Alpamys is the hero of the heroic epic Alpamıs, one of the core dastans of the Karakalpak jıraw repertoire and shared across the Turkic peoples of Central Asia; the earliest recorded version was taken down by A. A. Divaev in 1896 from a Karakalpak singer. The narrative falls into two movements: a bride-winning expedition, in which Alpamys claims Barchin (Gulbarchin) to whom he was betrothed from birth, and a return story, in which he is imprisoned by the Kalmyk khan, escapes after long captivity, and comes home in disguise to overthrow the usurper Ultan and reclaim his wife. The recognition of the hero by the bow only he can bend has invited long comparison with the return of Odysseus.