from the 1882 Collection

In the Erzya Mordvin worldview — shared in various forms across the Finno-Ugric peoples — the souls of the dead take the form of birds. The cuckoo (käki in Finnish, kuko in Erzya) is universally the mother's voice: the lonely cry in the birch forest, the one who will not stop calling. The dove is the father. The swallows are the children. The nightingale is the sister. And the magpie — the chattering, thieving, restless bird — is the wife. In this song, she is named twice: "his dear wife, his villain wife." The Erzya word for "villain" here is душманъ (dushman, from Persian via Turkic — "enemy"), and its juxtaposition with "dear" tells the entire backstory without narration: this man was killed by the person he loved.

The poem's structure is a concentric descent: far forest → fire → birch → felt mat → body. Then the body itself becomes a landscape: head downhill, feet uphill (reversed, as the dead are laid), and five positions mark five birds, each keyed to a family member. The identification is stated without ornament or mythological apparatus — "the cuckoo was his own mother" — and the plainness of the statement is its power. No metaphor is invoked. The cuckoo IS the mother. The dove IS the father. This is not symbol but identity.

The song was collected and published in 1882 by the Orthodox Missionary Society of Kazan in the first volume of Образцы мордовской народной словесности (Samples of Mordovian Folk Literature). No English translation has ever been published.

In a far forest, in a beloved forest.
His fire burns brightly,
His smoke rises thickly;
Thickly it rises, high it climbs.

Beside the fire stands a white birch, a beautiful birch.
Under the birch a white felt mat, a beautiful mat.
Under the mat lies a slain young man, a slain young fellow.
His feet lie uphill,
His head lies downhill...

At his head a cuckoo cries,
At his feet a dove coos,
On his breast the swallows chirp,
On his right hand a nightingale sings,
On his left hand a magpie chatters.

The cuckoo was his own dear mother,
The dove was his own dear father,
The swallows were his own dear children,
The nightingale was his own dear sister,
The magpie was his dear wife — his villain wife.

Colophon

Source: Образцы мордовской народной словесности, Выпуск 1: Песни на Эрзянском и некоторые на Мокшанском наречии (Samples of Mordovian Folk Literature, Volume 1: Songs in the Erzya Dialect and Some in the Moksha Dialect). Kazan: Orthodox Missionary Society Press, 1882. Public Domain (PD Mark 1.0, confirmed on archive.org).

Song translated: "Маштонь одъ аля" / "Убитый молодой молодецъ" (The Slain Youth).

Translation: Good Works Translation (AI-assisted). Translated from the Erzya Mordvin original by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026. The 1882 Russian translation was consulted as a reference bridge. No previous English translation of this song is known to exist.

On the soul-bird tradition: The identification of birds with the souls of family members belongs to a pan-Uralic stratum of belief. In Finnish folk tradition, the cuckoo (käki) is the voice of the dead mother — the bird that calls endlessly from the birch forest. The Erzya kuko carries the same association. The dove (gul'ka) as father-soul, the swallows (syanavatne) as children-souls, and the nightingale (tsyoko) as sister-soul are consistent with broader Volga-Finnic soul-bird catalogues. The magpie (sez'gan) occupies the most ambiguous position: in Erzya and Russian folk tradition, the magpie is associated with chattering, gossip, and thievery — and in this poem, the wife who sits as magpie on the dead man's left hand is called both "dear" (saen') and "villain" (dushman). The word dushman is a Turkic-Persian loanword meaning "enemy," which entered Erzya through centuries of contact with Tatar neighbours. Its use here compresses an entire murder narrative into two words.

On the reversed body: The dead man lies with "feet uphill, head downhill" — reversed from the living position. In Erzya funerary practice, the dead were oriented differently from the living. This detail marks the scene as a death-site, not a resting place.

Register: Gospel register (plain, direct, warm).

Scribe: Vös tulku (second), New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: Маштонь одъ аля

Erzya Mordvin source text from Образцы мордовской народной словесности, Выпуск 1 (Kazan, 1882). Pre-reform Cyrillic orthography preserved as in the original.

Васоло вирнесэ, вечкема вирнесэ.
Толнэзэ палы иалдынестэ,
Качамнезэ лиси тустынестэ;
Тустынестэ лиси, сэрейнестэ кузи.

5. Толонь чирэсэ ашинe килей, мазынe килей.
Се килеенть ало ашо ябумря, мазы ябунця.
Се ябумиянть ало чавонь одъ цёра, маштонь одъ аля.
Пандо прявъ аштить сонзо пильшензэ,
Пандо алонъ аштn сонзо пріянезэ...

10. Сонзо пря песэнзэ куко кукорды,
Пильге песэнзэ гулька кулдорды,
Седей кургеонзо сянаватъ цёлндить.
Видь кедь песэнзэ цёко цёкорды,
Кершь кедь песэнзэ сезьганъ чикорды.

15. Кукось ульнесь сонзо дирень авазо,
Гулькась ульнесь сонзо дирень тятязо,
Сянавкатне ульнесть сонзо дирень эйдензэ,
Цёкось ульнесь сонзо дирень патязо,
19. Сезьганось ульнесь саень вастазо, душманъ полазо.

Source Colophon

Source text: "Маштонь одъ аля" (The Slain Youth), from Образцы мордовской народной словесности, Выпуск 1 (Kazan, 1882). Erzya original in pre-reform Cyrillic orthography. Public Domain. Digitised text extracted from the DJVU file at archive.org.

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