Tales About the Everyday Life of the Mongolians

Many of the Mongolian tales describe the hardship and the problems the Mongolian nomads are faced with in everyday life. In contasrt the tales themselves are often very funny. The relationship between the "simple" people and the Mongolian khans, den Mongolian princes, plays an important role in these tales.

Especially since the Manchurians conquered Mongolia in the late 17th century the khans are shown as greedy and cruel. The tales do reflect the actual circumstances of life in that time. While the khans lived in luxury by getting into debt to Chinese merchants, the simple people had to pay for it. Literally. Of course, the Manchurian government used this situation to keep the Mongolian khans under control.

The tales often describe a greedy but dumb khan or a rich stockbreeder who are then tricked or defeated by a simple man, a classical underdog. The Mongolian underdog is the wandering lama, the badarcin. He's kind of a mixture between Robin Hood and Eulenspiegel using his cunning to help the poor.

The Khaan And the Badarcin

or why you should be careful making promises

The Three Eggs

or how a simple shepherd turns out to be more clever than the khaan and his counsellors

Did the Khan Have a Head?

or what you can overlook

I plan, I hope to add more tales in the near future to this section.