Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon

Also Known As: Russian transcription Алып Хара Аат Могойдоон; called Aat Mogoidoon in the speech headings of the epic and Alyp Khara in its narration
Region/Culture: Northern Asia/Siberia
Mythos: Siberian/Arctic Peoples’ Mythologies
Primary Type/Nature: Monsters and Beasts
Mythical Attributes: He is an iron-bodied abaasy giant with three heads, six arms and six legs, whose roar is enough to make the warriors around him bring up their food.
Role in Mythos: He is the lord of an underworld chasm in the ninth song of Platon Oyunsky’s olonkho Nyurgun Bootur the Swift, where he seizes the warrior maiden Kyys Nyurgun and is killed by Nyurgun Bootur and Khaan Dyargystai.
Relation to Humans: He belongs to the abaasy, the man-eating beings of the Sakha lower world, and he treats the heroes of the Middle World as rivals to be sized up and beaten. His one tie to the world above is his claim on Kyys Nyurgun, a maiden he says he will yield to no Nyurgun.

Nobody in the chasm keeps their dinner down when Alyp Khara loses his temper. The warriors of the upper and lower worlds have crowded into his hall to argue, and when the master of the place bellows at them, the food they have eaten comes back up out of their mouths. He sits among them on a seat built to take his weight, an iron trunk with three heads writhing on top of it and six arms and six legs working below. It is not a court anyone would choose to attend. They came anyway.

He lives, as far as the record goes, in one place only: the ninth song of *Nyurgun Bootur the Swift*, the great Sakha olonkho that the Yakut poet and scholar Platon Oyunsky composed between 1930 and 1937 from the heroic songs of his people and that was not published in full until 1959 and 1960. Oyunsky’s giant is named twice over. The headings of his speeches call him Aat Mogoidoon; the narration calls him Alyp Khara. In English he is usually met in a single sentence, credited to the folklorist Arthur Hatto, which makes him the chief of the abaasy and gives him the same three heads, six arms, six legs and body of iron. Nothing more than that circulates about him, and nothing in it goes beyond Oyunsky’s song.

The abaasy are the monsters of the Sakha lower world, man-eaters who in the olonkho carry off girls, devour cattle and wreck the country of the aiyy, the bright people of the heroes. Alyp Khara is the abaasy at full size. The song calls him the spirit-lord of the chasm, and his body is less a body than an arsenal. Each of his six hands does duty as an axe, a sword or a grappling hook. His legs are iron hooks and hoofed props. The three heads writhe. Oyunsky gives him no parents, no birth and no age. He simply is there, at the bottom of the pit, when the story arrives.

The story arrives by a hard road. Nyurgun Bootur, the swift hero of the Middle World, has gone looking for the warrior maiden Kyys Nyurgun as a bride, and his black horse warns him of a cursed crossing and rivers of burning pitch between him and the chasm. He makes himself into a ringing steel spear and hurls himself across the tar. On the far side he shrinks to a bee the size of a sack and slips in to listen.

What he hears is a giant taking a census of other people’s families. Alyp Khara calls the assembled champions forward one by one and asks each whether his famous line has ever produced a warrior of real strength. He tells them to answer truthfully, and warns that if he strikes any one of them, the man’s liver will burst inside him. They swear oaths and curse themselves in advance if they lie. When he turns on the monstrous Mengurur Bogo he is merciless, praising the mother and sneering at the crooked brood she bore. Then three of the abaasy give him the answer he did not want: the only hero anyone talks about is Nyurgun Bootur of the Middle World, riding his black horse. The giant turns away, slaps his knee and laughs.

He has a boast of his own ready. There is a daring warrior girl, he tells them, Kyys Nyurgun, who fights with no one but him. Every three years they meet and battle for thirty days, and there are times when even he is thrown to the ground. The abaasy slap their knees in wonder, then shake their heads. They do not believe a word of it.

So he swears. If he is lying, he says, let the notched drum of Khoro knock him flat on his face. The answer comes from above. A shining spear drops out of the sky and strikes the ground among them with thunder and lightning, and Kyys Nyurgun stands there in her own form, weeping. The abaasy scream and scatter into the corners of the lair. Alyp Khara does not run. He wraps her in all six arms, locks her in with all six legs, and sniffs and kisses her with three heads at once, declaring that he will yield her to no Nyurgun and never let her out of his sight.

It is the wrong thing to say with Nyurgun listening. Outside, the hero finds his ally Khaan Dyargystai sinking in a black swamp of fire, bound in ninety loops of a magic lasso, surfacing and going under and singing his own lament. With help from his sister, the shamaness Aiyy Umsuur, Nyurgun cuts the rope called Ap-Charai with a stroke of a heavenly whip. Then the two heroes go in together.

Alyp Khara fights the way he is built. He shoves them off with six enormous fists, kicks with six legs and gives ground slowly. His strength is real, and it takes two heroes to match it. His weakness is just as plain. He has three heads, and a head can be cut off. Nyurgun takes the first one clean away while it is still writhing. The heroes finish the other two, set the heads on stakes in the pit, hack the limbs apart, crush the trunk and throw what is left into the fire below. Then they pull down his thirty-chambered lair and scatter it.

That is the whole of him. The song never says how he came to rule the chasm, how old he was, or how his fights with Kyys Nyurgun began, and the maiden herself never confirms that they happened at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon?

Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon is an abaasy giant from the Sakha (Yakut) heroic epic *Nyurgun Bootur the Swift*. He rules a chasm in the lower world and has an iron body with three heads, six arms and six legs. He appears in the ninth song of the epic.

Where does Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon come from?

He comes from Platon Oyunsky’s olonkho *Nyurgun Bootur the Swift*, composed between 1930 and 1937 from traditional Sakha epic songs. His speeches are headed Aat Mogoidoon and the narration calls him Alyp Khara. The epic gives him no parents or origin story.

What does Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon do in the story?

He questions the champions gathered in his hall about the heroes of their families, grows angry when they name Nyurgun Bootur, and boasts that the warrior maiden Kyys Nyurgun fights only with him. When she appears among them, he seizes her with his six arms and six legs and refuses to give her up to any Nyurgun.

How is Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon killed?

Nyurgun Bootur and Khaan Dyargystai attack him together after Nyurgun frees Khaan Dyargystai from a fiery swamp. Nyurgun cuts off one of the giant’s three heads, the heroes cut off the other two and set them on stakes, and the rest of his body is dismembered and thrown into the fire. They also destroy his thirty-chambered lair.

What are the abaasy?

The abaasy are the man-eating monsters of the Sakha lower world who, in the olonkho epics, carry off girls, devour cattle and ruin the land of the aiyy. Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon is the abaasy lord of a lower-world chasm in *Nyurgun Bootur the Swift*.