The child is one night old, and already the hosts are gathering against him: Jakyp and the brothers swear to kill the newborn in the morning. Kanykei flees with the baby and her old mother into the forest, and her house is burned and plundered behind her. The godfather refuses them shelter and tears the very calf from her hand; old Bakai takes them in and shows them the road to her father, Kara Kan. There a white-bearded stranger steps out of nowhere, takes the child in his arms, and names him — Kan Semetey — speaking aloud what he shall become. And the boy grows in the telling: he tears the lead-rope from his keeper's hand, claims his father's white horse and white armour, and rides to his own people, where the poisoned cup is already waiting for him. From the earliest written Manas, recorded from Kyrgyz singers in 1862–1869 and published by Wilhelm Radlov in 1885 (Proben der Volkslitteratur, Part V), in a fresh English translation made for KacheliTV. This is the Manas of the first singers ever written down, not the later giant tellings. Radlov's printed text of this tale ends where this telling ends, as the earliest written record preserves it.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Chapters:
00:00 The Flight and the Burning
01:31 The Godfather Refuses
04:14 Bakai Shelters Them
07:39 The Road to Kara Kan
10:08 The Naming of Semetey
14:24 Semetey Grows
19:37 The Poisoned Cup
24:50 The Inheritance
28:18 The Battle at the Ruined House
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
