Shulgen is the elder son of Yanbirde and Yanbike and the dark foil to his brother Ural. Swayed by envy and by the counsel of the divs, he tastes the blood his parents forbade, throws in his lot with the demon-king Azraka and the serpent Kahkaha, and takes the moon-maiden Ayhylu to wife. Where Ural strives to end death, Shulgen looses waters and divs upon the world. Overthrown, he plunges into the deep lake that carries his name and becomes lord of the beings beneath it. Bashkir tradition links him to the real Lake Shulgan and the Shulgan-Tash (Kapova) cave in the southern Urals, whose depths were imagined as the entrance to his watery realm.