Motif of the transformations in Kalmyk fairy tales of the plot type “magic flight” (ATU 313)

In the oral tradition of the Kalmyks, fairy tales of the plot type “Magic Flight” (ATU 313) have a national development and cases of borrowing. The ethnic feature of the fairy tale “Akh du khoir khulgn” (“Mouse Brothers”) is that it features the mythical bird Khan Garuda, which turns into a man when wearing a hat, mittens and socks. This image seems to be layered on the cult of the eagle of the peoples of Southern Siberia and Central Asia. In the fairy tale “Ivan Tsarevich gidg kovuna tuul” (“The Tale of a young man named Ivan Tsarevich”), borrowed from the Russian oral tradition, the hero also nurses the Khan Garuda bird, not the eagle. The reincarnated (in a girl, a horse, a lama-priest) grateful fox in the fairy tale “Akh du khoir khulgn” (“Mouse Brothers”) the narrator calls “arat-morn” -a fox-horse, “arat-kuukn” a fox-girl, pointing to a new image and its original essence. The transformation of the hero of the fairy tale “Usn Khadyn Khan” (“Lord of the masters of the water”) is due to the wonderful abilities of the girl when escaping from the underwater world. The hero of the fair tale “Gorvn kuukta emgn ovgn khoir” (“An old man and an old woman wit three daughters”), the youngest of the brothers, turns into a gray sparrow. The representative of the antagonist, the messenger of the lord of the masters of water, in the fairy tale “Usn Khadyn Khan” (“Lord of the masters of the water”), takes the form of a human from the lungs and liver floating in the water. The fairy tales “Gorvn kuukta emgn ovgn khoir” (“An old man and an old woman with three daughters”) and “Egch-du gurvn” (“Three Sisters”) develop a motif for the transformation of the things that the heroes get from their parents. Magic things transform the space, create obstacles in the path of the pursuer: a mountain and a forest. The river becomes insurmountable for the antagonist, which in the traditional worldview of the Kalmyks is represented by the boundary of the worlds. Thus, the motif of transformation into fairy tales of the plot type “Magic Flight” is plot-forming and is realized in various forms. Flight and pursuit in the considered fairy tales represent the return of the hero from another world to the world of the living.