PRINCE— TROYAN AND BOYAN IN OLD RUSSIAN. 159 



the long-lived minstrel of ancient tales. This hymn, as Dubenski 

 points out, is of untrustworthy character, but in my opinion it em- 

 bodies the tradition of the poet Boyan of the Slovo. (4) Magnus 

 follows W'eltmann's view, that Boyan is a contraction of some such 

 phrase as rece bo Yan " then Yan spake," referring to the Yan men- 

 tioned by Nestor, as an aged man of ninety years, from whom the 

 chronicler learned many legends. It is highly unlikely that so per- 

 sistent a name as Boyan could be the result of such a contraction, 

 as the nature of the particle bo was perfectly well known to chron- 

 iclers and copyists and it is improbable that it could have appeared in 

 a fortuitous contraction without the knowledge even of an unintelli- 

 gent copyist or recorder. Magnus seeks to show that the Yan al- 

 luded to by Nestor was born in the reign of Vladimir I. (1015 A. D.) 

 and that he was a writer and took an active part in all the events of 

 his day. In this way, he thinks, this Yan might well be described 

 as "rushing on the path of Troyan "^" Russia." But surely no 

 person, even in a life-time, no matter how long, could earn the 

 right to be mentioned as covering the entire history of a nation. 

 And yet this is how our Boyan of the Slovo is treated. Further- 

 more, there is no evidence that this Yan, although he was a writer, 

 was a bard of such distinction as our Boyan is claimed to be in the 

 above allusions to him in the Slovo, whose writer evidently regards 

 Boyan as the one great poet of the world. 



The most characteristic point about Boyan is the statement that 

 he was a seer and. above all, a poet-singer, which naturally suggests 

 the derivation of the name from bayat' " speak, relate " (from which 

 we also have basn' fable). This is the opinion of Vyazemski and, 

 I believe, the most reasonable theory in view of the apparent im- 

 possibility of other derivations of the name. Boyan has been vari- 

 ously derived from boiti^vesti bo'i "fight; carry on a fight"; and 

 boyaf'sya "to fear," neither of which roots seem to. agree with the 

 character of Boyan. It is highly probable that the name Boyan 

 was a term deliberately applied to the function of this legendary 

 person rather than a proper name of arbitrary meaning which hap- 

 pened to be the name of a poet. We may assume this to be the case, 

 owing to the undoubted Hellenic influence seen in the Slovo and 



