Out of Bashkortostan comes a medieval (13th c.) legend about a hero named Ural or Ural-batyr (or batir/batur/batyr means ‘brave man’). He sacrificed his life for the sake of his people and they poured a stone pile over his grave which later turned into the Ural Mountains (Source: Ural (geographical)”. Great Soviet Encyclopedia.).
Based on the Turkic and, to some extent, Semitic folk song traditions, the folk epic poem narrates the story of the heroic deeds of Ural-batyr. Born to an elderly couple (Yanbike and Yanbirðe), Ural evinces from his very infancy all the features of a legendary hero, such as unflinching courage, honesty, kindheartedness, empathy, and great physical strength. Unlike his cunning and treacherous brother Shulgan (see Sulgan-tash), Ural is an eager enemy of the evil and of Death which personifies it. Having matured, Ural sets out on the quest for Death, with the desire to find and destroy Him. On his way, he meets with various people and legendary creatures and is often deferred by long adventures; in all cases, his actions serve to save lives or quell the evil. Riding his winged stallion Akbuthat, he saves young men and women prepared for sacrifice by the tyrannical Shah Katil from imminent death, tames a wild bull, destroys an immense number of devs, marries the legendary Humai (or Homai), a swan-maiden, and finally smites the chief dev Azraka, whose dead body is said to have formed Mount Yaman-tau in the South Urals. Ural-batyr perishes in his final grapple with the devs, as he is forced to drink up a whole lake where they had hidden from him, but he leaves his sons to continue his initiative.
“In my ranging though the whole world,
In my wandering around it.
‘Tis Death-Evil I am after,
It is Death I strive to finish,
And because I do not fear it,
I do not fear monstrous customs.
Death may come to any live thing,
Lay His hand on any creature,
Be it human being or fledgeling,
But I will not stand by idly,
Watching Life unjustly taken,
Though before it at my leisure
I can form my own opinion
Through the lore of local customs.” — Ural-batur