“Its eyes are sparkling;
it is chewing the bits;
the foam is dripping from its mouth;
If it races, it will fly up in the air.”
The winged horse Akbuzat has a mild grey tint, copper eyes, the chest of a falcon and nostrils like garlic cloves. It can change the earth’s surface: the horse creates the Ural Mountains and can reduce any sea to the size of a horse eye. The wings of Akbuzat can whip up a storm that destroys mountains and turns everything upside down.
The capture and taming of the steed is a common plot in various myths. The Bashkir epic hero Ural-Batyr manages to tame Akbuzat on a third attempt and gets the most loyal companion in the horse. In the future,
to call the horse, one has to burn three strays of its mane. In the later myths, Ural-Batyr’s descendant, Hauban, takes a trip to the evil Shulgen’s underwater kingdom to find Akbuzat once again and obtain the diamond sword to gain power that would make him invincible.
Akbuzat (Bashkir: Аҡбуҙат, from аҡбуҙ "blue-grey" and ат "horse") is the most famous kubair (epic poem) of the Bashkirs. It shows similarity to other epics (notably the story of Pegasus).
The main hero of the epic poem Akbuzat is Hauban. He travels to the underwater kingdom Shulgen to search for the сurly horse Akbuzat and the diamond sword Ural-batyr. He destroys the kingdom, frees Akbuzat, and returns to liberate his people from slavery under Khan Masim.