Folklore connections of Etana (1)

Summary
Many songs of the Selkups, living along the Ket river in Siberia, formed a great epic Samoyede poem about the struggles of the hero Itja. The songs contain motifs also found in the Etana myth.

Text
Itja longs for more dangerous adventures to test his powers.

“He therefore undertakes long journeys, and comes at last to a great sea. There a big bird, called Püne, dwelt; it was so powerful that it could take up the largest things and eat them up. It could consume trees and rocks, men and animals, in fact anything and everything. But still further off in the middle of that great sea, there lived a yet more powerful and mighty monster, … the fish with the hairy horn, the fish with the mottled horn, which was so enormous that it could move and lift the earth itself. Püne had once set off to hunt this fish, had fallen upon it, gripping its back with his claws, but had of course been unable to lift himself into the air with his booty. The fish dived under the water, and the bird could not free himself at once. By the time he had managed, after great efforts, to do so, Püne had lost his powerful claws.

Thus three years had passed, when Itja met the latter, starved and weak, on the sea shore. The bird now asked Itja for help, for he had heard of his powers and cunning. Itja consented to help, but demanded that the bird should convey him to the giant fish. Itja sat on the bird’s back, and was carried over the great sea. During the journey, however, the bird dropped Itja three times into the sea, and took him up again at the last moment by the tip of his wing – all in order to prove his courage. Finally the bird left him on the shore of the great fish’s sea.

Itja, sat pondering over what he should do. He hit upon a plan. He constructed a musical instrument with seven strings and commenced to play; and he played so beautifully, he played in the languages of all the creatures, and as he played the animals gathered round him to listen; all the beasts of the forest, all the fish of the sea, all the birds of the air. They all heard and understood. Finally the giant fish also came to admire his playing, and Itja continuing to play stepped on its back, and the fish swam out to the open sea.

During the voyage the fish told of its illness. Püne’s claws were still fast in its back, which was rotting away. If Itja could save him and remove the claws, he should have as a reward “The daughter of the fish with the hairy horn”, for his wife. Then Itja takes out his knife and begins to cut up the fish’s back. Matter ran out of wounds in such quantities as to cover the whole surface of the sea. Itja then takes out the claws and keeps them. True to its promise, the fish invites him to step into its ear, which he does. Within, it is like a great room. There he finds the girl, whom he takes with him when he returns to Püne. In order to be revenged on the bird for his duckings in the sea, he three times fastens the claws so loosely that the bird in its attempts to pounce down upon different objects looses its hold three times. Only after this does he fasten them properly. After these new adventures and experiences Itja goes home with his new wife.”

Source (list of abbreviations)
Samoyede epic tales

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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