Nart saga
The
Nart sagas are a series of tales originating from the
Caucasus Mountains. They form the basic mythology of the tribes in the area; some are simply stories, but some have value as creation myths and ancient theology.
The
Abkhaz,
Circassians,
Ossetians and the
Ubykh all have versions of the Nart sagas.
The Narts themselves are a race of
giants. Some of the characters who feature prominently in the sagas are:
*
Sosruko (
Ubykh and
Abkhaz ,
Ossetian soslan and
Russian sasrykva), a
trickster figure;
*
Satanaya (Ubykh
,
Adyghe , Ossetian
satana), the mother of the Narts, a
fertility figure and matriarch;
*
Tlepsh (
Abaza ), a blacksmith;
*
Syrdon, a figure compared by
Georges Dumezil to the
Norse Loki;
* Baoutch (Adyghe
).
Some motifs in the Nart sagas are shared by Greek mythology. The story of
Prometheus chained to
Mount Kazbek in particular is similar to an element in the Nart sagas. These shared motifs are seen by some as indicative of an earlier proximity of the
Caucasian peoples to the ancient Greeks, also shown in the myth of the
Golden Fleece, in which
Colchis is generally accepted to have been part of modern-day
Georgia or
Abkhazia.
Additionally, the philologist
Georges Dumézil used the division of the Narts into three clans to support his
Trifunctional Hypothesis that the
Proto-Indo-Europeans were similarly divided into three castesâ€"warriors, priests, and commoners. (Implicit in this argument is the assumption that this aspect of the Nart sagas was derived from the Ossetians, as the other peoples among whom the sagas are shared are non-Indo-European.)
In the book
From Scythia to Camelot, authors C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor speculate that many aspects of the
Arthurian legends are derived from the Nart sagas. The proposed vector of transmission is the
Alansâ€"the ancestors of the Ossetiansâ€"some of whom migrated into northern
France at around the time the Arthurian legends were forming.
See also:
*
Epic poetry*
Norse Saga*
A site explaining some of the basics behind each of the most prominent of the Narts*
Nart sagas told by Elena Kournikova-Tskhuyrbaty.*
Three Nart cycles in the Bzedugh dialect of Adyghe*
Ossetic texts of Nartic Legends with English translation*
Nart Sagas, translated from Ossetian into Russian by Yu. Libedinskii
