Dove Book

In a series of answers to those riddles, King David explains the origin of light, sun, moon, and social classes.

"The Dove Book" falls from Alatyr, the "burning white stone on the Island of Buyan", the heathen paradise, which lies far towards sunrise, in the "Ocean Sea".

A great deal of curious information is conveyed - all very poetically expressed - including some odd facts in natural history, such as: that the Straphyl is the mother of birds, and that she lives, feeds, and rears her young on the blue sea, drowning mariners and sinking ships.

[5] Several major Russian poets and artists of the early 20th century (such as Nicholas Roerich and Andrey Bely) were inspired by the Dove-Book.

The Russian Orthodox Church had it banned as a heretical mixture of apocryphal Christian tales with pagan lore.