to him by Kudai, and rode on till he came to
Aidôlei, whom he found still seated on the
ground without ability to rise; this being the
result of his ill-advised politeness towards the
thirty damsels.

Ai Mirgän was informed by Aidôlei's horse
that nothing short of the sacrifice of nine heroes
would bring the seated hero to his feet. The
remedy was not hard to find, for Ai Mirgän
at once fetched the required quantity of heroes
from the land formerly ruled by Katendjula,
deceased, and killed them offhand. Aidôlei (now
an upright man) and Ai Mirgän exchanged vows
of eternal friendship, but were soon assaulted by
two new enemies, the son of Katendjula and the
son of the Swan Woman, who were sworn allies,
and had inherited all the hatred of their parents
towards Aidôlei. After a short scuffle of three
years the two intruders were both killed:
Katendjula fils by Aidôlei, and Swan fils by Ai
Mirgän.

When the fight was over, they observed that
Aidôlei's horse looked very pensive, and on
asking that intelligent quadruped what was
the matter, they were informed that Aidôlei
would be turned to stone, and the steed into
the bargain, if he did not take unto himself
a wife on that very day. The lady he was
bound to marry was named Ai Areg (moon
pure), and she lived in a golden room situated
between heaven and earth, and totally
unprovided with steps. Indeed, so very unapproachable
did the lady appear, according to the
horse's account, that Aidôlei declared his willingness
to be petrified, rather than to undertake an
adventure so obviously hopeless. However, the
good horse would hear of nothing of the kind,
it took the hero on his back to the door of the
golden room, having first instructed him as to
the manner of wooing.

The courtship of Ai Areg took the form of a
wager. She treated the hero very hospitably,
and then proposed a game of hide-and-seek. If
Aidôlei was caught, he was to forfeit his horse to
Ai Areg; if Ai Areg was caught, she was to
become the bride of Aidôlei On hearing this
arrangement, the horse wept bitterly— indeed,
much more bitterly than became him, for he knew
beforehand all that was to happen, and had
communicated his knowledge to Aidôlei. Resolved
to prevent the lady's challenge from being
accepted, he shouted out that Ai Mirgän was in
danger, which, inasmuch as friendship among
Tartars is infinitely stronger than love, sufficed
to bring Aidôlei out of the golden room. Off
he galloped on the back of his wise steed, and
as Ai Areg would not be deserted, she followed
him in the form of a swallow. When they
came to Ai Mirgän, they found him well and
exceedingly merry, and at once celebrated
their wedding by a festival, which lasted nine
days. The sage and faithful horses, released
from saddle and bridle, were rewarded by a life
of freedom on the plain.

On the earth and under heaven,
There was never one who ventured
To attack those doughty heroes
Whom Kudai himself created.

The above story, which seems at first sight a
mere reckless combination of incongruities, is
built, strange to say, upon a system of mythology
as complete in itself as that of Ancient Greece.
Of this I proceed to give a brief sketch, as I do
not believe there is any account of it in the
English tongue.

The heroes who figure in the tale, and in
fourteen others which now lie before me, are
heroes in the Greek sense of the word: that is
to say, they belong to a peculiar genus that
stands midway between gods and men, and are,
therefore, comparable to Hercules and the other
monster-killing celebrities of classical antiquity.
They generally live on the sea-coast, at the foot
of a lofty mountain; and their jurte, or hut,
which is usually made of elk-skins, sometimes
beams with ornaments of precious metal. A
golden post, to which the hero's steed is
attached, is an indispensable article, and the
hero's wealth, in addition to vast flocks of horses,
sheep, and cattle, consists for the most part of
costly habiliments, which are safely kept in the
jurte.

In his earliest childhood the hero begins
his glorious career, and if he does not distinguish
himself before he is nine years old, his case is
apparently hopeless. When he has come to
maturity, he is provided with his steed, which
usually bears his name on its saddle; though
sometimes heroes have named themselves. His
chief occupation, in the piping times of peace,
is hunting, and a model hero will always
distribute the best portion of his prey among his
subjects. When in-doors, he lies on a golden
couch, putting feathers upon the shafts of his
arrows, or playing on a harp which is fitted with
forty or sixty strings.

The hero, by virtue of his calling, is bound
to measure his strength with other heroes, and
the duels are fought, first with the sword,
then with the spear, afterwards with bow and
arrow. If these weapons leave the contest still
undecided, a wrestling match takes place, which
almost always ends fatally— as it is an article of
faith that only one peerless hero can exist at the
same time. The defeated combatant is so
utterly demolished by his adversary, that nothing
is left for dogs or birds to devour, and, in cases,
of extraordinary animosity, the victor cuts the
flesh from the conquered foe, and forces him to
swallow it.

The hero is also bound to obtain the hand of
a lovely virgin, who is generally destined for him
by the higher powers, and who is not to be won
save by the performance of hard tasks that may
remind some readers of the story of Atalanta.
When the lady becomes a bride, her hair is put
into two plaits, and the wedding is celebrated
with great magnificence and with an enormous
consumption of airan and kumys— the
intoxicating liquors respectively made from the milk
of mares and cows.

Intellectually, the hero's wife is generally his