Uliger

Uliger is a genre of tales and popular myths of the Mongols, including the Buryats, of northeast Asia, forming an important part of the oral traditions among the Buryats and other Siberian peoples and serving, among other functions, to transmit Buddhist birth stories. Traditionally delivered as oral recitations in alliterative verse, often arranged in couplets or quatrains, uligers were performed by narrators who accompanied themselves on a four-stringed fiddle; one renowned Inner Mongolian performer was said to be able to recite uliger lasting months. The narratives generally feature legends of mythological and historical heroes, with a recurring antagonist called the manggus, a multi-headed monster consistently defeated by the hero, and popular subjects include tales of Genghis Khan, the Epic of King Gesar, and stories derived from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Though rooted in oral tradition dating to at least the fifteenth century, uliger narratives spread westward through Tibetan Buddhist communities, with stories of King Gesar documented as far west as the Caspian Sea after reaching Europe with the Tibetan Buddhist Kalmyk people, and the Epic of King Gesar was eventually printed in woodblock format in 1716 under commission from the Kangxi Emperor.