LEGENDS AND FOLK TALES

The Kyrgyz, like all ethnic groups, have a wide variety of legends and folk tales. From ancient times the Kyrgyz have honoured the art of story telling. Folk-lore was passed from ayil to ayil (willage to village), from bozoi to bozoi (yurt to yurt). Most Kyrgyz can play a musical instrument and know ballads, legends and fairy tales. Story tellers were respected and sometimes called «people’s nightingales» or jomookchu and are welcomed guests in any home.

Some are folk-tales are associated with places, others with events, or aspects of nature, for example tales about animals. Some are moral tales whilst others are like fairy tales. They describe rich and silly Khans, brave hunters, poor peasants and shepherds, beautiful and brave women who give good advice. At the end of the story the poor and clever people usually come out on top. There are a series of tales about the wise man Asankaygy and the smart fellow Aldar Kose.

Many tales illustrate aspects of everday life. Events usually take place in well-known surroundings.

Like most nationalities and languages, the Kyrgyz also have a wide range of proverbs and sayings, and a collection of 1000 such phrases was published in 1999 by the Solvanic University in Bishkek, based on the collection made by the academician K. K. Yudahin, (1890—1975), in over 40 years of research. The book quotes the proverb in Kyrgyz then gives antranslation — or equivalent proverb — in Russian. Some of the sayings may be universally recognizable, such as «You reap what you sow», but for some more unusual examples of Kyrgyz wit and wisdom, consider the following proverbs and sayings:

• A bird trusts itself, a dog trusts its master
  
• A clever man is able to teach you civility
  
• A friend looks at your eyes, an enemy looks at your feet
  
• A good man never spares his efforts to help, a bad one never even gives his hand if you fall down
  
• A good wife is half of happiness in your life
  
• A horse is a man's wings
  
• A man grows old, but his courage doesn't
  
• A wise man isn't the one who has lived the longest, but the one who has travelled the most
  
• Cheap mutton has no fat
  
• Don't let your horse run beside a pacer
  
• Govern your horse carefully or you will become a pedestrian
  
• If your right hand is angry, hold it back with your left
  
• It is better to die like a hero than live like a coward
  
• Knowledge builds up, ignorance destroys
  
• The earth is a small place for fugitives
  

The Kyrgyz are also fond of riddles - which are often based in everyday activities like cattle breeding, agriculture, or nomadic life.

Here are a few examples of legends and fairy tales.