Balagan: Yakut horror story

Balagan: Yakut horror story

Epos of the ancient yakut is great and splendid, but legends and traditions are eerie and real.

The story that I want to tell you happened many-many years ago, when our forebears lived in balagans. At that time people believed in evils and wicked spirits, that’s why they had to give muddled names to their children to screw the wicked spirits.

In faraway valley there lived one rich family in old balagan. As usual, the family consists of 3 daughters and 4 sons. In summer the parents had to go to haying and children stayed home.

Once in a hot day the elder children went to swim on a river, but the little sister didn’t want to leave the slightly cold balagan. She played with her wooden dolls, and all of a sudden unknown voice called her from kamaelyuek (an ancient furnace of yakut). The little girl was frightened with horror and didn’t answer. Then one little dirty girl appeared from the back of the kamaelyuek (it was Tchyuetchyuekke, a little girl who kidnaped children) and started to play with the girl’s dolls.

Nyurguyana (it is the name of the little girl) asked her: “Are you going to eat me?” The wicked spirit answered: “If you tell me your real name I won’t eat you”. Nyurguyana believed in her and told her real name.

After an hour or so the elder children came back, but there were something strange about Nyurguyana’s behavior: she had an odd smile. The average sister asked her what was the matter. The little girl said: “Look at that beautiful birch! Let’s go!” and they went to the forest.

Then Nyurguyana started to invite her brothers and sister to the forest. But the elder brother Bootur didn’t go with them. After some time he started to seek his brothers and sisters. But he found his little sister and she was sitting on the roof of balagan.

“What are you doing here?? How did you get there?” – asked he and rose into the roof. When he got the roof, he found out that there was nobody. He stood there in perplexity. Then Bootur saw his sister standing at the land and glaring at him. These eyes didn’t belong to his sister. Bootur took fright and understood that it isn’t Nyuruyana and ran away.

When the parents came from haying, their children were waiting for them round the table. Also they were seeing on one way. It called some suspicious on parents and they started to call the children by their names.

“Maaya” – called the mother, and Maaya replyed, but her real name was Aanyska, it always muddled the spirits up.

“Uigulaana!” – said mother, and Uigulaana answered, but she was Sargy. The parents called all their children by their muddled names, and they found out that their children were muddled by the wicked spirits. Parents started to pray aiyy for their children were fine. At that time serge that was in front of their balagan fell with heavy noise. The father remembered that the place where they live was the place of great tragedy that happened 30 years ago and told his wife: “One family lived there before us. They had 6 children. Once the man came back from hunting and brought a bearskin. When the parents woke up, they found out that their children were killed and cut in pieces on the floor by bear. The wife cried, shouted and then became insane. After that she drowned in the river at all. The man went to kill the bear, but unfortunately, he didn’t find it and he died from a great sorrow. They say that the soul of that man is seeking the bear, which destroyed his family”.

At this moment Bootur came with the neighbors from the nearest valleys. The parents immediately brought necessary things and their children, who were reviving. Then the family left that dreadful place.

That balagan stands still, but everyone tries to avoid that place. And also they fear to burn or ruin the balagan, it is too dangerous. If someone passes by the balagan they will hear woman’s cry or man’s shout…