𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕒𝕝𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕂𝕦𝕓𝕒𝕚 𝕂𝕠

In the tale, the hero Komdei-Mirgän, while on a fox hunt, encounters a fox disguised as Erlik Khan's ("Erlik" possibly meaning "the mighty one," from the Old Turkic term "Erklig" . İt also may be derived from the root "Er/Yer." It is associated with person, power, and underground) daughter, resulting in injury.

When the hero is disabled, the nine-headed Jelbägän ("Jelbägän" or "Yelbägän" is a compound of the words "Yel," meaning "spirit, soul," and "Büke," meaning "strong, powerful."), riding a forty-horned ox, cuts off his head and takes him to the underworld.

The hero's sister, Kubai Ko, embarks on a quest to retrieve his head, tracing Jelbägän's path to Erlik Khan's realm, located in the ninth floor of the abode of the dead, accessed through a cavernous entrance. Erlik Khan, often depicted as an elderly figure with a dark beard, rules this somber domain. Along her journey, Kubai Ko encounters various eerie phenomena, witnessing tormented souls enduring punishments corresponding to their earthly misdeeds. Eventually, she arrives at the riverbank where Erlik's stone house, adorned with forty gables, stands amidst nine larch trees stemming from a single root.

Erlik's horses are tied to the larches, and Kubai Ko also ties up her horse here and enters the house. She feels herself seized and tormented by invisible hands, while her clothes are torn to rags.

When Erlik appears, he ignores her and refuses to speak to her, but Kubai Ko eventually enters a room where eight princes of death are seated, with Erlik Khan himself among them. Kubai Ko bows low and asks why their servant Jelbägän has cut off and carried away her brother's head.

The princes reply that Jelbägän has acted under their orders, but they promise to give her back the head if she can pull a goat out of the earth which is buried up to its horns. Kubai Ko accepts the ordeal and succeeds in exhuming the goat, retrieving her brother's head among nine rooms filled with human heads.

She returns to the surface, restores her brother's head to his body, and sits down beside him to lament. However, Kudai takes pity on her tears and sends the water of life, restoring the hero's health and strength after she sprinkles it three times on his lips.