LITMIR.BIZ

       An epic warrior flying on his horse

      The thought that the seashore, where the winter road is built, borders the sky undoubtedly resulted from an observation of the horizon. This image serves to show the significant hyperbolic size of the ocean. In doing this, the authors not only show that the ocean borders the sky, but also give a description of the sky through the description of its ‘elements’. This approach is connected with the Olonkho tradition and the entire Yakut traditional song art: all the objects mentioned in traditional songs that play a significant role in the plot’s development are more or less intimately described; but in this case it is not only tradition that plays a role. The fact is that the first human on earth built the winter house; it was built in a wonderful land, the centre of the earth, created for a happy life, and thoroughly praised in the introduction of Olonkho. Thus, ‘the description’ of the sky connects the home and the land where the house is built with the entire universe; and it is a part of praising the land and the human who is predetermined by the gods to live on this land. The text starts with an epithet of a white crane, which is a part of the simile group together with the word ‘cloud’. It is an accepted tradition to portray an image of a white crane flying high up in the sky; it is the Yakut people’s most favourite bird, used in Yakut traditional songs as well as in Olonkho in order to characterize the broad sky. A large number of songs are dedicated to the white crane, described as follows:

      The white crane of the endless sky

      With a painted bill,

      With rings around its eyes –

      are the loci communes.

      In the first example (the wrath of the mighty hero) everything was based on a chain of similes, but in this example a chain of epithets plays the main constructive role, characterizing separate ‘elements’ of the sky: clouds, snow, lightning, thunder and stars. Such a descriptive structure, taking the form of an enumeration and leading to parallel constructions with complex expressive means, is one of the main stylistic peculiarities of Olonkho.

      In the example given, we have shown a typical tendency of Olonkho and of the entire folklore of the Yakut song tradition wherein the narrator gives a description of nature by describing an object (a home in this case) which does not refer to nature itself.

      There are a great number of repetitions in Olonkho. Epithets are most frequently repeated with the names of the heroes, heroines, mighty Aiyy and Abaahy, as well as with the names of countries, worlds and the nicknames of the mighty heroes’ horses. They can be complex and contain an entire description. The epithets characterizing the mighty heroes’ horses are especially rich and complex, and also quite grotesque. This is due to the fact that the description of the mighty horse is an element of the hero’s description; thus, the more handsome and mighty the horse, the stronger and more majestic the mighty hero, its owner. A constant enumeration of epithets characterizing the horse every time the narrator mentions the hero’s name is a traditional feature of Olonkho.

      There may be any number of pieces setting out the entire epic that are more than ten thousand verses long. These large repetitive fragments of text often contain the key parts of the epic: stories about various important events, about the story of the heroes’ rivalry, about the heroes’ origins. For this reason, such repetitions most often appear in the different characters’ long monologues, in which they express their attitude towards the events taking place, explain their actions, etc. While retelling the events in monologues, each character repeats word-by-word what the previous character (usually his rival) has just said about that event; sometimes the ­character tells something that we already know and that has already been ­mentioned a number of times before in previous events. What is most interesting is that the same events take on a completely different aspect in the speeches of the different characters.

      Repetitions help with memorization of the text, which is quite important, owing to the length of Olonkho in oral performances. They also play an important compositional role. Repetitions play a supporting role for the epic, tying the various portions of its text together: they focus the listeners’ attention on the most important parts; link together events that take place at different times and are interrupted by other episodes; they also help to convey the characteristics ascribed to the main characters and events.