Mythology & epics — the steppe's memory carried in speech.

The epic relates that on the day of the Xiongnu defeat the whole clan was put to the sword. Only one child survived; the enemy soldier, unwilling to slay him outright, cut off his feet and cast him into a marsh. A she-wolf found the child. She licked his wounds, fed him on grass, hid him and reared him. When he came of age, the wolf became his mate.

Sensing the enemy would strike again, the wolf bore the youth on her back and fled to a mountain north of the Altai. There she gave birth to ten sons. Their descendants multiplied year by year; each was given a name. One of the wisest took the name Ashina — and that name would become the lineage of the Kök Türk khagans.

The line born of child and wolf worked iron, crossed the mountain, came down onto the steppe and pitched the tent. The name Türk had not yet been heard; yet the epic keeps the first breath of that name hidden in the darkness of this cave.

The Mongol army broke the Türks. The survivors — a handful of people, a few horses, a breeding pair — withdrew into a valley whose mouth was narrow and whose interior was wide. They named it Ergenekon: walls sheer, ceiling closed, a river running through it, the meadow rich — a hidden homeland.

Four hundred years passed. Herds multiplied, tents grew, the valley's edge no longer sufficed. The elders gathered: we must leave, but how? A blacksmith stepped forward. One flank of the mountain was iron ore; it could be melted, a road could be opened. They built seventy bellows and lit seventy hearths. The iron reddened, melted, ran; a gap opened at the foot of the mountain. Following a grey wolf, the Turkic army poured itself through that gap onto the steppe.

That day was the first day of spring. Every year the Türk would celebrate that day — the day iron is struck on the anvil, the hearth is bellowed, the new year is born. Its name is Nevruz.

While still in his mother's womb, Oğuz Khan tarried longer than a month. When he was born, his face was blue, his eyes hazel, his hair black. He suckled his mother once; never again. He asked for raw meat, asked for koumiss. He spoke on the third day, rode a horse at forty.

When he had grown, he prayed to the heavens, and a light came down from heaven; a girl stepped out of that light — eyes of stars, hair of rivers. He married her. He had three sons: Gün (Sun), Ay (Moon), Yıldız (Star). Then on an island in the middle of a lake he saw a tree; inside the trunk a second girl was waiting. He married her too. He had three more sons: Gök (Sky), Dağ (Mountain), Deniz (Sea).

Oğuz Khan summoned his six sons. To the first three — those who came down from heaven — he gave the right arm and called them Bozok: bow and arrow. To the second three — those who came from the earth — he gave the left arm and called them Üçok: three arrows. Each son had four sons. They became twenty-four. The twenty-four Turkic tribes took their names in this way.

The Ashina line multiplied, left the valley, and marched eastward. No mountain rose before them, no river crossed their path — only an endless steppe, and a wolf walking ahead. The wolf was grey-furred, his eyes of fire, his back long. Whichever valley he turned into, the Türk turned too; whichever pass he crossed, the Türk crossed too.

One day the wolf stopped at the top of a hill, turned back to look, and howled. The Turkic khan dismounted and bowed to the earth. The wolf vanished from sight; but the ground opened, the valley beckoned, the tent was pitched. The otağ was pitched there. The standard was raised there. The state was born there.

A wolf's head was sewn onto the standard of the Kök Türk; from that day to this, in the Turkic banner, the wolf opens the road for the wolf.

Dede Korkut is the eminence of the Oğuz. He takes his kopuz in hand, leans against his horse's mane, and begins to recite: the lay of Dirse Khan's son Boğaç Khan, the lay of Bamsı Beyrek, the plundering of Kazan Bey's house, the slaying of Tepegöz by Basat. Twelve lays, twelve nights. Each lay one bey, one battle, one love, one revenge.

The heroes of the lays are not bare: they shoulder their fathers' names, their ancestors' lines. Boğaç Khan breaks the horn of a bull and takes a name at fifteen. Beyrek waits sixteen years in a dungeon for his betrothed Banı Çiçek. When his house is plundered, Kazan Bey returns, mounts his horse, and rides to rescue his wife Burla Hatun and his son Uruz.

At the close of each lay Dede Korkut comes. He tunes his kopuz, speaks the last word: "Let me give a blessing, my khan: may the warrior who comes to this homeland return from this house in safety." A prayer, a prophecy, a seal. The lay ends, the Dede departs.

Manas Khan is the son of the Kyrgyz. When he was born his mother saw a rock split open, a lion roar, an eagle blot out the sky. Manas grew; against China, against the Kalmuk, he gathered the Kyrgyz in their exile. He chose his forty warriors — their names forty birds, forty mountains, forty stars. He mounted his horse, girt his sword, and marched from Talas to the Altai.

The epic does not relate Manas alone. His son Semetey comes, fights, dies. His grandson Seytek comes, avenges Semetey. Three generations, three epics, one chain of verse: half a million lines.

The manaschi knows the epic by heart. He neither reads from a written copy nor recalls and repeats — he sings. With eyes closed, head tilted back, voice trembling, he sings. Days pass before a manaschi finishes the epic. Those who hear it drink a thousand years of Kyrgyz in a single night.

The Bey of Bolu was displeased with the horse his stableman Yusuf had chosen; he had his eyes put out, calling him "blind infidel." Yusuf returned home and said to his son Ruşen Ali: "Your name from this day shall be Köroğlu — son of the blind." He left his son a mare: skinny, thin-flanked, fearful of look. "Feed her for forty days in a stable where no light comes in. On the fortieth a star will rise."

Köroğlu did as he was told. The mare became a Kırat — running as if it flew, leaping as if winged. Köroğlu mounted Kırat, climbed up to Çamlıbel. The braves gathered: Demircioğlu, Ayvaz, Kenan, Bey Böyrek. Köroğlu held not the sword but the word as his weapon: what he took he gave to the poor, whom he struck he struck the tyrant. He loved Nigâr Hanım, carried her off, made her his own.

Köroğlu came forth as defiance, came forth as song. "Take my greeting to the Bey of Bolu" — the most-sung opening line of all Anatolia. Every âşık who takes the saz in hand today still follows after him.