Folk Tales of the Altai — Part 1 (The Merchant · The Bride-Father's Riddle · Sartaktai Käsär · Sary Art · Altyn Tschötschü, the Golden Cup · The Iron Mountain · Tölös, Mundus and Kotschkor Mundus · Schydar Ubang)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Eight tales from the high Altai, told by the Altai people and taken down in the southern Siberian mountains in the 1860s. A merchant's three sons dream of the wives they will have: the elder two marry well, but the youngest's dream-bride is a frog — and at the father's feast her singing outshines them all, and the beauty hidden in her wins him the whole inheritance. A bride's father will give his daughter only to the wooer who can come neither in a fur nor without one, neither on the road nor off it, neither on horseback nor without a horse. Sartaktai Käsär begins the great stone bridge over the Katun, and leaves his footprint pressed into the rock and the road cut through the cliffs of the Chuya. At Sary Art, above the Chuya's source, God himself came down on horseback — and while his horse's hoofprint endures there, the end of the world is still far away. On Mount Orshulang, God makes the Golden Cup spring, whose water never warms in summer and never freezes in winter, so that people and cattle may drink. An Oirot army waits three years for the Iron Mountain to sink in one place, and beyond the sea finds a people who have never known war. And Shydar Ubang, crushed by the Russian prince's tribute, strews his copper money from three hundred camels on the bank of the Irtysh, so the soldiers stop to gather it while he slips away. Fresh in-house English translations from the German texts, made for this series — no existing translation used. A first selection; more Altai tales follow in later parts.
Chapters:
00:37 The Merchant
06:34 The Bride-Father's Riddle
09:15 Sartaktai Käsär
10:57 Sary Art
11:49 Altyn Tschötschü, the Golden Cup
13:04 The Iron Mountain
18:03 Tölös, Mundus and Kotschkor Mundus
20:16 Schydar Ubang
Source: Wilhelm Radlov, Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Süd-Sibiriens, Part I (St. Petersburg, 1866) — tales and legends of the Altai people (Altaians and Teleuts), recorded by Radlov on his Siberian journeys. Public domain. Narrated by Violetta. Instrumental opening and closing theme: Golden Monologue, heard again briefly between the tales.
Left for later parts or held under the channel's content rules: the warrior tales of Tardanak, Täktäbäi Märgän and Kan Püdäi, The Two Princes, the animal tales of Schünü and Janar Kusch, and The Literate Boy; Tschiwalkow's fables belong to another collector's voice; the seer's tale of Altain Sain Salam and The Official's Son are held for review.
