Mikula Selyaninovich (, Mikula the Villager's Son) is a Russian epic hero, a ''

bogatyr A bogatyr (, ; , ) or vityaz (, ; , ) is a stock character in medieval Bylina, East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant. Bogatyrs appear mainly in Kievan Rus', Rus' epic poems—Bylina, ''bylinas''. Historically, they came i ...

'' -

plowman A plough or ( US) plow (both pronounced ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but modern ploughs are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, ...

, from the

Novgorod Republic The Novgorod Republic () was a medieval state that existed from the 12th to 15th centuries in northern Russia, stretching from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the northern Ural Mountains in the east. Its capital was the city of Novgorod. The ...

bylina A (, ; ), also popularly known as a ''starina'' (), is a type of Russian oral epic poem. deal with all periods of Russian history. narratives are loosely based on historical fact, but greatly embellished with fantasy or hyperbole. or ...

'' cycle. Leonard Arthur Magnus, "The Heroic Ballads of Russia". K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, Limited, 1921, pp. 23-26
pdf on archive.org
/ref>Е.М. Мелетинский (гл. ред.
Мифологический словарь
М.:'Советская энциклопедия', 1990 A common plot trope in bylinas involving Mikula is that another ''bogatyr'' of warrior type turns out to be weaker than Mikula: cannot pull his plow out of the soil, cannot lift his bag, cannot race him, etc., because

Mother Earth Mother Earth may refer to: *The Earth goddess in any of the world's mythologies *Mother goddess *Mother Nature, a common personification of the Earth and its biosphere as the giver and sustainer of life Written media and literature * "Mother Ear ...

loves him.

References

Russian folklore characters Slavic mythology Characters in bylinas {{Europe-myth-stub