Epic Songs.
The first collection of epic songs was published in 1804, based on the collection made some years before by the Siberian Cossack Kirshá Danílov. Since the fifties of the eighteenth century large numbers of these songs have been gathered in the extreme north-east, by Kiryéevski, Rýbnikov, Gílferding, and others. They are generally divided into the cycle of Kíev, with Vladímir and his druzhína, who defend the country against external enemies, and the cycle of Nóvgorod, in which is described the wealth and luxury of the once famous commercial emporium. There is also a division into the older heroes, of which Volkh Vseslávevich is one, and the younger heroes, of which Ilyá of Múrom is the most noted.
Good accounts of the epic songs may be found in most of the general works on Russian literature mentioned in the Preface. The only work which gives a large number of these epics, with notes, is The Epic Songs of Russia, by Isabel Florence Hapgood, with an introductory note by Prof. Francis J. Child, New York, 1886.
VOLKH VSESLÁVEVICH
In the heavens the bright moon did shine,
But in Kíev a mighty hero was born,
The young hero Volkh Vseslávevich:
The damp earth trembled,
Trembled the famous Indian realm,
And the blue sea also trembled