The story of the hero Bulat
Zhelatug, Prince of Rus, has been fighting all his life with rebellious Finnish peoples, whose lands were conquered by his grandfather Rus and grandfather’s brother Slaven when they entered the borders of present-day Russia.
The state is weakening in internecine warfare, and enemies are taking advantage of this: the Tsar Maiden, the mistress of the British Isles, is robbing the capital city of Russu, and Prince Zhelatug dies of sorrow, leaving his young son Vidimir. Drashko, the commander of Zhelatuga and the wise nobleman, is engaged in his education. Drashko understands the reasons for the decline of the state: the establishment is guilty of everything, according to which the conquered Finns became slaves of the Slavs. Drashko equalizes the rights of the vanquished and the victors, and the riots cease.
Vidimir grows up, and Drashko places him on the throne. It is necessary to crown the new sovereign in the kingdom. However, according to Slavic customs, it is permissible to entrust the head of Vidimir only with the crown of his forefather Rus and no other, but this crown, along with other treasures, went to the Tsar Maiden. Among the Slavs, this crown is revered by the shrine: priests claim that it fell from heaven and helped the Slavs win victories in battles.
Vidimir himself feels the insecurity of his power without a grandfather’s crown. He cannot go to Tsar Maiden by war, because he does not have a fleet to get to the British Isles, and it is also dangerous to leave the state, because the Finns can rebel again. One means remains: to find a hero who will return the shrine. Drashko leads to Vidimir the mighty Bulat, who beat the Roman army with one club when he served Kigan, the Avar king. On Lake Irmere near Korostan, a Varangian boat is prepared, and the hero goes on a hike. He swims through Lake Ladoga, Varyazhskoe Sea and overlooks the Ocean. A fierce storm begins, and Bulat directs the boat to an unknown island in order to wait on land to expose the elements. In the clearing, the hero sees the lion and the snake fighting, and nearby a golden vessel. Damascus steel helps a lion and kills a snake. The lion turns into an old man, and he explains to Bulat that the hero did not kill the snake, but the evil sorcerer Zmiulan. The elder takes a golden vessel and leads Bulat to the cave, where the altar and the image of Chernobog stand: in the hands of the image of the pitchfork, with which he defeats the fire-breathing monster. The elder, whose name is Roksolan, tells Bulat his story:
The Tale of the Golden Vessel
People have multiplied so much on the Senaar valleys that many of the ancestors begin to search for new lands for settlement. Rus, chosen by his fellow leader, is moving north. Rus's father, Asparuh, the great Kabbalist, skilled in the secret sciences, meanwhile, is seeking a means that would make his people invincible.
When the Russians arrive in Alanya, Asparuh and his pupil Roksolan retire to Alan Mountain (Ptolemy placed Alan Mountain within the borders of present-day Russia) and, using secret knowledge, create a crown and a golden vessel from the purest initial particles of all elements and metals. In them, Asparuh concludes the fate of the Russian people, for the mixture from which they are made is indestructible. Asparuh decides to bring the crown and vessel to the throne of Chernobog, the patron saint of secret science. Together with Roksolan, he prepares gifts and sacrifice: forty ravens and owls in golden cages and thirty-nine black rams. Asparuh casts spells, and a fiery whirlwind carries him and Roxolan to the northern navel of the earth. There, enclosed in two blocks of ice, they descend into a burning underground abyss where fiery rivers boil and rage, the waves of which carry whole mountains of saltpeter. Finally they face the Chambers of Chernobog.
Asparuh asks Chernobog, the great god-avenger, who appeared before them in the form of a man, so that the fate of the Rus is “immovable forever”: let the golden vessel and the royal crown become protection for the brave Slavs and let all peoples fear them. Chernobog opens the Book of Fates and predicts the Rus prosperity and victory, while their princes will keep the laws, "mysteriously prescribed" on the crown. When they evade them, the crown will fall into the wrong hands, and the Slavyansk region will be overthrown, but the golden vessel in which the fate of the Rus is stored will balance all the misfortunes.
Chernobog appoints Asparuh as guardian and keeper of the vessel, and after his death, Roksolan will become his successor. A fire emanates from the mouth of Chernobog, which enters the vessel and writes on the crown with indelible letters the duties of the sovereign.
Asparuh and Roksolan leave the halls of the avenger god and go south underground, and the fiery prison of Chernobog paves the way for them. So they get to their cave in the ridge of Mount Alan. Roksolan along the way reads the words of the law on the crown and extracts a single content: a worthy monarch forgets himself and is only the father, guardian and servant of the people. Asparuh builds a flying carpet from the feathers of all birds in the cave, and Roksolan in the magic mirror received as a gift from Chernobog sees the upcoming events: the Rus gain glorious victories over the Alans and Finns and create two empires - Slavs and Rus with the capitals Slavensky and Russ.
Asparuh shares his plans with Roksolan: he will promise his son, Rus, the protection of the gods and tell him that they promised to send him a crown from heaven. Asparuh explains to the student that they cannot do without pious deception: when all the people led by the priests gather for prayer, Roksolan will have to fly up on a flying carpet, which looks like a light cloud, and then, letting lightning and smoke into the air, through a hole in the carpet to lower a crown on a golden thread directly to the head of Rus, and he, Asparuh, will imperceptibly cut this thread. Let commoners venerate the crown for shrine, then under the pretext of protecting the crown it will be possible to arouse zeal and courage in them. If the sovereign follows the rules inscribed on the crown, and the subjects see divine verbs in the sovereign's orders, then the state will become invincible.
In the morning, Asparuh leads Rus along with a crowd of people to Perun Hill. Priests carry the image of Chernobog and the lamb for the burnt offering: blacks are sacrificed to Chernobog, and white ones to Perun. When all the people, with fear and awe, wait for the promise of heaven, spoken by the lips of the wise Asparuh, to be fulfilled, Roksolan lowers the crown from the carpet on the head of Rus. The high priest writes the inscriptions from the crown into the holy book, and Asparuh, having secluded himself with Rus in the palace, interprets to him the duties of the sovereign. After this, Asparuh says goodbye to Rus and returns to Roksolan.
Asparuh sees in a magic mirror a place that the heavens intended for him to inhabit: this is an island in the North Ocean. He and Roksolan, using spells, are transferred there and settled in a cave, and they leave a golden vessel in a clearing, under the protection of two thousand bright service spirits.
Two hundred years pass. Asparuh all this time watching in a magic mirror the state of his fatherland. He is seriously worried about the charter, according to which the Finnish peoples became slaves. Asparuh foresees all the calamities arising from this omission of the sovereign, but cannot ward them off, for he swore to Chernobog not to leave the island and keep the golden vessel containing the fate of the Rus. Through the service spirits, Asparuh sends dreams to the Russian sovereigns in order to induce them to equalize the Rus and the Finns in rights. However, the sovereigns do not heed the advice received in a dream, and the state is increasingly declining.
At the age of nine hundred and eighty, Asparuh dies, and Roksolan becomes the keeper of the golden vessel. He watches with anxiety over the futile attempts of Gelatuga to save the fatherland. In the magic mirror he sees the advice of evil spirits who boldly confront the Creator. Evil spirits, led by Astaroth and his closest assistants - Astulf and Demonomakh, patronize the Finns and hate the Rus. Astarot tells his subjects that it was he who inspired Rusu with pride, and he conquered the Slavs by the masters over the Finns. However, Astarot fears that the laws written on the crown will someday enlighten the Rus: then they will make up one nation with the Finns, and this will mean the end of Astaroth’s power in these lands, where he was always revered as a god. Astaroth explains to Astulf and Demonomakh that it is necessary to take advantage of the fact that the light of clear knowledge is still inaccessible to the Rus and the Creator of all things is unknown to them, although they worship heavenly power and hate the power of hell.
Astarot offers to steal a golden vessel in which the fate of the Rus is stored: then the Slavs will become slaves of the Finns and as a result, neither one nor the other will recognize the Creator. For the execution of insidious plans, evil spirits need a performer from the kind of people who will become their instrument. Demonomok steals from a Finnish village near Golmgarda a baby born from criminal and vicious parents, and transfers him to the Valdai Mountains. There he watered Zmiulan with serpent blood, inhaled hellish malice into him and taught sorcery, instilling a fierce hatred of the Slavs.
The demons obey Zmiulan, and by his anger he surpasses them all. He grows up and thirsts to fight with Roksolan, the keeper of the golden vessel, but Astarot, taking a blood voucher from Zmiulan, according to which Zmiulan’s soul forever belongs to him, explains to Zmiulan that he will be able to fight Asparuh’s disciple only after the alien power takes possession of the crown of Rus. If the Russians lose their crown, they will fall into vices, anger the gods, and they will deprive them of their protection. Only then can Roxolan be defeated and the golden vessel taken from him. Since Zmiulan himself, whose soul already belongs to Astaroth, cannot steal a vessel, because the gods will not allow direct intervention of the forces of evil in earthly affairs, the assistance of a person who is not dedicated to the secrets of witchcraft, endowed with courage and accustomed to robber raids is necessary.
For this purpose, the mistress of the robbing British islands, the Tsar Maiden, is eager to enter into secret knowledge. Zmiulan should become her mentor and inspire her that without a crown of Russ she cannot achieve perfection in the study of the secret sciences. Zmiulan flies to the islands of the Britons in the form of a twelve-winged serpent and appears before the Tsar Maiden. He is called the king of sorcerers and tells her that he could teach her sorcery, but, alas, due to the special arrangement of the constellations under which the Tsar Maiden was born, she will not be able to succeed in the secret sciences until she takes possession of the crown of Rus . At the same time, she should act, not counting on his help, only by force of arms and ordinary cunning. Zmiulan shows her the way to the capital of Rus, where the fortresses are ravaged, and there are not even sentries on the towers, and tells her how to seize the crown.
Roksolan, who knows everything about the evil plans of evil spirits, sends Dreams to the Gallows, through which he gives him wise advice, but the sovereign, broken by failures and having lost all influence on his courtiers, is unable to understand Roksolan's hints and can’t change anything.
The Tsar Maiden abducts the crown, and Zmiulan teaches her the secrets of witchcraft and gives her submission to Astulf, the head of the spirits of the West. Taking advantage of the curiosity inherent in the female sex, Astulf for days entertains the Tsar Maiden with tales of events in different parts of the world, treating her with a mixture of lies and truth.
Zmiulan, encouraged by the fact that the crown of Rus has been stolen, is preparing himself a special impenetrable armor for a duel with Roksolan. He desperately addresses a prayer to Chernobog so that he does not destroy his fatherland, but Chernobog answers that the vices of the Rus did not turn him away from them, and the temporary calamities of the people are not a consequence of his anger, but only an instrument for correcting the Rus, for “blind mortals they cannot reason with it. ” Chernobog gives Roksolan a lion's skin with steel claws that will pierce Zmiulan’s armor, and promises to give him as assistants to the hero, whom Roksolan should take care of from birth. In a magic mirror, Roksolan observes the growth and maturity of the future hero Bulat. He sends under the guise of a hermit a service spirit for his upbringing, strengthens Bulat in virtues and sends him a wonderful weapon, a baton, in which a steel claw with a lion's skin is embedded. When detachments of evil spirits under the leadership of Zmiulan attack the island, a fierce battle takes place, and Bulat becomes a witness to the end of it, crushing the head of Zmiulan with his club.
After telling Bulat his story, Roksolan shows him in a magic mirror the palace of the Tsar Maiden, which no one guards, because a proud and arrogant warrior does not want her subjects to interfere with her sorcery. Bulat and Roksolan look in the mirror and hear how Astulf warns the Tsar Maiden that the hero will demand her to return the crown of Rus. Astulf admits to the Tsar Maiden that he tried many times in vain to cope with the hero, but his sorcerers turned out to be powerless. The Tsar Maiden is confused and puzzled, but she hopes to defeat Bulat with the help of her natural charms.
When the hero comes to the palace of the Tsar Maiden, she meets him fully armed with her female beauty and agrees to return the crown of Rus. She asks him to stay for a treat and mixes a powder in his drink that dwarfs the will and consciousness of the hero. Roksolan helps Bulat get rid of his obsession, but the hero is unable to resist the charms of the sleeping Tsar Maiden: "weakened nerves collected blood under the thinnest parts of the skin and produced a vibrating pink flame on her cheeks." Having taken her crown and tore her magic books to shreds, he takes possession of her sleeping and, ashamed of his act, leaves the island.
After many adventures, Bulat searches for roads to the fatherland, wanders in the deserts of Polyansky and, exhausted, becomes the prey of a huge lion, which lays him on a ridge and brings him to the palace of Vidimir in no time. There, the lion takes the form of Roxolan. Vidimir is crowned with the kingdom, but among the general joy comes the news that the Tsar Maiden with a huge army arrived at Irmer Lake. Bulat goes to her camp and sees a cradle with a baby in her tent. The Tsar Maiden tells him that this is his son. She wants to fight him in order to wash off the shame with his blood, but Bulat is convinced that she secretly loves him dearly. A reciprocal feeling also awakens in the heart of the hero, he opens to the Tsar Maiden, and soon they are married in the palace of Vidimir, after which Bulat leaves with his young wife for the British islands. There Bulat enlightens the Britons who abandon robbery and become faithful allies of the Rus.
Roksolan transfers the golden vessel to the temple of Chernobog and serves as the high priest in it. Vidimir, following his instructions, restores the former glory of the Rus. His descendants also follow the rules that are written on the crown, but when they evade them, the Rus lose their strength, the golden vessel becomes invisible, and the writing written on it is smoothed out. However, according to Roksolan’s prediction, once the Fatherland of the Rus became famous again, the monarchs will remember the rules of Asparuh and “return to earth their golden age, which is now fulfilled.”
