Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/429

 The Killing of the Khazar Kings. 395

above the royal palace ; and several private mosques, where children are instructed in reading the Koran. If the Moslims and Christians, who are there, agree, the king has no power over them.

" El-Mas'udi says, What we have said does not refer to the king of the Khazars himself, but we mean the Khakan [Major domus) ; for there is a king in the country of the Khazars, besides the Khakan. He is shut up in his palace : he never makes a public procession, nor does he show himself to the nobility or the people, and he never goes out from his palace. His person is sacred, but he has nothing to do with the affairs of the state, either to com- mand or forbid. Everything is administered by the Khakan for the king, who lives with him in the same palace. If a drought, or any other misfortune, befalls the country of the Khazars, or if a war or any other accident happens to them, the lower and higher classes of the nation run to the king, and say, ' The administration of this Khakan brings misfortune upon us : put him to death, or deliver him to us, that we may kill him.' Sometimes he delivers him to them, and they put him to death ; at other times he takes charge himself of the execution ; and some- times he has pity on him, protects him, and sets him free without doing him any harm, although he might have deserved it. I do not know whether this institution dates from ancient times, or whether it has been recently intro- duced. The Khakan is chosen from among the nobility by their chiefs ; but I think that the royalty of the present dynasty takes date from a remote period." ^

Another writer of the tenth century a.d., who has described the Khazars and their kings, is the Arab traveller

^ El-Mas'udfs Historical Encyclopaedia, end fled '' Meadoivs of Gold and Mines of Gems" : translated from the Arabic by Aloys Sprenger, M.D., vol. i. {London, 1841), pp. 406-411. In transcribing this passage I have taken the liberty of uniformly writing Khazars instead of Khazar, wherever the latter appears to be used by the translator in the plural sense.