ABSTRACT
Svyatogor appears mainly in two subjects among Russian epics. In the first one, he finds a bag that is too heavy for him to lift and sinks into the ground; in the other one he comes across a coffin, lies down in it to try its size, and becomes trapped. Both stories end with the death of the hero, something that rarely happens in Russian epics. Although the first subject has been recorded six times and the second fifty times, many of the texts are composed in prose rather than in verse, a feature that perhaps shows how these songs were being forgotten or else reflects the gradual decline of the Russian epic tradition. Moreover, the narratives tend to be terse and are not highly developed. The translated variant represents a composite of both subjects, the first ending at line forty-four and concluding with the rescue of Svyatogor by his horse rather than with his death.
