Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/330

322 a call for help. Khurmusta Tengri wrote to the Khan that in his dominions war had begun, and that in the course of four days he should present himself to him in a divine form. Uidzil Khan having received the divine vision departed for the country of Tengri; in his absence the younger wife, not regarding the warning of the elder, burnt his earthly tunic; having returned to his town Uidzil Khan did not find his earthly body, and when it was reported to him that it had been burnt by his wife, Uidzil Khan said that in his divine form he could no longer remain in that land, and therefore he departed to everywhere, and also that a trace of his departure place would pass by the country of Ulan nēdun of Shumucên Ukhuirhama Khan. Uidzil Khan ascended to heaven, but the nation began to scatter and hide in the mountains. At the same time the elder wife of the Khan and her servant, both big with child, went out also to the mountains. Here they made an agreement only to let free the child that was first born, and to cast away the child born afterwards. The Khan's wife had a child first, and both women carried the babe in turn; but when the servant strongly desired the same, to carry the child became difficult. Then she determined to leave it on the mountain side, and she herself went to the Lhama who had given the flour. The Lhama said that this would be a wondrous child, that it would not do to desert it, and ordered her to bring it to himself; then he enveloped it in the flower of the plant Udun banên (peony?), in its mouth also he placed a bud for it to suck, and he gave the child the name Guigêr Mēdjêt, and ordered the women to travel over the world asking alms. So the women began to go about begging. On the road the servant also gave birth. The babe, according to the agreement, as the last born, they thrust into the hole of Tarbagan (the marmot). In that hole dwelt a female wolf who already had a cub. The wolf seeing the exposed child imagined that she herself had given birth to it, and began to give it suck at the same time as to the wolf cub who was her offspring. The two women, with the other boy in their hands, went meanwhile to the nation of Gachuin Chētuigchē Khan; around them gathered a crowd of inquisitive people, who questioned them. Why they, who were evidently good women and carried about so fair a child, were forced to wander about the world? At that time the