I have gone right into the heart of “Holy Russia,” to Kiev and Novgorod and the borders of the Caspian, in an endeavour to show by means of some of the early legends the ideals and point of view of the Russian nation while it was in the process of being made. The stories of the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod tell of a barbaric, though not a barbarian, world, full of high colour and spirited action, of the knock-down blow followed quickly by the hand of friendship freely extended to pick up the fallen foeman—if indeed he has had the hardihood to survive.

The land of Vladimir and Ilya of Murom the Old Cossáck is a Christian