ABSTRACT
In the second bylina about Vasily Buslayev, a song that may be performed separately or as a shortened second episode in a composite work, he makes a trip to visit sacred places in the Holy Land. The epic may be called “Vasily Goes to Pray,” “The Death of Vasily Buslayev,” or “Vasily Buslayev Travels to Jerusalem” (Propp 1958b: 466–77). A certain amount of time has undoubtedly passed between the two episodes. Vasily tells his mother that he wants to travel to Jerusalem because the time has come for him to repent his earlier misdeeds, possibly an allusion to a life of fighting, killing, and robbery as a Viking-like ushkuinik. In this sense, the song hints at the theme of a repentant sinner. However, when Vasily asks his mother for her blessing, an obligatory request for a hero wanting to make a trip away from home, she either hesitates or refuses. In the translated variant, the mother reluctantly agrees but has a presage that Vasily will never return home alive. She knows her son’s character well, realizes that he has not changed since childhood, and has doubts about his sincerity. Vasily sets out on a ship with his druzhina, and along the way he stops at the Saracen Mountain (also Mount Zion, Mount Favor, or Mount of Olives). There he comes across a skull that he abuses and that predicts his death. Going on to the Holy Land, Vasily performs the duties expected of a pilgrim, but he also bathes naked in the Jordan River, despite the warning of an old woman who also predicts his death. On the way home, Vasily stops at the same mountain but this time finds an enormous gravestone which he dares his druzhina to jump across. When he himself tries to jump lengthwise, he falls and dies.
