Nine tales in the book's own order — the last of the children's stories told on the Kolyma, then the Markova tales recorded by Sophie Bogoras in the winter of 1900. The Tom-Cat sings the Fox's daughters out of the burrow with a golden dulcimer and brings the Cock home. A family eats an elk's head and a mare's tongue, and nobody in that house stays dead for long. A prayed-for boy is outworked by the little sister who arrives after him. Yaghishna offers to adopt a girl who will only accept on one condition — that Yaghishna die very shortly. A Lamut man's stone wife comes to life, and the water girl under the river is shot, mourned, and sung back by her spoonbill sisters. A stingy old man locks his wife out of the fat reindeer meat, and the Snow-Bunting — alone of all the birds — shows her the road to other people. White-Cap the duck answers her granddaughter in goose talk. Three brothers — Grass-Leg, Bladder, and Little-Finger — come to three absurd ends over a pot of blood-soup. And a monster eats nine storehouses of dried fish in nine days, then goes looking for a village.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Chapters:
01:49 Story of the Tom-Cat and the Cock
06:17 Story of Elk's Head
08:28 Story of a Small Girl
11:13 Story about Yaghishna (second telling)
13:40 Lamut Tale — The Stone Wife
20:29 A Markova Tale — The Old Woman and the Snow-Bunting
26:40 A Markova Tale — White-Cap the Duck
29:28 A Markova Tale — Grass-Leg, Bladder, and Little-Finger
30:36 A Lamut Tale — The Monster and the Fish Trap
Source: Waldemar Bogoras, Tales of Yukaghir, Lamut, and Russianized Natives of Eastern Siberia (1918), Jesup North Pacific Expedition — public domain. Narrators as printed: the Tom-Cat and the Cock by Mary Shkuleff, aged fourteen, Pokhotsk, summer 1895; Elk's Head by Marie Dauroff, aged fifteen, Nishne-Kolymsk, summer 1896; A Small Girl by Kitty, called the Lamut girl, aged twelve, Nishne-Kolymsk, summer 1896; Yaghishna by Annie Korkin, aged fourteen, Pokhotsk, summer 1895; the Stone Wife and the Snow-Bunting by Anne Sosykin, Markova, recorded by Mrs. Sophie Bogoras, winter 1900; White-Cap, the Three Brothers, and the Monster and the Fish Trap by Mary Alin and Katherine Alin, Markova, recorded by Mrs. Sophie Bogoras, winter 1900. Fresh in-house rendering, heard as screened: Elk's Head and White-Cap stand whole; in the Tom-Cat the closing thrashing is softened to a scolding; in A Small Girl the spanking is softened and the closing axe blow is not carried; in Yaghishna the blows are not carried; in the Stone Wife one blood sentence is not carried; in the Snow-Bunting the old woman's masked oaths are rendered plainly; in the Three Brothers the father's closing blow is not carried; in the Monster the closing examination is not carried. 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.151 A Lamut Tale is excluded whole at this part's full-read screen — the invaders' cannibal feast is its substance. N.152 A Yukaghir Tale is excluded whole at the same screen — its trick turns on a mutilation no cut can remove. N.156 Sister and Brother Married stands excluded whole under the shelf's register; its page was not used. Two tales read and passed at this screen — the Yukaghir tale of the lazy man (N.158) and the Chuvantzi tale of Póndandi (N.159) — were not built here; the pack had already reached its length, and Part 22 opens with them in order. The tales after them are not yet fully screened; the shelf claims no completeness that its register contradicts.
Music: opening and closing theme, with short separators between the tales — Crimson Peak.
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