The Center for Central Asian Literatures in Translation

Once upon a time, a young man learnt magic and resolved to go walkabout.  He realised that he needed a fine, lithe and constant horse.  He searched among the horses of Mongolia but was unable to find the sort of horse he was looking for.  One day, a smart idea came to him, he took his horsehead fiddle and played its melodies in the horse market.  Not all people are alike, not all horses are amblers.  Some dozed off as though they couldn't hear the fiddle's song, others neighed distractedly, and it was those whom the young man took to one side.  He played and he played.  One day, they say, he went to play in the great horse market, and there was a fine horse, mottled white and grey, gently gently pawing the ground with his four hooves.  As the young man came close, the horse kept its distance.  He played and he played.  Three days and three nights he played.  The third night passed and, as the pale dawn spread its light, wings like a swan's fanned out from the top of the horse's legs, and then folded back once again.  For three more days and nights the young man played and three times he brought the mottled white and grey horse soaring and flying back to him.  But how could he take this freewheeling colt away from the winds of this pristine wilderness?  The young man had played his fiddle for three months and now, rising up, he returned home from the horse market.  He followed along three low ridges and the mottled white and grey horse came with him, whinnying as it flew alongside.  This is what they say.

The young man was riding the flying horse, mottled white and grey.  He had learnt magic and now returned to his homeland.  Why was that?

"The magic of the pliant tunes of the horsehead fiddle surpassed the horse's magic.  The fiddle's melody brought forth the horse's wings, brought it under control, it rescued this unequalled mount from far away."  And this is how the horsehead fiddle spread across Mongolia.