Byliny Book: Hero Tales of Russia

ВОЛЬГА СУДАРЬ БУСЛАЄВИЧЪ.
BYLINY BOOK HERO TALES OF RUSSIA
Told from the Russian by MARION CHILTON HARRISON With Illustrations by MRS. HUGH STEWART
CAMBRIDGE: W. HEFFER & SONS LTD. 1915
This is a Byliny Book. What does “Byliny” mean? It is a Russian word, and it means stories about What-has-Been , what happened in Russia in the old days long ago. We all read about the Greek heroes Jason and Perseus and Theseus and Heracles. The Russians had splendid heroes too, who met with wonderful adventures. Russia and France and Italy and England are fighting side by side a great fight for freedom, and these old heroes of Russia fought for freedom too, against great barbarian armies of Huns and Tartars. The Russians are our brave friends, our “Allies,” as we call them now, and it is good to get to know about their heroes of olden times.
The Russian names of the heroes look a little strange at first, but they are not really hard to pronounce. There are a great many Russian heroes, but this book only tells about four of them, Volgá and Mikúla and Svyatogór and Ilyá. The Volgá is quite short and easy, and so is Mikúla, which is pronounced as if it was written Mikóolla. Svyatogór looks rather hard, but you only have to remember to say it like this—Svyătăgórr, and you must roll the r’s as if you were a Scotsman. The Russians put the accent on the end of their words much oftener than the English. We say Ī́-văn and they say Eeváhn . And so it is with the last hero, Ilyá; he is pronounced Eelyā́h . Besides the heroes, there is Vladímir the king, and he is called Vladéemir. The only really hard word to say right is Byliny itself, and that you can call Bwĭléeny, but our English lips do not make quite the Russian sound.
A learned Russian called Hilferding went to North Russia to live among the peasants and listen to these stories. The peasants are very poor, and are shy with strangers, but they learned to love and trust Hilferding, and sang their songs to him. It is nice to know that he was able to help the peasants, and get them a little more money and food. Other learned men had been before Hilferding, but nearly all the stories in this book were collected by him, so we like to remember his name.