Barshyn, often called Gulbarchin, is the heroine and wife of Alpamys in the Karakalpak epic Alpamıs. Betrothed to the hero from birth, she is separated from him when her father Baysari removes his clan into Kalmyk territory after a quarrel. Through the long years of Alpamys's imprisonment she remains faithful, deferring and resisting the usurper Ultan's demand that she wed him, until the hero's disguised return restores their union. Her constancy makes her a byword for wifely fidelity in the Central Asian epic tradition, a counterpart to the patient wife of the returning-hero pattern.