Episode Details

A tavern reveller who has drunk away his horse and his arrows is the only hero left in Kiev when Batyga's countless host stands in the field — and a matchmaking widow, struck and shamed at the prince's feast, sends her son out to win a bride with a handful of sand and his bare hands.

Vasily Ignatyev (Василий Игнатьевич), recorded by A. F. Gilferding in the summer of 1871 from the storyteller Aksinya Kuzminishna Fomina and printed in his Onega Byliny as "Vasily Ignatyev and Batyga", and Khoten Bludovich (Хотен Блудович), recorded in the Kirsha Danilov collection as "Gardey Bludovich" — two byliny of old Rus', in new English translations made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.

Byliny.

Intermission: "2-23" — instrumental.

KacheliTV — Russian classics, read aloud.