Ten tales from the Kolyma country, told in the eighteen nineties and written down by Bogoras — the last Kolyma tales, then the children's stories. A poor man angles up the fish-girl Shérkala, who keeps his house in secret till he burns her fish skin. Machekur eats too much of the Mice-Girls' pudding, and their bladder prank bursts at home. The Mouse eats her guest the Snow-Bunting's stores first and then shares none of her own, until March saves the starved guest. Girls at Christmas divination are saved from a fire-breathing stove by saucepans worn as caps. A hunter helps a weeping bear bury his drowned mate, and finds a gold ring under her skin and a crucifix on his breast — two lovers who could not turn human again. Kundarik outwits the child-eating Yaghishna twice, and another girl opens her forbidden storehouse and takes her charmed reindeer across the river. Five brothers are taken by storm and ice. A crazy old man throws away three storehouses of food on a dream. And two girls whom no knife can wound lose nothing to Yaghishna's fire-breathing horses.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Chapters:
02:03 Story of the Fish-Woman
05:46 A Story of Machekur
07:53 The Mouse and the Snow-Bunting
12:21 A Christmas Story
14:23 Story of Transformed Bears
18:07 Story of Kundarik
21:15 Story about Yaghishna
26:06 Story of Five Brothers
29:07 Story about a Crazy Old Man
31:54 Story about Two Girls
Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: the Fish-Woman by Innocent Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir man, summer 1896; Machekur by Mary Korkin, a Russianized Yukaghir woman, summer 1896; the Mouse and the Snow-Bunting by Nicholas Kusakoff, a Russian creole, summer 1896; A Christmas Story by Mary Dauroff, a Russian creole woman, summer 1896 — all at Pokhotsk; Transformed Bears by John Sukhomyasoff, a Russian creole, clerk of the church, at Nishne-Kolymsk, summer 1896; Kundarik, Yaghishna, Five Brothers, Two Girls and A Crazy Old Man by Mary Shkuleff (printed Marie for the last), a Russian creole girl, at Pokhotsk, summer 1895. Fresh in-house rendering, heard exactly as screened: Machekur, the Mouse and the Snow-Bunting (ending "etc.", as printed), A Christmas Story and Five Brothers stand whole; the Fish-Woman's roe beat is softened; Transformed Bears' climax is carried without gore; Kundarik's two tricks are carried without their gore; in Yaghishna the blows, the tearing threat, the burst-belly drowning and the closing body-part verse is not carried — the escape stands whole; in A Crazy Old Man the closing accidents at the kettle are not carried; in Two Girls the heart-stab and trampling are condensed and the taper burning is not carried; the tale ends on its printed coda. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design.
Left out of this part, in book order and by name: N.132 Yukaghir Manners is held for the owner's ruling — its substance is a funerary rite — and its page was not used. N.136 Story of a Foolish Woman and N.137 Story of the Forest Demon are excluded whole under the shelf's register — wife abuse ending in torture; a father–son fight to a graphic killing. N.139 Story of an Old Woman and her Three Daughters is excluded whole — a mother does all three daughters to death. N.142 Story of Hungry Children is held by name and untouched. The tales after N.145 are not yet fully screened, so none was jumped ahead to; the shelf claims no completeness that its register contradicts.
Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Bandoneo, Street Romance.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
