GREAT RUSSIA	367
the mouth of the Donetz, It would lie in Khaxar territory. Svjatogor
and Samson tend to change roles in the *byliny\ since both are
giants, the one a pagan and the other a Hebrew. The historical
interpreters go so far as to see In Svjatogor a type of the Jewish
Khazar kingdom ('obraz hazarskago carstva', as Keltujala says).
But such identifications are very doubtful, Svjatocor might as
easily be a personification of Mount Athos.
Older critics were inclined to see in these poems an older
stratum of the ebyliny\ since the heroes are only loosely related to
Kiev. IFja inherits some of the mountainous strength of Svjatogor,
and Dobrynja marries Mikula's daughter Xastasja. This view is
now abandoned. There are doubtless old elements in the ballad?,
but they themselves may be comparatively modern. That of Volh
and the Indian Empire must be younger than Djuk, and Svjatogor's
association with IFja comes after that hero's rise. A hero named in
the ballads is Kolyvan, who has the qualities of Svjatogor-Samson.
He is evidently the Esthonian Kalev or Kalev's son, and the name
is derived from Finnish 'kallio' srock, cliff*.
The cycle of Il'ja of Murom, apart from his encounter with
Svjatogor, contains some seven main branches. First comes Ms
cure. For thirty-three years of Ms life he had been unable to walk.
Cured by three pilgrims (as Martyn was cured by St. Gleb and
St. Boris), he took leave of his parents, giving them proofs of Ms
heroic strength. He made three forays against robbers, and then
attacked the great Nightingale, Solovei. In this part of his career
the hero has had the same history as Detlieb. A famous duel is that
he fought against Sokol'nik, or, in other versions, against his own
son; a second he fought against the giant Idolisce, in Tsarigrad
according to the older group of ballads. Unjust treatment at
Vladimir's court caused IFja to withdraw in indignation, but he
fought a tremendous battle against Kalin and the Tatars, when
most of the Russian 'bogatyrs* succumbed. The robber Nightin-
gale was associated with the stream called Smorodina (where there
were place-names Solov'inoe and Devjatidub'e) in, the region of
Chernigov. IFja is clearly not an inhabitant of Kiev, and his
attraction to the Kievite cycle may be a reflection of the close
association of these two cities in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
Dobrynja Nikitic and Aljosa Popovic are two heroes who are
represented as younger than the 'Old Cossack* of Murom, and