishing beyond the horizon, exploded. The nomads were perturbed but did not abandon the lands that were home to them, since the "demon" had not caused them any harm but had exploded over the lands of the hostile neighbouring tribe. A few decades later, events repeated themselves: the fireball flew off in the same direction and again destroyed only their neighbours. Evidently this "demon" was in some way their protector and they began to create legends about it, calling it Niurgun Bootur, "the fiery champion".
But some time later, events occurred that horrified those in even the most distant surroundings. A gigantic fireball emerged from the opening with a deafening, thunderous roar and exploded—right overhead! A tremendous earthquake ensued. Some hills were cut across by a crack more than 100 metres deep. Following the explosion, a "fire-raging sea" continued to swash about with a disc-like "rotating island" above it. The effects of the explosion extended over a radius of more than a thousand kilometres. The nomadic tribes which survived on the edges of the area fled in different directions, seeking to distance themselves from the fatal spot, but that did save them from death. They all succumbed to some kind of strange illness that was passed on only by inheritance. Yet they left behind them precise accounts of what had taken place, on the basis of which Yakut storytellers began to compose beautiful, exceptionally tragic legends.
A little over 600 years passed. Many generations of nomads had come and gone. The precepts of the remote ancestors had been forgotten and people again settled the area.
Then history repeated itself… The fireball of Niurgun Bootur appeared above a fiery whirlwind and again flew off to explode beyond the horizon. A few decades later, a second fireball rent the air (now it was called Kiun Erbiie ("the gleaming aerial herald" or "messenger"). Then came another devastating explosion that the legends again anthropomorphised. It was given the name Uot Usumu Tong Duurai, which can be roughly translated as "the criminal stranger who pierced the earth and hid in the depths, destroying all around with a fiery whirlwind".