Масторонь кирди калтъ — from the 1882 Collection
The Erzya Mordvins of the middle Volga region preserved one of the richest cosmological traditions in the Uralic world. At the center of their picture of the earth stood a myth shared across much of Siberia and northern Eurasia: the world rests not on solid ground but on living creatures swimming in the primordial waters. Among the Erzya, these creatures are three white fish in the deepest place of the great water. They are not gods but servants — the hinges of the world, the last weight that keeps things in place.
This short 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). The collection presents each text in the Erzya original — written in Cyrillic script, pre-reform orthography — alongside a Russian translation. The cosmological songs in this collection (Songs XIII, XXI, XXVI) represent the closest surviving approximations of the Erzya sacred worldview before mass Christianization.
The song opens with a question in the old catechetical form: "What holds the land? What keeps the land?" The answer is brief and certain. The fish are in the great water. They are in the deepest place. And then — without explanation, without cause stated — the fish turns its tail. And when the fish turns, the world overturns. Years change. Customs change. The right order reverses: girls go out to plow the fields; young men sit at home. The fish does not act out of malice or purpose. It simply moves. That is enough.
The song belongs to a pan-Uralic family of world-fish and world-upholder myths. The Khanty and Mansi know the mammoth-tusked creature that holds the earth on its back. The Nenets know the Ngaa beneath the sea. The Erzya version has its own character: the fish are plural (three), they are white, they are passive — they hold without willing, and they disturb without knowing. The reversal they cause is social rather than cosmic: it is not mountains that fall, not rivers that run backward, but the daily human order that inverts. A quiet catastrophe.
XIII. The Three Fish that Hold the Land
What holds the land?
What keeps the land?
Three fish hold the land:
Three fish, white fish.
Where, where are these fish?
In the great water, in the vast water —
In the very deepest place.
The fish swung its tail —
The years turned not as they were,
The customs turned not as they were:
Girls sit at home,
Young men sit at home.
Girls go out to serve,
Young men sit at home.
Girls go out to plow,
Young men sit at home.
Colophon
Translated by the Uralic Deep Translator tulku (New Tianmu Anglican Church), March 2026.
Source language: Erzya Mordvin (эрзянь кель), Cyrillic script, pre-reform orthography (1882).
Translation method: Translated from the Erzya Mordvin original text. The contemporaneous Russian translation included in the same volume was consulted as a reference bridge to verify lexical interpretation. The English is independently rendered from the Erzya. Key Erzya terms consulted: масторонь (land, earth, GEN), кирди (holders, from кирдемс = to hold), калтъ (fish, PL), ведсэ (in water, INESSIVE), пулосонзо (its tail, 3SG POSSESSIVE), тейтертне (the girls), дёратне (the young men), аштить (they sit), молить (they go).
Source: Образцы мордовской народной словесности. Выпуск 1: Пѣсни на Эрзянскомъ и нѣкоторыя на Мокшанскомъ нарѣчіи (Samples of Mordovian Folk Literature, Vol. 1: Songs in the Erzyan and Some in the Moksha Dialect). Kazan: Orthodox Missionary Society, 1882. Archive.org identifier: vyp_1_obraztcy_mordovskoi_narodnoi_slovesnosti__pesni_na_erzianskom_i_nekotorye_. Public domain.
No prior English translation known. The 1882 collection has never been translated into English. Song XIII is one of three cosmological songs in the collection (alongside Songs XXI and XXVI, which are translated separately).
The world-fish in Erzya cosmology: The image of the earth supported by fish in deep water is attested across Siberia and the Uralic belt — among the Ob-Ugrians (Khanty, Mansi), Nenets, Nganasan, and several Turkic peoples of the steppe. In the Erzya version the fish are three and white (ащинe), which connects them to the broader Erzya sacred color-symbolism in which white (ашo) marks purity and divine connection. The social inversion caused by the fish's tail-movement is a standard folkloric motif for the disruption of right order — here deployed specifically to mark the overturning of gender roles, which in Erzya folk consciousness represented the most visible sign that the world had gone wrong.
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Source Text
Erzya Original — Song XIII (Масторонь кирди калтъ)
Source: Образцы мордовской народной словесности. Выпуск 1 (Kazan: Orthodox Missionary Society, 1882). Archive.org identifier: vyp_1_obraztcy_mordovskoi_narodnoi_slovesnosti__pesni_na_erzianskom_i_nekotorye_. OCR moderate quality; pre-reform Cyrillic orthography preserved.
XIII. Масторонь кирди калтъ.
Мезе масторонь кирдсазо?
Мезе масторонь ваысазо?
Масторонь кирдсызь крдмо калтт:
Колминe калнэть, ащинe калтъ.
5. Косо, косо нe калтвэ?
Ине ведсэ, покшъ ведсэ:
Самой сэрей вдркассі.
Калось чаравсь пулосонзо, —
Іетне велявсть а истя,
10. Койтне велявсть а истя:
Тейтертне аштить кудосо,
Дёратне аштить кудосо.
Тейтертне молить службанр кисъ,
Дёратне аштить кудосо.
15. Тейтертне молить сокамч,
16. Дёратне аштить кудосо...
Russian Translation (1882, same volume)
XIII. Землю держащія рыбы.
Что держитъ землю?
Что хранитъ землю?
Землю держатъ три рыбы:
Три рыбицы, бѣленькія рыбы.
5. Гдѣ, гдѣ эти рыбы?
Въ великой водѣ, въ большой водѣ:
Въ самомъ глубокомъ мѣстѣ.
Повела рыба-то хвостомъ, —
Стали года-то не такъ,
10. Стали обычаи-то не такъ:
Дѣвки-то сидятъ дома,
И парни-то сидятъ дома.
Дѣвки-то идутъ на службу,
А парни-то дома сидятъ.
Дѣвки-то идутъ пахать,
А парни-то дома сидятъ.
Source Colophon
The Erzya and Russian texts are from the 1882 first volume of Образцы мордовской народной словесности, published by the Orthodox Missionary Society of Kazan. The collection was prepared by Orthodox missionaries and represents one of the earliest systematic recordings of Erzya oral literature. The bilingual format (Erzya original + Russian translation) was a feature of the missionary publishing program, intended both for scholarly use and for Russian administrative audiences. The archive.org digitization (identifier above) preserves the original Cyrillic with moderate OCR quality. Pre-reform orthographic features preserved in the source text include ѣ (yat), ъ as grammatical letters, and і for и in some positions.
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