University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION

The highest stage of development reached by
popular song is the heroic epos—the rhythmic
story of the deeds of national heroes either historical
or mythical. In many countries these epics
were committed to writing at a very early date.
In Western Europe this took place in the Middle
Ages, and they are known to the modern world in
that form only, their memory having completely
died out among the people.

To this rule there are two striking exceptions. At
the beginning of the present century the old heroic
songs were sung in the Faröe Islands, and that in
a much more antique form than is preserved in
the later, Middle Age versions. The second exception
is still more remarkable. Russia presents the
phenomenon of a country where epic song, handed
down wholly by oral tradition for nearly a thousand
years, is not only flourishing at the present
day in certain districts, but even extending into
fresh fields.

Amid the vast swamps and forests of Northern
Russia the bylinas[1] are sung to-day by scores of
peasants, men and women, old and young, to
whom they have descended through countless
generations of ancestors, and whose belief is as

implicit in the bogatyrs[2] whose deeds they celebrate
as was the belief of the first of those ancestors.

It is only within the present century—within
the last twenty-five years, in fact—that the discovery
has been made that Russia possesses a
national literature which is not excelled by the
finest of Western Europe.

About the middle of the last century Kirsha
Danilef made a collection of songs among the workmen
at the Demidof mines in the Government of
Perm. It is not known who this Kirsha Danilef
was. An incomplete edition published from his
manuscript in 1804 created some interest as a
curiosity. In 1818 a more complete edition was
issued; and the attention of students having been
directed to the subject, various songs were written
down by different persons, as occasion offered. A
collection was also published in German at Leipzig
in 1819, which contained some epic songs not since
found. It was left, however, for Petr N. Rybnikof
to arouse general attention and enthusiasm. In
1861-2 appeared the first two volumes of his great

collection made on the shores of Lake Onega. They
were greeted with so much amazement and even
incredulity, that Rybnikof appended to his third
volume a detailed account of his journeyings and
of the peasants from whose lips he had written
down his songs. The publication of these songs
marked an epoch in the literature of Russia.

Petr N. Rybnikof was a government official who
was stationed at Petrzavodsk, on the western shore
of Lake Onega. Conversing in 1859 with some of
the older inhabitants of the town, he learned that
many curious and ancient customs, traditions and
songs were preserved among the villagers of the
Olonetz Government. In confirmation of the
statement he was referred to two poems which had
been published in the government journals. In
the course of that year he succeeded in obtaining
some manuscript songs, which had been written
down at the dictation of a peasant tailor known
as "The Bottle." He then set to work to collect
monuments of popular poetry, but at first found
only historical and spiritual songs and laments.

In 1860 he was ordered to collect certain statistics,
and this afforded him an opportunity to pursue
his search among the people themselves. At
Shungsk Fair he succeeded, with the aid of the
police, in finding a couple of kalyeky or psalm-singers,
and persuaded them to sing all they knew.
As very few of these kalyeky sing "worldly songs,"
i. e. bylinas, his hopes were again frustrated. He
continued to hear much of "The Bottle," who in
the pursuit of his calling roamed over the whole
of the trans-Onega region. But although, in
search of him, Rybnikof made two journeys across
Lake Onega on the ice in severe winter weather, and
one in summer in a leaky boat, it was not until
1863 that he succeeded in finding him. Before

this, however, he had heard many an epic song
from other singers.

Knowing the distrust with which an official inspires
the peasants, he dressed himself like a man
of the people, and took passage on a market-boat
returning to Pudoga, where "The Bottle" lived.
Though it was May, the ice was not out of the lake,
and it was bitterly cold. Contrary winds forced
them to put in at an island covered with woods
and swamps, only twelve versts from their starting-place,
after having laboured at the oars all night.
The dirty hut of refuge was already crowded
with peasants, weather-bound like themselves, so
Rybnikof made himself some tea by a fire which
was burning in the open air, and lay down on the
ground to sleep. He was awakened by strange
sounds. About three paces from him sat a group
of peasants and an old man with a great white
beard, bright eyes, and a kindly expression of
countenance. From the old man's lips flowed a
wondrous song, unlike any which Rybnikof had
ever heard, lively, fantastic, gay, growing now
more brisk, again breaking off suddenly, and suggesting
in style something very ancient and long
forgotten by living men. That song finished, the
old man began another—the famous lay of Sadko
the Merchant of Novgorod. Thoroughly aroused
now, Rybnikof knew that this was his long-sought
epic. Many a one did he thereafter listen to, sung
by rhapsodists with fine voices and masterly diction,
but none of them ever produced upon him the
fresh and overwhelming impression made by old
Leonty Bogdanovich with his poor, cracked voice
and imperfect versions.

Thanks to Bogdanovich, Rybnikof was enabled
to find a great number of singers, and to overcome
their habitual distrust of chinovniks (officials) sufficiently

to induce them to sing all the songs they
knew. In this manner he succeeded in collecting
over 50,000 verses. But this collection was far
from exhausting the rich hoards of epic poetry
treasured up in the region about Lake Onega. In
1870 Alexander F. Hilferding, impelled by a desire
to see something of the peasantry and to hear some
of the remarkable rhapsodists described by Rybnikof,
undertook a journey to certain districts
recommended by the latter. But he did not pause
there; penetrating to the North and East of the
Olonetz Government, he found, apparently, the
very home of epic poetry in the nineteenth century.
In less than two months he had made a
collection of bylinas even larger than Rybnikof's,
containing 318 songs.

The region is but little known, and a condition
of things prevails which cannot differ much from
that of epic days. The peasants on the borders
of Lake Onega have a comparatively enviable lot.
They have intercourse with St. Petersburg, and
are not entirely cut off from the world. But
further to the North and East, in Kenozero, Vygo-zero
and Vadlozero, the peasant's lot is hard indeed.
There lie forests, swamps, and again forests.
The only means of communication between the
hamlets which dot this vast wilderness is afforded
by the scattered lakes. There are no carts—they
cannot be used on the marshy roads; sledges are
employed even in summer, or voloki—long poles,
one end of which is fastened to the horse-collar,
while the other end, with board attached to bear
the load, drags on the ground. Where water communication
is lacking, the peasant must go on
horseback, making his own path through the dense
forest. The cultivation, with great labour, of tiny
clearings in the forest, and fishing in autumn, form

the only means of livelihood, so that all are obliged
to add some trade—hunting wild animals, teaming
to the White Sea in winter, and so forth. The
women and girls work equally hard, and the
peasant is happy if, by their united labours, they
manage to escape starvation. Oats prepared in
various ways form the chief article of food, for they
cannot raise either cabbages, onions, cucumbers
or buckwheat.

"The condition of things is growing worse," says
Hilferding in 1870. Some bureaucrat took it into
his head that the interests of the Treasury demanded
the preservation of the Northern forests;
consequently, the peasants were forbidden to make
their little clearings, in spite of the fact that they
used only the land which was covered by a stunted
growth of birches and alders, and did not touch the
valuable wood, for the simple reason that the soil
on which grow pines and larches is not fit for crops.

This prohibition has had the curious effect, in
one district, of introducing epic songs where they
had not been previously known. Agriculture is
not favourable to the preservation of epic poetry,
the singers coming almost entirely from the ranks
of the tailors, shoemakers and net-makers. When,
therefore, this community was forced to abandon
agriculture, it took to making fine nets—and to
learning epic songs.

Two of the causes which have aided in the preservation
of epic poetry in these remote districts,
long after its disappearance from other parts of
Russia, are liberty and loneliness. These people
have never been subjected to the oppressions of
serfdom, and have never lost the ideal of free power
celebrated in the ancient rhapsodies. In these
forest fastnesses they have never felt the influences
of change—conditions remain as in epic times.

Even education has hardly left a trace. A man
who can read and write is very rare.[3] Faith in
antiquity and marvels is thus preserved. All the
singers and most of their hearers believe implicitly
in the bylinas, for when doubt enters, epic poetry
dies. When Hilferding made the minstrels repeat
slowly and with pauses, in order to enable him to
write down their songs, they and the peasants
present would interpolate remarks which showed
their entire faith in the incidents narrated. If,
as sometimes happened, a slight doubt was expressed
as to whether a hero could wield a club of
sixteen hundred pounds (forty poods), or annihilate
forty thousand men with his own hand, the rhapsodists
explained matters very simply: "People
were not at all then as they are now."

The singing of the poems is not now a profession,
as it was in ancient Greece, in Europe during the
Middle Ages, and as it is in Little Russia at the
present day, where the Kobzars still exist. It has
remained a domestic diversion for people whose
voices and memories permit them to learn the old
songs.

The singing of religious songs or stiks is of a professional
character, however, and the kalyeky perekozhie,
or wandering-psalm-singers, mostly blind
men or cripples, use it as a means of livelihood.

That there were professional minstrels in Russia
in the Middle Ages there can be no doubt. The
Chronicles mention them at the Court of Saint
Vladimir's grandson. The Church also denounced
skomoroki (buffoons), fiddlers and players, and the
singing of devilish (i. e. worldly) songs, before the
Tatar conquest. If, as is probable, these "devilish
songs" included the epic songs, we may assume

that they were not originally composed for the
common people, but were sung before the higher
classes and the royal body-guard. The manner in
which the exploits of the guard are magnified and
those of the Prince belittled would seem to indicate
that these songs were pre-eminently an entertainment
for the body-guard. The minstrels also
exercised their art before the Prince—if we can
trust the evidence of the poems themselves.[4]

However this may be, the present minstrels all
belong to the peasant class, and are nearly all well-to-do,
as talent for practical affairs seems to accompany
a taste for epic poetry. Many of them would
accept nothing from Rybnikof and Hilferding;
and when the former offered a kerchief to the
daughter of Ryabinin, one of the best singers, the
minstrel at once presented an embroidered towel,
saying that it was customary for friends to exchange
gifts at parting. As an instance of the esteem in
which bylina singing is regarded by the peasants,
it is related of this Ryabinin that his comrades
would take turns in doing his share of the work on
the fishing-boat, on condition that he should sing
to them. The aged bard also, from whom many
of the present generation learned their songs, was
in the habit of saying when asked to sing: "Give
me a poltina (half a rouble), and I will sing you a
bylina." The half rouble was always forthcoming;
but he was a very fine singer and the only one who
demanded anything from his fellows.

So long as schools and trade do not penetrate to
this secluded region, there is no danger of epic
poetry dying out. Memory is the chief factor;
creative power, which undoubtedly exists (though
it is supposed to have become extinct after Peter
the Great's day), does not come into play. As a

man has received his song, so he sings it, with all
the obsolete words, sometimes quite unintelligible.
If asked the definitions of these words, he will
answer simply, "It is always sung so," unless
the words chance to be included in his provincial
vocabulary. In this manner have been preserved
details of nature on the Dnyepr—the "plume
grass," the "open plain," the "aurochs" (now
extinct), of which the North Russian peasant knows
nothing whatever. Yet not a few local touches
are introduced;—the mossy marshes and little
lakes over which the hero gallops and picks his
way, the fitting out of ships and the saddling of
horses, all details dear and familiar to these lake-dwellers,
are enlarged upon.

One of the most striking results of local influence
is seen in the preservation of the polyanitza. This
has become so foreign an idea in the rest of Russia
that when Rybnikof's first volume was published
even the savants did not know the meaning of the
word. It was defined as a "bold fellow who
gallops about seeking adventures"; and even
Dahl in his great dictionary gives it as "a band of
desperadoes or robbers." But any peasant in
North-eastern Olonetz will explain that in ancient
times heroic deeds were performed indifferently
by men and women, the men being called bogatyrs
and the women polyanitzas.

Fine or poor, all the rhapsodists preserve the
distinct characters in their songs perfectly. Never
once does Vladimir depart from the rôle assigned
him, of a good-natured, but not always just, ruler;
Dobrynya is always courteous, Alyosha bold and
cunning, Churilo foppish. Thus the story is always
preserved intact. But in spite of the singers'
assertions that they sing things exactly as they
have learned them, two men who sing the same

poem, which they have learned from the same
person, will tinge it with their own distinct personalities
to a marked degree. Thus, with some singers,
the heroes are distinguished for their piety; other
singers tone down the fiercest speeches in accordance
with their own mild dispositions. Some render
their songs inordinately long—two or three hours
—by the multiplication of details and the repetition
of whole passages, in true epic fashion. Yet with
all these modifications, which render these ancient
songs almost as much a living product of the nineteenth
century as of the tenth, each song possesses
as distinct a character as any of the epic lays which
crystallized into a literary form in the Middle Ages
and faded out of the memories of the people.

A regular tonic versification forms one indispensable
property of these epic poems; irregularity
of versification is a sign of decay, and a complete
absence of measure the last stage of decay. The
common measure of the bylina is trochaic with a
dactylic ending, of five or six feet, which with
characteristic elasticity can be lengthened to seven
or contracted to four. A longer or shorter measure
than these is an evidence of decay. The measure
varies with the subject to some extent. For
example, Ryabinin sang the lay of Stavr in trochaic
measure with a dactyl, Mikailo Rover in pure
trochaic, and Volgá and Mikula in anapæsts.

The airs to which they are sung, or chanted, are
very simple, consisting of but few tones, yet extremely
difficult to note down. Each singer has an
air of his own (perhaps two), to which he sings all
the songs in his repertory, modifying it according
to the subject and sentiment, with the greatest
skill. Rybnikof and Hilferding often dropped
their pens and listened in amazement and admiration
to the skill of these untutored minstrels.

It is interesting to trace the different stages of
decay in an epic poem ending in the skazka (tale).

The epic poem has strictly defined characteristics;
names historical or pseudo-historical are
given to places and persons, the style is determined,
the rhythm fixed within certain limits. A weakening
of these characteristics makes of the epic a
pobyvalchina or starina (old tale); further deterioration
brings it to the class of kazacheskiya (Kazák
songs); next comes the class of the molodyetzkiya
(young men's songs), then the bezimyaniniya
(nameless songs), then the skazka or prose tale.
At each step of this descending scale, it loses more
and more of the definiteness of time and place as
well as the names of the actors, until in the skazka
all definite rules of construction, all indications of
distinct locality, vanish.

The epic songs proper are broadly divisible into
three groups: the cycle of Vladimir or Kief, that
of Novgorod, and that of Moscow, preceded by
three songs of the Elder Heroes. With regard to
the first two, and the Kief cycle in particular,
authorities on the origin of Russian literature differ
widely. One writer endeavours to prove that the
Russians, while preserving the traditions common
to all Aryan races in their Ceremonial Songs, entirely
forgot the common Aryan stock of heroic
legends. He assumes that these legends came
back to them much later by appropriation from
peoples of Turko-Mongolian race, who had become
acquainted with epic traditions through Buddhism.
This theory is analogous to that propounded by the
distinguished Orientalist Benfey, with regard to
European tales. According to this view, there is
in Russian nothing but the crippled skeleton of
foreign tales, to which have been added a few
historical and geographical names and psychical

traits furnished to various heroes by over-zealous
students, who approached the subject with preconceived
notions.

That the epic songs possess a family likeness to
the heroic legends of other Aryan races, is not
denied by any one; and this likeness is particularly
strong in the case of the Rig-Veda, the Ramayana,
the Edda and the Celtic epics. But about this
epic skeleton, so to speak, a living body has grown
up which is as characteristically national as any of
those mentioned. The examples cited from Tatar
and Mongolian sources by the author of the theory
above referred to, are in most cases extremely
far-fetched. His views have been combated by distinguished
students of comparative mythology, and
this wholesale appropriation from Eastern myths
cannot be regarded as established. A comparison
of these epic songs with the ancient Chronicles
shows that the heroes are thoroughly Russian, and
that the pictures of manners and customs which
they present are valuable for their accuracy.

The point of departure for the mythologies of all
Aryan races must be sought in the phenomena of
Nature. These were first personified as gods, and
when each of these gods became divided into two
or more individuals, according to their various
attributes, these attributes, now entirely independent
personages, were called the sons and
grandsons of the gods. The localization of these
Nature-myths began in heathen times. They
were attached to various places, historical events
and persons. With the introduction of Christianity
this localization became more decided, and the
ancient objects of worship were transformed, now
into heroes, again into house demons or sorcerers,
and fell under the ban as evil spirits or were merged
with the new saints.

Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich introduced Christianity
into Russia in 988. It was not only
established as the State religion, but the people, at
Vladimir's command, accepted the new faith,
permitted their idols to be destroyed and themselves
to be baptized by thousands forthwith.
Though they had idols representing the powers of
Nature which they worshipped, there were neither
temples nor priests to interfere with this summary
change. But their old beliefs could not be so
readily set aside, and finding themselves thus provided
with two faiths, they solved the difficulty
in the most natural manner—by subjecting their
heathen gods to baptism also. Thus, for instance,
Perun the Thunderer became Ilya (Elijah) the
Prophet, the hero Ilya of Murom of the Songs.
This furnishes the key to the cycle of Vladimir,
and shows how the epithet "two-faithed," often
applied to the Russian people by their old writers,
was earned.

Side by side with the cycle of Vladimir and the
heroes of Kief, and sung by the same rhapsodists,
flourishes the Novgorod cycle, with its Braves
(udaltzy). Much more restricted than either the
Kief or the Moscow cycle, it consists practically of
but two songs.

Novgorod was one of the greatest cities of the
North, a Slavic Venice, long before the other Russian
towns had emerged from obscurity. It had extensive
commercial relations with Western Europe
and the Orient, and of this feature of Novgorod
the Great, Sadko the Merchant is the epic representative.
Of the perpetual war waged against the
Chouds, Scandinavians and other tribes, no trace
remains in the songs which survive; but the
memory of the civil war which raged between the
patricians and the common people, between the

two quarters of the town separated by the Volkof,
is perpetuated in the song of Vasily Buslaevich.

This cycle is not so rich in the ancient poetry of
the Elements as the Kief cycle, and compared with
that, it is far more definite, practical and closer to
history.

In the two cycles already considered, the heroic
epos, the historical fate of the people is reflected
in its most salient features and essential spirit.
But there exist among the people epic songs which
are more justly entitled to the general appellation
bestowed upon all similar productions, bylinas—
records of what has been. The actors in these
songs are connected with well-defined epochs, with
real events, and not only bear historic names like
the heroes of the Kief and Novgorod cycles, but
frequently perform the feats assigned to them by
history.

Epic marvels have not wholly disappeared from
these songs of what is termed the Moscow or Imperial
cycle, and at times heroic, supernatural feats
are narrated, evidently copied from the earlier
cycles. These Moscow songs are inferior in force,
and approach in style the "Old" or "Nameless
Songs." The pre-Tatar period is not represented,
and the cycle proper begins with Ivan the Terrible;
and ends with the reign of Peter the Great, when
the power of composing epic songs is supposed to
have disappeared. Ivan and Peter are the most
prominent figures. As the period extending from
the Kief cycle to Ivan is not rich in song, so likewise
there is a great gap of a hundred years before Peter
the Great, in which the songs are in no way remarkable,
notwithstanding the many striking events
which would seem to have afforded fitting subjects
for the popular muse.

Fantastic as are some of the adventures in these

songs, there is always a solid historical foundation.
The same process which unites (Saint) Vladimir
Svyatoslavich and Vladimir Monomachus in one
person is pursued with Ivan the Terrible. To
this much-married Tzar are attributed many deeds
of his grandfather Ivan III (his father being
ignored), and other persons; and he is always
represented in a rather favourable light. The conquest
of Siberia, the taking of Kazan and Astrakhan,
the wars against Poland, the Tatars of the Crimea,
etc., are the principal points about which are
grouped the songs referring to Ivan's reign.

Richard James, Almoner to the English Embassy
to Moscow in 1619, only fourteen years after the
brief reign of the False Dmitry, noted down many
of the songs which were already current upon that
event, and another collection of contemporary lays
was made by Kalaidovich in 1688. These are
the first instances of the Russian national songs
being reduced to writing. Many of those noted
by James are reprinted in P. V. Kiryeevsky's great
work in six volumes, which is very rich in songs of
the Moscow cycle.

The epic Peter the Great bears but a faint resemblance
to the historical Peter. His wars offered
fine subjects for the singers, but they incorporated
many a detail from the ancient myths of Dobrynya
the Dragon Slayer and Ilya of Murom in their songs
about the battle of Poltava.

The composition of epic poetry did not entirely
cease until after the French invasion of 1812;
though the songs of that epoch are much inferior
to those of the ancient days, are utterly devoid
of poetry, and merit attention only as curious
mementoes of the times. A more detailed account
of the Moscow cycle is unnecessary, as it will not
be represented in this volume. Its methods can be

observed in the songs of the semi-mythical epoch,
where they appear at their best. These poems are
sung in the same regions as those of the first two
cycles, and also to a greater extent than the latter
in the central Governments of Tula and Saratof.

In support of the theory that the poems of the
Vladimir and Novgorod cycles were not original
creations but derived from Turko-Mongolian
sources, its advocates point to the fact that in the
Government of Kief and Southern Russia, where
they should have originated if of Russian composition,
none are now to be heard, while in Siberia
and the Governments of Arkhangel, Simbirsk, Perm,
Olonetz (especially the latter), on the Don, and at
the mouths of the Volga, they abound. This, they
claim, proves that the epic songs came from the
wandering hordes of Siberia. A more simple and
natural explanation of this phenomenon is furnished
by the history of the Kief region.

The lays of Vladimir were composed in the
tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. There
are several reasons for assigning them to this
epoch. They all represent Russia as Christian,
united under the rule of Vladimir, and in constant
(generally hostile) contact with the Tatars.
The action is almost exclusively confined to Kief
or its environs, and among the other towns mentioned
(all belonging to the Kief epoch) Moscow
is not included. This confines them between the
limits of 988 (when Christianity was introduced
by Vladimir Svyatoslavich) and 1147, when Moscow
first appears in the Chronicles, Yury the son of
Vladimir Monomachus having built the first houses
on the present site of the Kremlin. Most of the
heroes are, moreover, mentioned in the Chronicles,
and none of them can have lived later than the
beginning of the thirteenth century.

Further proof is furnished by the "Word of
Igor's Expedition"[5] (Slova o plkou Igorevye),
Russia's famous written epic poem and the only
one which was committed to writing earlier than
the seventeenth century. In 1185, Igor, Prince
of Novgorod-Syeversky, undertook a campaign of
retaliation against the Polovtzy, a nomad tribe
of Turko-Finnish extraction living on the shores
of the Don. This poem, which is founded on that
expedition, bears internal evidence of having been
composed during the lifetime of the principal actors
in the drama. It is supposed to have been committed
to writing in the fourteenth or fifteenth
century. The unknown author announces in the
first lines his intention of singing in the "present
style"—the style of the bylinas—"and not in
that of Boyan," evidently a poet of repute at that
time. This shows that these songs were in vogue
as early as 1185. As the only epic poem which
has been transmitted to us in writing, the "Word"
is of the greatest value and interest, but it differs
so radically from the bylinas (in spite of the author's
intention) that it lies without the scope of the
present work.

The epic songs are the work of the people alone;
they present no traces of individual character, their
heroes are more mythical than historical. The
"Word," on the other hand, is the work of a poet,
who has succeeded in colouring it strongly with his
own personality; its heroes are simple men, with
no trace of the supernatural, the event chronicled
is historical, and the poem forms an organic whole.
In the songs layers of poetry as well as of history

are discernible, and it has been suggested that a
system of poetical palaeontology might be applied
to them.

There seems thus to be sufficient ground for
assuming that the songs of the Kief cycle (and
those of the Elder Heroes) were already in existence
when, in the tenth and eleventh centuries,
Vladimir and Yaroslavl were founded, and the
great movement of the South Russian population
towards the North and the East began. This
movement continued to increase, particularly
during the twelfth century, when the seat of
empire was removed to Vladimir. It is easy
to see how the songs would be carried by this
emigrating population from the South to the
points which became later the centre of Great
Russia; and how, still later, the development of
new needs and forms of life in the Russia of Moscow
removed the Kief songs to the borders of the
country, together with other relics of antiquity.

The devastation of Southern Russia by the
Tatars in the thirteenth century, and the decay of
its civilization under the Lithuanian sway in the
fourteenth and fifteenth, obliterated these poems
from popular memory. When, in the sixteenth
century, the population of Southern Russia organized
itself anew in the forms of the Kazák communes,
it fabricated for itself a fresh cycle of
epic legends, which finally replaced those of Kief.
Thus, in Little Russia, where they originated,
these epic songs are sung no longer, though a
dim hint or a name may be found now and then
in the Ceremonial Songs, and the Kobzars[6] celebrate
the deed of a new race of Kazák heroes.

But in the lonely wildernesses of the North-east,
where circumstances have called forth no great
or warlike deeds, the ancient paladins of Prince
Vladimir's court have no rivals, and the emigrants
have cherished the songs and legends which recall
their fair Southern home of yore.

This progress of the epic poems ever further
towards the North, recalls the famous migration
of the Norse epos to Iceland, where it was committed
to writing in the Middle Ages, affords a reasonable
explanation of the present home of epic song, and
renders the Siberian theory superflous.