Until the mid-20th century, almost no one in the scholarly world doubted that the Nart epic was fundamentally Ossetian, and that it was brought to the Caucasus by Scytho-Alan tribes, and that its existence by the neighbouring Caucasian peoples was a consequence of cultural borrowing, which culminated in the formation of national versions of the Nart epic by Adyghs and Abkhazians.
Among others, this point of view was suggested and defended by outstanding scholars of the 20th century, V. I. Abaev and, especially, G. Dumézil. I cannot name anyone who would have reached their scholarly level, who would have eclipsed their authority with his works on the mythology and folklore of the peoples of the Caucasus. According to Abaev, “in the field of study of the Caucasian languages and peoples in Turkey no one had such merits as Dumézil” (Abaev apud Dumézil 1976: 271f.), and it was just through this research that he became interested in the Ossetian epic and was engaged in it throughout his scholarly activity.
In the middle of the 20th century, when the knowledge of scholars about the national versions of the Nart epic began to be enriched with new legends and the Adyghe and Abkhazian centres of the formation of the epic were recognized, a common point of view at the Sukhumi Nartological conference was found. According to it, the Nart epic is “a single Pan-Caucasian monument of ancient epic poetry”, and “the historical roots uniting the Nart stories of all national versions should be sought in the main factors of Caucasian commonality, such as: genetic kinship of the peoples of the Caucasus, the role of a common substratum, similar conditions of material social existence, close spiritual communication between these peoples during their long historical development” (Petrosyan 1969: 8).
However, having considered this insufficient, some of our colleagues (A. M. Gadagatl, Z. Y. and M. A. Kumakhovs and others) went further, trying to prove that the creators of the epic about the Narts were only the ancestors of the Adyghes, and that the Adyghe culture is the most ancient (Petrosyan 1969: 9). In a word, the Scythian-Sarmatian roots of the epic are denied, and it is claimed that the epic is the brainchild of the Caucasian peoples, and Alans-Ossetians as an alien element only adopted it from their neighbours.
Is it really so or is G. Dumézil right? Dumézil, whose conclusion on this issue sounds like a verdict: “C’est chez les Ossètes, et sans doute déjà en partie chez leurs lointains ancêtres, que le noyau de l’épopée, ses principaux personnages, se sont formés. Je sais, en publiant ce jugement, que je peine mes amis tcherkesses et abkhaz, mais magis amica ueritas: en son fond, l’épopée narte est ossète” (Dumézil 1986: 453). This conclusion was not met with serious objections among Nartologists. Moreover, it is supported by a number of other Western scholars: H. W. Bailey, G. Charachidzé, J. Grisward, A. Christol, Ch. Vielle and others.
It is known that an epic, being an oral folk art, cannot fully copy the historical reality. Millennia have passed since the real existence of the ancient world, and therefore, naturally, only ruins and separate fragments of that remote epoch have reached our days. In some cases, these relics remain silent witnesses of past epochs, while in others, with the help of linguistic or folklore sources, they are revived and made to speak by historians. The Scytho-Sarmatian world, chronologically distant from the modern era by almost three thousand years, certainly belongs to the latter case. It was in the Nart epic that much of what ancient authors wrote about the life and manners of the Scythians was mirrored.
Scytho-Ossetian ethno-cultural parallels are a very broad topic. In this paper it is narrowed down to the Scytho-Nartian parallels. It has long been established that the Scythians are ethnogenetic ancestors of the Ossetians. This discovery was made with the help and mediation of two crucial components: language and epic. The importance of language, the crucial ethnic factor, is extremely great. But in this particular case we are interested only in the Nart epic of Ossetians. There is a solid literature about its enduring significance. We can safely say that if our people had not had this pearl of folk art, perhaps the question of ethnogenesis of Ossetians would still be debatable. The images, motifs and plots of the Ossetian folk epic about the Nart heroes echo legends and customs of the Scythians and, therefore, not only the language but also the epic connects Ossetians with the Scythian-Sarmatian world. By the medium of talented storytellers who had phenomenal memory, people transmitted their heroic legends throughout years and centuries up to and including the beginning of the 20th century. They were passed on to the ancestors of Ossetians from the Sarmatians, and the Sarmatians took them from the Scythians. One cannot but agree with G. Dumézil when he writes: “The customs of Scytho-Sarmatians described by Herodotus and the manners attributed to Ossetian Narts in the legends coincide in many features with convincing accuracy” (Dumézil 1976: 8f.). Thus, both in the language and in the epic the Sarmato-Alanian and Scythian strata do not differ much from each other. Miller’s famous saying should be understood in this sense: “Whether we take a Sarmatian (Scythian) of Herodotus’ time, an Alanian of Ammianus Marcellinus’ time or an Ossetian of the recent past, all of them have familiar features” (Miller 1882a: 196).
The literature about the ethnographic parallels between the Iranian world and the Nart epic has recently been enriched by new works. Among them, Dumézil’s books Mythe et epopée (1968) and Romans de Scythie et d’alentour (1978) should be singled out. Of great scholarly interest is Ch. Vielle’s work Le mytho-cycle héroïque dans l’aire indo-européenne. Correspondances et transformations helléno-aryennes (1996). New studies of the national authors (Ju. S. Gagloiti, E. B. Sattsaev, A. A. Twallagov, A. V. Darchiev) have been published. Besides, solid monographs by West-European scholars (H. Reid, Sc. Littleton and L. Malcore) have appeared, testifying to the wide spread of the Nart epic in Western Europe and the influence it had on the formation of legends about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The current paper aims at providing a generalized, concentrated look at the parallels from the Nart epic to the Scythians, and through them to European, Iranian and Indo-Iranian antiquities, taking into account new research on the problem.
Let us now turn to the consideration of the specific material, which shall substantiate the opinion expressed.
1 Legends about the Origin of the Scythians and the Narts
Several versions of legends about the origin of the Scythians have survived to our days. According to Herodotus, the first to appear on the Scythian land was a man named Targitaos, whose parents were the supreme god, the celestial Zeus, and the daughter of the river Borysthenes.
Like Targitaos, who was born from the union of Heaven and Water, the heroine of the epic Satana was born from the marriage of the celestial Wastyrǧy and the daughter of the lord of the underwater kingdom Donbettyr, Dzerassæ. The ancestor of the Scythians had the appearance of a half-virgin, half-snake. From the Kul-Oba barrow, a Scythian snake-headed virgin goddess was extracted, whose upper part of the body was human and the lower part was snake-like. This motif is preserved in folk legends. One of them, “Son of Aldar”, mentions three extraordinary creatures with human torsos and serpentine tails instead of legs (PPKOO-1: VI/181).
Targitaos had three sons: Lipoksais (
Herodotus (IV, 5) wrote: “As the Scythians claim, their tribe is the youngest of all the tribes”. In the view of many narrators of the Ossetian Nart epic, the Narts are a young people. The legend about the origin of the Narts tells us that God primarily created the Wadmeritæ on earth; possessing incredible strength, huge in stature, they could not fit in the gorges, and the earth could not hold them. So he destroyed them and after 300 years created the Kambadatæ. They repeated their predecessors, but were incredibly small. Because of this, God destroyed them and 300 years later created the Gameritæ. They, again, were too strong and too big. Thus, God destroyed them too and 300 years later created the Guameritæ. As not adapted to life, God destroyed them as well and created the giants (Wajgwytæ). The latter turned out to be stupid, cruel rapists with wrong body structure (several heads, one eye). After destroying them too, the god created the Narts 300 years later: they proved successful in height and strength and were adapted to life on earth (Khamitsaeva/Dzhikaev 2003–12: III/659f.). Thus, there is a complete identity of legends about the origin of Scythians and Ossetians.
2 Territory of Settlement
The Scythians were a steppe people. Herodotus and other ancient authors repeatedly mention the vast steppe expanses of Scythia. They used these expanses to defeat the outnumbering Persians.
Like the Scythians, the steppe and sea are the arena of the Narts’ exploits and adventures. The steppe wind blows in the legends, one can hear in them the breath of vast plains, herds of deer, innumerable flocks of horses … Herodotus repeatedly recalls the harsh winter in the land of the Scythians. The Narts experience the cold season as well. Their coldest month is called sælæn mæy (December) – the month of freezing. Herodotus: in the country of the Scythians and Savromats there were neither forests nor trees. They used animal bones to make fire. The country of the Narts is a treeless plain overgrown with thorny bushes. In the legends, the events unfold in the steppe expanses. The Scythians neighbour the sea, are inseparably connected with it, have wide outlets to it and are engaged in seafaring. The Narts’ infinite lands also bordered the sea and the edge of the Narts’ land was the edge of the inhabited land in general. The Narts are not only closely connected with the sea, but are related to the sea-deity Donbettyr, and his daughter Dzerassæ became the ancestor of the Narts. The rich seafaring vocabulary of Narts’ stories is striking. The Narts dwelled on the seashore and, naturally, were also engaged in seafaring.
3 The World Tree
The model of the universe in the Scythian culture was investigated by D. S. Raevsky, who took the artistic symbolism of the golden Scythian pectoral from the Tolstaya Mogila as a basis. This is also evidenced by the Scythian burial mounds, which are considered by scholars to be semantically identical with the world mountain (tree) (Twallagov 2001: 53). This model could be transferred over time to real objects, which, one way or another, became familiar to them. The image of the world mountain (centre) reminds of the altar of Ares built of brushwood. The sword stuck in the centre is a symbol of the axis mundi passing through this centre and connecting the upper and lower zones of the universe (Darchiev 2008: 53).
The Scythians represented the world space in three zones: the earth (on which the Scythians and other peoples lived); the sky being the dwelling place of gods and celestials; the water space and the underworld (dwelling places of demonic beings).
In the Narts’ stories, the earth is the centre of the universe. The Narts penetrate all parts of it, ascend to the heavens, banquet with the gods, enter the underworld. And the most sacred places in the epic are mountain peaks. Satana with her honey cakes climbs to the summit of Waza-mountain and prays there. Æfsatī resides on the top of the mountain Adai-xox, Wacilla on the top of Tbau-xox, etc. The image of the world tree in the Nart epic is most vividly represented in the famous story of the golden apple of the Narts. The Narts’ tree Aza is linked to this image. According to Y. S. Gaglojty, “in the name of the Aza-tree (Azan) the Nart epic preserved in a transformed form a vague memory of some ‘sacred’ tree that played an important role in ritual rites of the Indo-Iranians, and the word Aza (Azan) itself goes back to the ancient Iranian *aizma. Apparently, the creators of the Nart epic did not realize the real meaning of the ‘sacred’ tree, which was used by Indo-Iranians as a fuel, endowed it with supernatural properties and placed it in the afterlife” (Gaglojti 2010: 354).
4 Tri-functional Division
No matter who and no matter how biased one may view Dumézil’s works, his theory of the trifunctionality of Indo-European peoples (and not only) is firmly embedded in science. Dumézil successfully applied his theory of the tripartite social division to the Indo-European world, in particular, to the Scythians and their descendants. Targitaos, the ancestor of the Scythians, had three sons: Kolaksais (warfare), Lipoksais (priesthood) and Arpoksais (farming and cattle breeding). During the reign of Targitaos’ sons, golden objects fell on the Scythian land: a plough with a yoke, an axe and a bowl. The yoke with the plough was associated with agriculture and cattle breeding, the axe with military power, and the bowl was given cultic significance.
The purpose of gold gifts can be judged from the response of the Transcaspian Scythians to Alexander the Great: “We have been given gifts by the god – a yoke, a plough, a spear and a bowl. We give fruits obtained with the help of bulls’ labour to our friends, together with them we make libations to the gods from the cup, we strike enemies from afar with an arrow and from near with a spear” (El’nickij 1977: 179f.).
The Narts’ society was clearly divided into three clans. The Æxsærtægatæ were known not for wealth, but for military valour: all famous Narts descended from them. The Boratæ were distinguished not by bravery, but by their wealth. The Alægatæ fulfil the role of priests. They are not rich, do not take part in campaigns, but all feasts take place at their place; they also keep the cup of Wacamongæ.
Traces of the triple social division were also preserved in the Iranian world. In particular, the enmity between Iran and Turan resembles to a certain extent the feud between Æxsærtæggatæ and Boratæ. In both epics the feuding parties are linked by close kinship. Yet another parallel: Yima, the ancestor of kings according to the Avesta, received from Ahuramazda a coulter (plough). On the Scythian land the golden plough was dropped from the sky. The plough was given to the Narts by the celestial smith Kurdalægon.
5 Fire
The Scythians regarded fire as a reviving, healing and purifying force. They honoured not only the heavenly fire, but also the fire of the hearth as its parcel. It was personified by the goddess Tabiti, who had a high status. The cult of fire can be clearly traced in the tribes of the forest-steppe Scythia, in the funeral ritual of the Saka and Savromat tribes (Guljaev 2005: 306), Sarmatians and Alans.
The Nart epic comprises stories, according to which Narts are born from the fire that appeared between heaven and earth. In some legends, babies born are declared children of the Sun (Twallagov 2001: 80).
6 Wyryzmæg and Satana
Satana’s birth is miraculous. Her father is the celestial god Wastyrǧy, her mother is Dzerassæ, the daughter of the lord of the water kingdom Donbettyr. In the image of Satana and her mother we see echoes of ancient Iranian myths about the goddess of water and fertility Ardvisura Anahita.
In the Shahnameh there are images remotely reminding of the Narts’ Satana (Sattsaev 2008: 29ff.) together with reminiscent motifs. Satana’s unnamed son lives with his mother’s kin in the underwater world, Donbettyr. Wyryzmæg, unaware of this, inadvertently kills his son. Rustam kills his son Sukhrab, who was also brought up by the relatives of his mother Tahmina in Turan (Sattsaev 2008: 31f.). Wyryzmæg and Satana saved the Narts from starvation: using their reserves, Satana organized a glorious feast that lasted for a fortnight. Similarly, Faridun’s mother, Faranak, generously gifted and fed the Iranian people (Sattsaev 2008: 30f.). In this story, both women act as stock keepers and distributors, which is characteristic of the early social forms of matriarchy. The Narts threw Satana into the lake of hell. Soslan, having learnt about it, returned home and saved her. The Shahnameh mentions the deep lake Chīchast (Av. Čaēčasta). Zoroastrians prayed to God to give them luck to capture the Turanian enemies and execute them at this mysterious lake (Sattsaev 2008: 44f.).
Ancient forms of incest between close relatives (in the downward line: father-daughter, mother-son) were respected in Iran and even encouraged by the Zoroastrian religion. The Scythians and other Iranian tribes had similar forms of marriage in ancient times. The most vivid motif, an echo of an ancient custom in the Nart epic is the marriage of a sister and brother – Satana and Wyryzmæg, and the marriage of Dzerassæ, the mother of Æxsar and Æxsærtæg, to her grandfather – Wærxæg (Libedinskij 1981: 40f.). This custom remained in the Nart epic as a vestige from the era before the division of the Aryan tribes.
In a famous Scythian legend, Heracles was caught in the Scythian country by cold and bad weather. Having wrapped himself up, he fell asleep. At that time, his harnessed horses (he had let them graze) miraculously disappeared. In search of horses he came to the country of Gilea, where in a cave he found the Echidna – half-maiden, half-snake (the upper part of her body was female, and the lower part was snake-like). When asked if she had seen the horses, the snake-woman said that she had the horses, but she would not give them back until Heracles had an intercourse with her. Then Heracles, in order to return the horses, united with this woman (Herodotus IV, 8–9).
There is a similar plot in the Ossetian Nart epic. A Nart man Bay lost his herd (flock of horses). From the summit of Waz he began to look at the surroundings, and in the field Kum he saw a black circle. When he arrived at the place, he saw: a huge buffalo snake surrounded his cattle and horses. The snake offered the choice to Bay: “I will return your herds and flocks, but in exchange you must give up to me your new-born son”. Bay gave his son, the buffalo snake turned into the daughter of a khan, whom his son Batyr married. The parallelism between the female snake and the Echidna is manifest. Bay seeks herds and finds them with the snake-woman. Heracles seeks horses and finds them by the Echidna. In a Nart-tale (PPKOO-1: VI/190ff.), a huge snake (which at the end of the tale turns out to be a girl) asks a Nart called Bay for a son and the Echidna asks Heracles to marry her. In the Scythian legend the half-woman, half-snake herself provokes the ancient hero for cohabitation. And in the marriage of Satana and Wyryzmæg it is the female who seduces. In love Satana achieves her own, as the Echidna gains Heracles by a trick. Dzerassæ’s meeting with the Nart Æxsar, as well as their subsequent marriage, was also, in fact, ultimately caused by her initiative.
In summary: Heracles is the son of Zeus, and Wyryzmægs is the head of the race (not less deserving of Zeus’ name); Heracles copulates with the Echidna, and Wyryzmæg with Donbettyr’s granddaughter, Satana.
7 Soslan
Of great interest are the parallels related to Soslan, the outstanding hero of the epic, the richest with stories and the most popular figure.
Scythians made fur coats, cloaks, and mops from the scalps of enemies killed in battle. The method of scalping was as follows: an incision was made on the head near the ears, then the hair was grabbed and the head was shaken out of its skin.
Many Scythians stripped all the skin off an enemy corpse, stretched it on planks and then carried it with them on their horses.
Soslan did the same in the Narts’ society. Soslan killed a man and skinned him, thus making a whole coat for himself from human scalps. In another legend, girls sew a collar for a fur coat from the scalps of murdered men. In the third, Soslan brings the scalps to the women and tells them to make him a fur coat. The women are in despair, for they recognize the victim: one as her father, the second as her brother and the third as her husband. This archaic custom inherent in nomadic tribes is one of the vivid proofs of the deep antiquity of the Narts’ society (Sattsaev 2008: 46). This motif is not preserved in the Persian epic.
The Alans, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, boast of nothing so much as ornamenting their horses by hanging the severed heads on them. According to Grantovskij, this custom is a link between the Scythian data and the Ossetian epic about the Narts (Grantovskij 1981: 73). Scalping is also found in Balkar and Vainakh legends. This is nothing but the proof of “the existence of two national versions of the same epic motif, which is an echo of the Scytho-Alanian custom of scalping enemies” (Gaglojti 2010: 365).
The ancient Indian sacred texts (Brahmanas) of the Rigveda cycle contain details of the visit of the living to the underworld. There was the lord of the dead, the god Varuna, who was in charge of the torments of hell. Thinking his son Bhrigu too presumptuous, Varuna takes away his breath and allows him to visit hell. Pictures unfold before Bhrigu’s eyes which may be called “edifying encounters”. The hero cannot comprehend them and turns to his father for clarification. Nart Soslan goes to the Land of the Dead in search of the leaves of the Aza tree. And he had “edifying meetings” and those to whom he could turn for explanations. So, the comparisons are apt.
The god Varuna takes away Bhrigu’s breath and enables him to visit hell. Nart Soslan, having obtained permission from Barastyr, goes to the Land of the Dead in search of the leaves of Az. Before Bhrigu’s eyes unfold spectacles that can be called “edifying encounters”. Soslan travels through the Land of the Dead and sees people in very different positions and circumstances. Bhrigu cannot make sense of the pictures he sees and turns to his father for clarification. Soslan cannot solve some “edifying encounters” and turns to his late wife Bedoxa for explanation (Libedinskij 1981: 164ff.; Dumézil 1976: 78f.). As Dumézil correctly noted, “the parallelism of these two ‘Divine Comedies’ is so undoubted that the question arises whether both are not based on the same ancient moral-teaching Aryan legend, preserved in India and the Caucasus” (ibid: 79).
Of keen interest is also the comparative analysis of Soslan’s image with the Greek-Scythian Heracles and Rama, the hero of the ancient Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, the seventh descent (avatāra) of Vishnu to earth. The correspondences in the motifs and plots associated with these images can be summarized as follows (Vielle 1996: 168ff.):
Rama opened up new spaces by his exploits. He broke the bow of Shiva, which none of the pretenders to the hand of the princess had been able to bend before him. Heracles confronts giants, wins victories over monsters, cleanses the earth of them. Diodorus of Sicily in his commentaries on Heracles expressed the idea of purifying and civilizing the space formerly occupied by the monster. Heracles is endowed with the features of a cultural hero. Soslan is also a type of civilizing cultural hero. Through his victories over giants and monsters, he gains new pastures for the Narts.
Rama and Heracles correspond to Soslan in their concern for people and in their basic characteristics. Soslan asks to be put in the grave alive in order to be able to do the Narts a favour if necessary. Soslan is a saviour (he saved a starving child kidnapped by an eagle), he is a knight, he does good deeds. Rama and Heracles are favorites of the gods; the gods patronize them. Soslan is a true hero who serves the gods, their assistant. At one of the feasts, he serves them, and the gods are so pleased with him that each bestows a valuable gift on him.
Rama and Heracles have a passion for travelling, choosing difficult routes, sometimes to wild frontiers. Soslan left the Nart village early to see the world. He performs extraordinary feats far from the inhabited world. In one legend, he wandered for seven years, maintaining close ties with the animal kingdom. Soslan is constantly on campaigns and in battles. In doing so, he shows great cruelty to the enemy, up to disfiguring, mutilating him. He is capable of mistakes, weaknesses, commits three grave crimes.
The main weapon of Rama and Hercules is the bow. Soslan’s main tool as a hunter is a bow. The bow was given to him by a mysterious man from Gum. The best confirmation of his divinity is Soslan’s bow (Soslani ænduræ) – that is how Ossetians still call the rainbow.
Rama and Heracles are dressed in furs (animal skins), human skin, supplemented with scalps of giants. Soslan is also dressed in a coat made of scalps, often wearing a coat made of wolf skins.
Rama and Heracles are of divine origin: Rama is an incarnation of the Hindu supreme deity; Heracles is the son of the all-powerful Zeus. Soslan, too, has a divine origin. Satana’s seducer, i. e. Soslan’s father, was Wastyrǵy, who had adopted the form and image of a shepherd.
Rama makes peace with his rivals, enters into a contract sometime after the death of the antelope Marichi. In turn, Heracles is reconciled with Artemis after hunting a doe. Soslan goes hunting, spots a marvellous deer, and pursues it. But as soon as he takes aim, the deer falls: Soslan is outdone by another hunter. The quarrel between the hunters ends with reconciliation.
Rama marries the princess Sita and undergoes the marriage ordeal for her sake. Heracles accomplishes twelve feats and becomes immortal. Immortality makes it possible for him to reunite with his immortal spouse. Heracles accidentally lit a fire: “When the fire burst into flames and the flames engulfed Heracles, a cloud descended from the sky and carried him with thunder to Olympus, where he was accepted into the immortal host” (Zajtsev 1988: 281f.). Soslan does not look for easy ways to accomplish his feats: he enters his grave alive and from there continues to act, coming to the call of the Narts in critically dangerous situations. Soslan marries the daughter of the Sun after experiencing incredible difficulties.
Rama, like Heracles, is synonymous with strength, power. Soslan is a mighty hero, a seeker of glory, who defeats giants incomparably more powerful and strong. In some legends, having defeated all of them, he goes to seek the answer to the question: is there anyone in the world stronger than him?
The culprit of Heracles’ death is the sister and consort of Zeus, the Olympic goddess Hera. The culprit of Soslan’s death is another daughter of the Sun.
All the above parallels leave no doubt that with his basic characteristics Soslan corresponds to the heroes Heracles and Rama. What has been said can be substantiated on other levels of comparison as well (Dumézil 1985: 115ff.). In ancient Indian (Aryan) society, Indra committed three sins: possessing a married woman; winning an unfair fight; killing a Brahman relative. One of the characters of the Arthurian legends, Guinn, kidnapped by force Guitir’s wife; captured noble chieftains in an unjust battle; committed a sacrilegious crime (made the son of Nuiton, killed by him, eat his father’s heart). The Nart Soslan is sinful too: he demands Totraz’s sister to become his bondmaid; he wins a treacherous victory over Totraz; he tramples his mother’s dishes with the hoofs of his horse.
8 Soslan – Further Parallels
According to a legend transmitted by (Pseudo-)Plutarch, Mithra wanted a son, but, hating women, he left his seed on a rock, which conceived a son from him named Diorphos (Dumézil 1976: 71). Rustam’s father Zal calls the bird Simurgh to help him at his birth. The bird orders to cut the mother’s side and take out the baby through this cut (Sattsaev 2008: 32f.). Soslan is born of stone. A certain shepherd, excited by the beauty of Satan, whom he could not approach because of the wide and swift river that separated them, emitted his seed, and it flew over the waves and struck the stone on which Satana was sitting. She carries the stone to her home, and after a certain period of time calls the Nart blacksmith Kurdalægon, who breaks the stone and takes out the child. Soslan makes a journey to the netherworld. It is not found in Shahnameh, but in the Middle Persian literature of religious content there is “The Book of Arda Wirāz”. The holy man Arda Wirāz undertakes a journey to the netherworld, which coincides in many respects with Soslan’s journey (ibid: 48f.).
The name of the rainbow in the Shahnameh is Rustam’s Bow, and in the Nart epic it is Soslan’s Bow. Soslan is given gifts by the celestials for the Narts. The functions of the Nart celestials in the Shahnameh are performed by the First Dynasty, which consisted of 10 kings, who possessed the features of mythological characters. Here there is a consistent development of one and the same ancient Iranian plot. Soslan dies as a result of the revenge of a beautiful woman, the daughter of the Sun, and Siavush perishes as a result of the revenge of the beautiful Sudaba (plot similarity). Siavush’s death occurs at the hands of the scoundrel Garui, and Soslan’s – from the Wheel of Balsag. Soslan drove the hungry cattle of the Narts to the lands of the giant Mukar on the shore of the Black Sea in a fierce winter: the Narts were deathly afraid of entering the giant’s lands. Soslan fought the giant. With great difficulty he managed to defeat Mukar and to return the herd to the Nart village. Similar country in Shahnameh is called Mazanderan: none of the rulers went to war to this beautiful land. Only thanks to Rustam the Iranian troops and the ruler escaped death. Both heroes, however strong they are, do not succeed without cunning and sorcery, without the help of others to gain the upper hand over the enemy (ibid: 44f.).
The parallels between Soslan and Cu Chullain, one of the main characters of Irish sagas, are interesting. The goddess Morrigen, rejected by Cu Chullain, takes revenge on him by bewitching his chariot before the fatal battle. Soslan’s death occurs as a result of a collision with the Balsag Wheel, which was sent against him by the daughter of the Sun whom he had rejected, the sister of his own wife Agundæ.
Birds fly to Cu Chullain and Soslan to drink blood. Both of them make a journey to the netherworld (Dumézil 1990: 95f.).
The story of Soslan’s perish finds parallels in medieval Western Europe. Here, the feast of the Sun was arranged, symbolized by a huge burning wheel. In Lorraine it was rolled down from the top of a hill, and it had to roll down and go into the Moselle River. The rite, known throughout Western Europe, was held on the days of the summer solstice. The counterpart of the sun-wheel in the Nart epic is the Wheel of Balsag. It is a cogged wheel of enormous size, engulfed in flames. On its way it turns to ashes the trees that prevent it from running. It rolls through forests and valleys all the way to the Black Sea, where it falls into the water, as the sun-wheel in Lorraine fell into the Moselle River.
The ancient Greeks laid siege to Troy and succeeded by resorting to a stratagem involving a wooden horse with a troop of warriors climbing inside. Soslan besieges the fortress of Gori, but cannot succeed. In the end, he wins by cunning, lying inside a specially stabbed and gutted bull (Libedinskij 1981: 205f.). The second example, confirming the first one, is from the Abkhazian Nart epic. Patraz says: “Wrap me in a cow skin and throw me into the fortress” (Ossetian: “Tie me to an arrow and shoot me”). The two variants, i.e., both the Trojan horse and the bull skin, are nothing but folklore echoes of ancient shamanic practice.
There is much in common in the images of Soslan and the knight Gawain of the Arthurian cycle. Gawain’s power grows from dawn to noon and disappears at sunset. He also travelled to the netherworld; he is endowed with the traits of magic. Like Gawain, in fighting his enemies, Soslan gains victories while the Sun is at its zenith, and he makes a journey to the Land of the Dead. Soslan is endowed with magical properties: he is a sorcerer.
The image of Soslan can also be compared with Apollo. The solar deity of the Scythians is transmitted by Herodotus in the Greek form as Apollo, the Olympic god, son of Zeus and Leto. This god has a solar nature, which is, however, compounded by archaic and chthonic features. Soslan is also a solar deity: he triumphs necessarily at noon and he is the husband of the daughter of the Sun. Soslan’s grave is located near the village of Matsuta. The Digorians celebrate him at the beginning of the third decade of June, when the summer solstice occurs.
Batraz. The image of Batraz, the second most important hero of the Nart epic, allows us to draw many parallels with Ares, Arthur, Lancelot and other famous mythological characters.
Every year, the Scythians of one district brought 150 bundles of brushwood and piled them on top of each other. At the top they arranged a quadrangular platform, three sides of which were steep, and the fourth had access. On each such hill there was an ancient iron sword. This was the idol of Ares, to whom sacrifices were made every year (Herodotus IV, 62). Enraged at the Narts, Batraz demanded that they prepare 100 wagons of charcoal for him, get 24 pairs of blacksmith’s bellows, set up a huge forge with a hearth and start blowing. Batraz, whose body was made of steel, made himself white-hot. Then he threw himself into the sea, hardened himself and returned to slay the Narts. According to another version, Batraz told the Narts to gather thorns, formed of them a huge mountain, and climbed it.
Essentially, Ares is a weapon: it is a case of a deity personified by or merging with its weapon. Batraz is also a hero-weapon, an arrow-god, a sword-god. Batraz and his sword are one and the same. The best proof of this is that Batraz could only die in this world when his sword is thrown into the sea. A special study by ethnologist A. V. Darchiev is focused on the cult of Ares and, in general, to the Scythian military cult and its traces in the Ossetian Nart epic. His conclusion is that the cult of Ares has ancient Indo-Iranian origins (Darchiev 2008: 55). The name of Batraz’ grandfather, Æxsar, is also associated with the sword. Æxsar was known, above all, as the owner of a sword forged from a piece of celestial ore that fell from the sky: it is still called æxsargard (sword of Æxsar). The above parallels between the Arthurian and Batraz’ legends are so transparent that it is unlikely that this similarity can be explained by mere coincidence.
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table spend whole periods of their lives by the lakes, or are even brought up there. In the same way, for many Narts, the underwater kingdom of Donbettyr is almost their home. “In many ways”, Reid points out, “Batraz is Arthur in extremis … Not only is he brought up by the divine woman underwater, but she gives him his sword, too, just happens to Lancelot” (Reid 2001: 220).
Very similar are also the stories of the hardening of Arthur and Batraz. Arthur orders his faithful companion to throw his sword Excalibur into the lake. Twice Griflet tries to deceive Arthur by throwing his own sword into the lake and then the scabbard of Arthur’s sword. The king, who possesses secret knowledge, does not allow himself to be deceived. Then Griflet throws Arthur’s sword into the lake and sees: a hand appeared from the lake, grabbed Excalibur, shook it three or four times, then disappeared. This is how the finale of Arthur’s life is described. And here is a motif from the Nart epic, which also shows the mystical connection of the sword with its master. Batraz ordered the Narts to throw his sword into the sea, for the hero could not die until his sword was thrown into the sea. The Narts could not move the sword and decided to deceive him that the sword had already been thrown into the sea. Batraz, not believing, asked them: what miracles occurred when the sword fell into the waves. “None”, they answered confusedly. “Then my sword was not thrown into the sea, otherwise you would have seen miracles”, was Batraz’ reply. When the Narts, having harnessed thousands of draught animals, brought the sword to the sea and threw it, the waves immediately rose, a hurricane began, the sea boiled, then became red with blood. When the astonished Narts ran to Batraz and told him what they had seen, he lost his breath.
And, finally, the word Escalibur (from caliburn) is derived from the Latin word for steel. It comes from a Greek word derived from the name of a famous tribe of Khalib smiths, the name of a part of the Sarmatians who lived in the Caucasus. “So”, concludes Reid, “the name of Arthur’s very own magic sword is linked directly to the greatest sword-makers of Sarmatia” (ibid: 221). A comparative study of the main characters of the Arthurian cycle of legends and the Nart epic (Arthur-Batraz) was undertaken by J. Grisward. The author found multiple correspondences between the epic of the island Celts and the Ossetian one, which turned out to be so precise and striking that they cannot be accidental (Dumézil 1990: 11). Grisward managed to draw a convincing parallel between the Nart Batraz and the hero of Irish Sagas Cu Chullain (the conception of Cu Chullain and Batraz, the birth of Batraz and Cu Chullain’s vats of water, the childhood of the heroes, Batraz’ exploits and Cu Chullain’s adventures, Cu Chullain’s and Batraz’ tricks etc.). These correspondences are explained by Grisward as a common heritage rather than borrowing (Grisward 1969: 289ff.).
Close mythological parallels are also observed in the images of Batraz and Indra. Batraz is the “sword hero”, closely associated with thunder and lightning, wind and whirlwinds. The thunder-like theophany is repeated throughout his life. Evidence of his closeness to thunder is that among the Narts he is the only one who uses his body as a projectile. Indra is a formidable god of war and lord of lightning. His mother did not want to bring him into the world. Indra spent in the mother’s womb “thousands of months and many autumns” (RV IV.18.4). Batraz was not delivered by his mother, his foetus having been transferred to the back of his father, the Nart Xæmyc.
With one of the central Shahnameh figures, Rustam, Batraz has his unusual birth in common. Rustam was taken out of his mother’s womb with a knife. The infant turned out to be a giant, as mighty as an elephant, and could barely be fed by ten nurses (Sattsaev 2008: 20, 55f.). We have already mentioned above Batraz’ miraculous birth and his extraordinary strength. Similarities can be traced in the stories of Batraz’ seizure of the fortress of Gori and the capture of the ogre’s abodes by Rustam (both enterprises required great effort and ingenuity). Rustam vows to avenge his enemies for the death of Siavush. Like him, Batraz avenges his father’s blood by threatening to force Satana to tell him the truth. And what is characteristic: both Rustam and Batraz take revenge on those also, who were indirectly responsible for the deaths of Siavush and Xæmyc. Rustam, bleeding to death, manages to kill his enemy Shagad. Batraz manages to destroy a considerable number of celestials and Narts even after his death. The motif of god-fighting is also similar in the two epic heroes compared. Also, Rustam leaves his native Sistan at the moment of danger and comes to the defence of Iranians. Batraz stays in the sky at Kurdalægon and comes down to earth when the Narts need protection and help.
There are also motifs that unite Batraz with other heroes of Shahnameh. Thus, many of them are brought up in their mothers’ families (traces of matriarchy). Batraz spends his childhood at sea, at the home of his relatives. The similarity is genetic in nature. Faridun fights the foreign king, tyrant Zahhak and frees two beautiful sisters. Fulfilling Akula’s order, Batraz rescued his grandfather and two beautiful girls (daughters of the Sun and the Moon) from the clutches of Kandzargas. A striking similarity, dating back to the times of Iranian unity (ibid: 64f.).
9 Syrdon
There is much in common between him and Ahriman, the alter ego of the supreme deity of Iran, Ohrmazd. However, Ahriman does only evil and never comes to the aid of the Iranians. In contrast, Syrdon, though a werewolf, can do good deeds, saving the Narts.
At Indra’s wish, the secret place where the cows were sheltered was discovered by the dog Sarama. The secret dwelling place of Syrdon was discovered by Xæmyc with the help of Syrdon’s dog. He spotted it and caught it by the rope. But the dog did not run to Syrdon’s house, he did not want to give away his master. And only after Xæmyc had beaten it half to death, the dog ran to Syrdon’s secret house (Libedinskij 1981: 215ff.).
Dumézil draws very interesting parallels between Loki (Scandinavian sagas) and Syrdon. All the features of Loki are found in Syrdon and all the features of Syrdon in Loki: the fact that the “useful” beginning in both images coexists with the “harmful” and that the great crime and the great punishment constitute the outcome of their lives (Dumézil 1976: 127ff.). Alain Christol’s work “Syrdon and Odysseus” contains quite a number of common elements in the images of the compared characters: “an unknown father, or paternal branch belonging to a low social class; the importance of the maternal line, which is characterized by cunning and magic; living on the edge of the inhabited world in a secret dwelling; the ability to reincarnate into other people or animals; the dual attitude of the other heroes towards him, both positive, when he helps to avoid danger, and negative, when he builds intrigues that can either make them look ridiculous or endanger their lives” (Christol 2003: 157f.).
10 Acæmæz
The central figure of one of the small cycles of the Ossetian Nart epic is Acæmæz. Sattsaev made interesting observations comparing Acæmæz with Faridun, one of the heroes of Shahnameh. Acæmæz finds out from his mother the secret of his father’s death, after which he takes cruel revenge on the murderer; he bleeds to death, but he is miraculously saved by his enemy’s wife, who fell in love with him. Faridun also elicits the information about his father’s death from his mother and then takes dire revenge on the murderer Zahhak. The plot motif of revenge in the Nart epic and Shahnameh is so similar that one can see common plot roots dating back to the time of Iranian unity (Sattsaev 2008: 80).
11 Belief in the Afterlife
The Scythians regarded the afterlife as a continuation of the earthly life. Therefore, when sending the deceased on his last journey, they provided him with everything he needed like his precious weapons, household items etc. The Narts retained the same idea of the afterlife. Dying, the Nart Soslan demanded that he be shown all his burial clothes made of “precious silk”. He even demanded that they put these clothes on him and put him in the coffin alive. Soslan’s journey to the Land of the Dead testifies to the same. With the permission of Barastyr (the lord of the netherworld), the dead could visit the earthly world, which many of them took advantage of.
The corpse of the king was embalmed by the Scythians and exposed in a funeral chariot to all the formerly subject nations. At the end of the ceremony, he was buried in a grave and a mound was poured as high as possible. “Other Scythians, when they die, are taken by their relatives on wagons to their friends for 40 days and then buried” (Herodotus IV, 71–73). The Narts decided to bury the boy Alimbek of the Atsatæ family, who died at the hands of Sozryko, in an unusual cemetery where the most glorious and honourable elders were buried. Consequently, the noble Narts were buried separately and barrows were built for them.
Not only close relatives, but also all acquaintances took a lively part in mourning the deceased among Scythians. Herodotus writes: “They cut off a piece of their ear, cut off the hair on their head in a circle, make a circular cut on their hand, scratch their forehead and nose and pierce their left hand with arrows” (Herodotus IV, 71). The legend “Soslan’s Death” tells about the Narts mourning for the dying Soslan: the men scratch their faces and cheeks out of grief, the women tear their hair (Libedinskij 1981: 191).
According to Herodotus, the corpses of horses were placed around the tomb of a Scythian king to accompany him to the afterlife. They were strangled, gutted, cleaned and stuffed with chaff, sewn up; then they were placed on stakes (Herodotus IV, 72). In order to get out of the Land of the Dead, Soslan is advised by Syrdon to find the best horse in the herd, slaughter it and cleanse it of its entrails. Soslan found such a horse, who advised him: “As soon as I am dead, you quickly but carefully skin me and stuff it with straw. Then sit on horseback of my effigy …”. On such a dead horse stuffed with straw, Soslan tried to get out of the Land of the Dead, but shot by devils, the stuffed horse was burnt (Libedinskij 1981: 182).
The rite of dedicating a horse was known throughout the Indo-Iranian world. But perhaps the Scythians surpassed all the others. They sacrificed a horse to all solar and other deities, as well as to the people of the highest social ranks. The Scythian royal burial mounds are astonishing with an untold number of horse burials.
Broken chariots were found in the burials of the Scythians and Sarmatians. They used two halves of the wheel to reinforce stuffed horses around the burials of Scythian kings. The Scythians closed the entrance to their burial places with the wheel from the wagons. When Soslan died, Batraz dug up the grave, took out the wheel of Balsag, split it into two parts and brought it to Soslan’s grave. He stuck it in the ground as a monument (Libedinskij 1981: 19, 193).
Military valour. Right hand. Herodotus wrote: “Out of every hundred captives, one man is condemned to be sacrificed, not in the same way as cattle, but according to a different rite … the right shoulders and arms of the stabbed victims are cut off and thrown into the air” (Herodotus IV, 62). Herodotus’ report is confirmed by archaeology. A Sarmatian gold fibula from the turn of the AD was found in Kuban region (Zubrovsky barrow). It bears a moustached male head, and to the left is a severed right hand with a forearm (Jatsenko 1992: 78).
After cutting off the head of his father’s murderer, Sajnæg-ældar, the nart Batraz cut off his right hand and took it with him so that the Narts would believe him. But the Narts did not bury anyone with the mutilated body, and Satana asked Batraz to take it back. Batraz went to the house of Sajnæg-ældar. “Batraz entered, paid the honours befitting a dead man, and laid the severed hand on his breast, saying: “May the earth rejoice in your ashes! You killed my father, and I avenged him, and the vengeance is done. Here is thy hand!” (Libedinskij 1981: 290). This motif is also present in the legend of Totraz. Having obtained a permission to leave temporarily the netherworld, he defeated Soslan and cut off his right hand. There are also incantations on this theme in the epic. Soslan says: “Let the Narts eat my right hand” (Libedinskij 1981: 164). Having shot a game, a Narts’ hunter would give his right shoulder blade to the first person he met. The motive of cutting off the right arm is found in Ossetian folk legends.
It is known from the annals of history that women warriors lived in Asia Minor and on the shores of the Sea of Azov. While plundering in the Scythian domains, they mixed with them and from their marriage came the Sarmatians (Savromats). The Sarmatians had many female warriors. There are also burials of women warriors with weapons. They were horsewomen; they had no right breast. The custom of burning of the right breast is ascribed to Savromats and Amazons by the ancient authors Hippocrates, Strabo, Diodorus of Sicily. As Flavius of Syracuse reported, among the captured Sarmatians taken by Romans, there were ten women disguised in men’s clothes. This is vividly reflected in the Nart epic. Batraz threatened Satana: if she would not tell him who had killed his father, he would burn her chest (Abaev 1945: 16). The Andian versions of Nart legends contain a story about a brave daughter of Dargafsar who gathered a detachment of girls and successfully fought against the Wajyg giants. The maidens fight in men’s clothes (Tuganov 1977: 134ff.). In the story “The Death of Barkhun, son of Noz” we read:
The cup of honour played an important role in Scythian mythology and religion. Bronze cups were found in Scythian burials. Among the golden gifts that fell on the Scythians’ land there was a golden cup. “… Once a year each governor of a province brews a bowl of wine in his own province, which those Scythians who have slain enemies drink; those who have not achieved this do not taste this wine but sit apart dishonored; and this they consider a very great disgrace; but as many as have slain not one but many enemies have two cups apiece and drink out of both” (Herodotus IV, 66). The Sarmatians and Alans have preserved this custom.
The cup of the Narts called Wacamongæ (“the pointer”) had a miraculous property: it is honoured to those who tell a true story about their exploits. Who does not lie, the cup itself miraculously rises to his lips. The most frequent recipient of this honour was the Nart Batraz (Libedinskij 1981: 267f.). Something similar is preserved in Balkar legends. In the Ossetian Nart legends, the most honoured guests received an glass of honour (nuazæn) from the hands of Satana and other hosts.
The search for parallels takes us back to antiquity. Dumézil noted that “in the cults of Indo-Iranians sacred drinks, and, therefore, cups and goblets, play a paramount role” (Dumézil 1976: 46). Researchers draw a parallel with Iranian mythology: the magic cup of J̌amshid, which manifests its properties only on the holiday Nowruz (Sattsaev 2008: 61f.). The bowl of the Narts of Wacamongæ had a religious status. It was kept at the family of sages and priests – Alagatæ. “In world folklore the motif of the miraculous cup is often found, but numerous parallels mostly do not go back to common genetic roots. As for Ossetian-Iranian parallels, the similarity is clearly genetic in nature. Its roots can go back to the times of Indo-European community. In the epics of many Indo-European peoples, the miraculous cup often fulfilled almost the same functions as in the Nart epic and the Shahnameh” (ibid: 63).
The functions of the cup in Arthurian legends and Nart stories are very similar. “It has often been surmised that this cup originally served Christ and the apostles at the Last Supper. … Since the Grail and its accompanying sacred weapons are only tolerated by the infallible in chastity, any unworthy person who approaches the shrine is punished with wounds and ailments, but can expect deliverance from the same holy thing” (Averintsev 1988: 317). Although Wacamongæ is not related to Christianity, the hero also fights for possession of the sacred cup at feasts. In both traditions this honour is bestowed only on the most flawless, the hero without blemish. The cup is the “determiner” of valour and heroism, the exposer of lies and the evaluator of the degree and quality of the Narts’ deeds. Wacamongæ is like a lie detector: its appearance at the speaker’s lips is considered confirmation of a truthful story. Wacamongæ does not move when Soslan and Xæmyc speak. And Lancelot is denied possession of the Grail (because of his unwise association with Guinevere).
The Scythians had several ways to perform the rite of sworn brotherhood. Two Scythians, performing the rite, mixed their own blood into a bowl of wine. Sword, arrows, axe and spear were dipped into the cup. After swearing an oath (to protect each other in battle, without sparing themselves), those about to become sworn brothers drank from this cup a mixture of wine and blood (Herodotus IV, 70). It was believed that human blood had mystical powers, strengthening the deepest bonds of brotherhood.
Another way to swear brotherhood by the Scythians was as follows. They cut their fingers, collected the dripping blood into a cup and, having exposed the points of their swords, both of them, holding each other, drank from it. And, finally, the third way: the sworn brothers filled a glass with drinks, threw silver coins into it, and each drank from the glass three times, swearing allegiance.
The concept of sworn brotherhood occurs in the Nart epic quite frequently. Acæmæz’ father Acæ died in a duel with the kidnapper of his sworn brother’s wife Nasran-ældar (Dzagurov 1925: 3ff.). Wyryzmæg’s twin was Wærp-ældar (Shanaev 1876: 22, nn. 1, 2). Legends and epic preserved the memory of more complicated ceremonies of twinning: mixing the blood of both participants in a glass, solemn oath over the fire (Abaev 1949: 571), touching the chest, etc.
The Scythians rewarded with cruel taunts the one who died of accidental diseases. When a Scythian reached the age of 60, he was taken outside the gate and killed, or thrown off a bridge. According to Consultus Fortunatianus (Ars rhetorica I.14), a Scythian in Athens threw his 60-year-old father off a bridge and was accused of patricide. He replied that he had done it according to the custom of his tribe (Latyshev 1890–1906: I/387). Ritual murder of old men was committed by the Massagetae and Issedones (Herodotus IV, 26). There is a similar plot motif in the Persian epic Shahnameh; a demon (dīv) tries to incite Zahhak to kill his elderly father.
When the old man reached the age of 60, the Narts held a last feast in his honour, after which they put him in a basket of brushwood and rolled him off a cliff. The aged, helpless Wyryzmæg asks the Narts to make a large strong chest, put him in the chest and throw him into the sea. According to Sattsaev, “the roots of the story of contempt for old age and natural death should be sought in the Scythians or even in the Aryans. On the Caucasian soil, this custom disappears among the Ossetians and is preserved only in the epic” (Sattsaev 2008: 39).
Cauldron. The Scythian king Ariantes, wishing to know the number of the population, collected one arrowhead from each of them and ordered to make a huge copper vessel with a capacity of 600 amphorae, which was placed in an area called “Sacred Ways” near the altar of Ares. According to Herodotus, the Scythians cooked sacrificial animals in huge cauldrons (Herodotus IV, 81).
The story “Wastyrǵy and the Noseless Marguz” also speaks about the presence of a huge cauldron among the Narts. From the top of the mountain Wastyrǧy saw something huge on the earth, which he mistook for the sun. “This is not the sun”, Marguz answers him, “this is a copper cauldron, but such a cauldron that a drink once brewed in it lasts for seven years, and therefore every day no matter how much you drink, the cauldron becomes fuller and fuller … The treasure of our ancestors was this big cauldron, but the Donbettyrs took it away from us by force” (Libedinskij/Kulov 1948: 474).
The horse, a domestic animal of huge importance, played an exceptionally large role in the mythology of the Indo-Iranian peoples and in the Nart epic. The horse appeared in the life of Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in their ancestral homeland. Its cult spread to their descendants, including the Scythians. A Scythian who did not have a horse lost his authority in the society. The Scythians periodically organized horse races (for long and short distances).
There are many illustrations in the legends about the high importance of the horse in the life of a Nart. Nart’s races attracted a huge mass of people, and it was a wonderful spectacle. According to the epic, the gods also competed with the Narts at the races. Little Totraz and Acæmæz went straight from their cradles to the stables, found their fathers’ horses and prepared them to fight their enemies. The first goal in daring attacks was to steal horses.
In Indo-European mythology, the horse is a celestial phenomenon, it is a deity equal to the angels. Ares’ horses have parents: Boreas, i. e. the deity of the north wind, and the goddess Erinys. The ancestor of the Scythians was the daughter of the Dnieper, an echidna, a half-snake, half-maiden. Like her, the Nart Dzerassæ (patroness of waters, vegetation and fertility) was the daughter of Donbettyr, the lord of waters. The foal born to Dzerassæ from her marriage to Wastyrǵy became the ancestor of horses and at the same time the companion of Wyryzmæg, the head of the Narts.
Winged (magic) horse is a common Indo-European mythological image. In Greek myths it is represented primarily by Pegasus, the son of the Gorgon Medusa and Poseidon. Besides, Sun god Helios crosses the sky sitting on a golden quadriga driven by winged horses (e. g. calyx-crater No. 1867,0508.1133 of the British Museum):
The image of a winged horse, popular among the Scythians, is recorded on the Chertomlyk vase and on gold plates from the Bolshaya Bliznitsa and Kul-Oba barrows. The winged heavenly horse is widely represented in Tajik folklore (Kuz’mina 1985: 40) and, finally, in the Nart legends. “The sons of Telberd have winged horses, and they fly between heaven and earth” (Libedinskij 1981: 122f.). The horses rush their riders above the clouds, and their strength is equal to the storm. Nart Xamyc’ horse, white as a swan, flies through the air like a kite, outrunning the wind. Soslan’s three-year-old horse flies like a bird between heaven and earth. Wacilla sits on a fiery chariot pulled by fiery winged horses. “Dzyla’s son went to the attic, found there a dry horsehide, shook it three times, as the sorceress showed him, prayed to God, and in a flash the hide turned into a winged horse” (ibid: 345).
In the epic, winged horses fly across the sky like birds. The Scythian mythology was characterized by the notion of a horse-bird. The likening of a horse to a bird is recorded in the inventory of the Kul-Oba and Bolshaya Bliznitsa burial mounds. Among the items discovered by archaeologists in the tombs of the Saks and Sarmatians there are items depicting eagle-headed horses.
The Iranians often associated the horse with the sun as its attribute or as a solar symbol. The horse was considered the best sacrificial animal for gods. Its role in the cosmogony of the Scythians, both the western (those of Herodotus) and the eastern (Saka of Achaemenids), was very significant. The Massagetae considered the sun alone as a god and sacrificed horses to it. The best illustration of the connection between the horse and the sun in the Nart epic is the presence of a special breed of horses: Xury bæxtæ (horses of the sun).
The Indo-Europeans, including the Scythians, always had white (silver) horses dedicated to the gods. A white horse was sacrificed to the king. The Avesta refers to the king riding on a chariot drawn by white horses. The best horses of the Narts are always white in colour. Wyryzmæg’s horse Ærfæn is white. In some tales the same name is attributed to a celestial. As a rule, a white horse was dedicated to the deceased.
Archaeologists found images of three-legged horses in Pazyryk (Altay mountains), as well as in the Don region. Quite often the horse Wastyrǧy is depicted as three-legged (Libedinskij/Kulov 1948: 15f.). Many peoples associated three-legged horses with the water element. The mythical horse swims like a fish. A water horse, sometimes winged, dwells in waters. In the Nart epic there are horses with fish tails. This is a special breed belonging to the deity of sunlight. Narts’ heroes perform their feats on such horses.
Horses are in many respects human-like. Indra’s horse bears the epithet “dragon-killer” and tramples down serpents. According to the description of Pliny the Younger, a Scythian leader died in one battle. When the enemy approached his dead rival to take his weapons from him, the horse clobbered him with its hooves. Scythian antiquities preserve images: a rider striking a boar, fighting a lion, etc. Mythical horses have human qualities: they can talk, advise, think. Scythian horses, outwardly unsightly, seem slow, but they do not know fatigue, they are enduring and defeat outwardly taller, more attractive horses. In Narts’ legends, the horse acts on a par with the hero, equal to him in strength and imagination. Sozryko’s horse is clever. Wyryzmæg’s horse talks. Xæmyc’ horse, white as a swan, flies through the air like a kite, outrunning the wind. Soslan’s three-year-old horse flies between heaven and earth. Batraz’ horse tramples on enemies and gives good advice. The horse participates in battles with its rider, talks to him, and in case of death takes him home. The horse can show the way, does not spare himself. During the battle, teaches the rider how to take away the enemy’s weapons, is able to gallop both on the ground, in the sky and under the ground. On the advice of his horse, Batraz dirties its muzzle so that his appearance would scare away the enemy’s horse (Dzhykkajty 2009: 20).
In Greek myths, Hades, the lord of the land of the dead, has immortal horses. They are harnessed in a golden chariot, and it is hard to stop them. The Ossetian lord of the dead, Barastyr, has immortal horses. He gives his horse to Wadynz to ascend to the terrestrial world. In some legends, the horse is a product of subterranean forces. Horses nurtured by devils have fabulous properties; with them the owner feels confident. A pupil of subterranean forces, the horse of Totraz, can move in the underworld. Soslan’s horse, wounded on the battlefield, says: “Take off my skin and stuff it with straw. Then sit on my effigy and, who knows, maybe I will carry you home” (Libedinskij 1981: 182f.).
Deer. The Scythians had cult hymns about the god-ancestor, the man-deer. The Scythians associated the deer with the belief in resurrection, rebirth, revival of the killed beast. Griffin-like animals with a human head and deer antlers were found in Scythian burials. The Scythians appreciated such qualities of the deer as strength and swiftness. That is why its images are discovered in many finds, including the famous golden deer with 18 branches on its antlers. The Nart epic mentions æstdæssiuon sagtæ (18-horned reindeer) too. The Scythians and Sarmatians have preserved the cult of the celestial deer. The Narts, for whom the deer was also a symbol of beauty and grace, covered vast air spaces and ascended to the gods on celestial deer.
Music and dance. The Scythians had their own music and musical instruments. Three- and nine-stringed harps have been found in barrows. According to a number of scholars, Scythian harps came from the east (Altai, Central Asia). The image of a woman with a nine-stringed harp on a fragment of the Airtam Frieze from Uzbekistan, the discovery of images of people playing harp during the excavations in Khorezm by S. P. Tolstov, as well as fragments of wooden harps found in Pazyryk, testify that the harp was a workable musical instrument among the Scytho-Sarmatian tribes from the Altai Mountains to Central Asia (Tolstov 1948: 177f.; Rudenko 1960: 62f.; Kaloev 1999: 142). Harps were also discovered by archaeologists in catacomb burials belonging to the Sarmato-Alanian tribes.
The harp (especially the 12-string harp) is widely represented in the Nart epic of the Ossetians. It was made by Syrdon under circumstances vividly reminiscent of the story of the Median boy. According to Herodotus, the Scythians cut into pieces a Median boy, who had learnt archery from them, in order to feed Cyaxares (Herodotus I, 73). Nart Syrdon stole a cow from Xæmyc, slaughtered it, cut it into pieces and began to boil it in a cauldron. Suspecting Syrdon of what he had done, Xæmyc sneaked into his secret underground dwelling, where he found Syrdon’s young sons. When he saw the meat of his cow being boiled in a cauldron, he took out the meat and in return threw the chopped-up limbs of Syrdon’s sons into the cauldron. When Syrdon returned home and saw this, he took out the bones and veins of his sons, made a 12-stringed fændyr (harp) from them and presented it to the Narts as a gift (Libedinskij 1981: 213 ff.). The ancient harp still lives in Ossetian musical culture today.
As the Scythians possessed musical instruments, they could not do without dancing. This is evidenced by archaeology. The Scythian Besputsky gravestone of the 4th century BC reflects funeral and memorial rites: the image of a man dancing on his toes. Judging by the painting No. 2 of Scythian Naples, funeral dances were known to the later Scythians as well (Vysotskaja 1976: 70). Correspondingly, dancing is one of the Narts’ favorite pastimes. In their free time from trekking, they willingly gave themselves to the dance. When Soslan got to the other world, the first thing he met were girls dancing simd. The Narts usually performed their dances, called simd, on mountain tops or on the roof of Alægatæ’s house. The dance during matchmaking with Agundæ (Akula). Acæmæz opens all hearts with his whistle playing: one could not listen to his playing and not dance. The Black Mountain and the White Mountain went dancing. And the guests went dancing. Spreading wide their branchy horns, a hundred one-year-old deer danced on the stone courtyard with a fractional clatter. When they got up from the wedding table, “then the glorious Narts went one after another into a merry dance to the marvellous playing of the whistle, and everyone clapped their hands. Here on the edge of the round table they danced, here on the edges of the big beer bowl they danced” (Libedinskij 1981: 305). Once Wyryzmæg was returning from a hunt, and suddenly he saw “all the valiant Narts gathered on the top of the Black Mountain dancing simd there, such a simd that the mountains crumble, the age-old trees in the dense forests shudder, and cracks run down their mighty trunks. The earth shakes under the feet of dancing Narts”. And there are many such colourful scenes in the legends.
As one can see, the Narts were passionate lovers of music, dances and songs. The combination of militancy with a special love of music, songs and dances is one of the characteristic features of Nart heroes. As Abaev put it, the sword (thirst for exploits) and the fandyr (bawdy fun) are a double symbol of the Nart people (Abaev 1945: 98ff.).
12 Conclusion
The above parallels between the Scythian world and the Nart epic are, firstly, far from complete. Secondly, our attention was focused only on the phenomena of the Scythian and Indo-European world, which are reflected in the Nart epic; we did not touch upon the Scythian-Ossetian ethnographic coincidences, which are even more impressive and comprise a wider range of parallels. Nevertheless, the above provides grounds for conclusions and generalizations.
The Nart epic is consistently connected with the Scythian world. The above-quoted statement of Dumézil about the Scythian-Sarmatian nucleus in the formation of the Nart epic, as well as the well-known conclusion of Abaev that “The origins of the epic lead to the legends of the North Iranian tribes, Scythians, Sarmatians, and Alans” (Abaev 1982a: 79), remain true and unshakable both in their scientific validity and argumentation. In the light of new research on Nartology and Indo-European mythology, the view that the Caucasus was the birthplace of the Narts’ sagas is becoming increasingly vulnerable, unprovable, does not stand up to serious scientific criticism, and, most likely, is an attempt to pass off wishful thinking as reality. In another work, Dumézil clearly expresses the opinion that the core of the Narts’ legends “came from Ossetia, but these peoples (Caucasian, L.Ch.) enriched them with new episodes and new heroes” (Dumézil 1990: 9). The same opinion is held by another researcher, J. Grisward: “Ces légendes des Ossètes du Nord ont, en effet, débordé chez leurs voisins (Tcherkesses, Tatars, Abkhazes, Tchètchènes-Ingouches) où elles ont été adoptées, souvent adaptées, mêlées ou refondues” (Grisward 1969: 297, n. 3). Only Ossetians know the full history of the Narts: “the Nart cycle of the Ossetians is richer and more structured than that of the Circassians” (Dumézil 1976: 26). This is also evidenced by the fact that “several groups of Narts’ legends and some images of Narts apparently came out of the Alanian, Sarmatian-Scythian, ‘Euro-Iranian’, i.e. ultimately Ossetian fund” (ibid: 26f.). The names of the main characters of the epic (Wærxæg, Wyryzmæg, Æxsar, Æxsærtæg) are of Iranian origin. The famous American scholar John Colarusso (Littleton/Malcor 2000: xix) and others consider Ossetians as the main bearers of the Nart epic.
Parallels from the Nartiad lead to the Scythians, but they are not limited to them. As new research shows, comparative analysis reveals a rather curious (sometimes striking) commonality of many images and plots of the Ossetian Nart epic not only with the European but also with the Indo-Iranian world. The vivid images of the prominent Narts Soslan and Batraz are sufficient to illustrate this. They allow drawing parallels with Iranian, Indo-European, Greek, Celtic and Scandinavian characters. The question arises: If the core of the epic was formed on Caucasian soil, how could the above parallels from Scandinavian and Irish antiquities to ancient Indian (Aryan) mythology be possible (Soslan – Rama, Soslan – Indra, Soslan – Varuna, Soslan – Heracles, Soslan – Havain and Guinn, Soslan – Apollo; Batraz – Indra, Batraz – Rustam, Batraz – Ares, Batraz – Arthur and Lancelot, Batraz – Cu Chullain; Syrdon – Ahriman, Syrdon – Loki, Syrdon – Odysseus, etc.)? The Ossetian epic preserved in various forms its own historical facts, everyday historical traditions from the life of the Scytho-Sarmatian world, outside of which there is no special reason to look for any additional information. Yet, let us repeat, the epic preserves in its basis a slender religious and mythological system of the Northern Iranian world of nomads. The process of formation of the Ossetian Nart epic, to all appearances, was interrupted by the defeat of Alania by the Mongols.
According to new research, rather convincing parallels have been established, testifying to the decisive role of the image of the prominent Nart Batraz in the formation of the images of Arthur and Lancelot in the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. If we add to this the plot coincidences (Soslan and Batraz – Cu Chullain, Syrdon – Loki) in Irish and Scandinavian sagas, it becomes obvious that the West became acquainted with Narts’ sagas through the Sarmatian-Alan tribes. As J. Colarusso correctly notes, the Narts’ stories “not only … show numerous, striking, detailed parallels with the lore of ancient India and Greece, as one might expect from their intermediate position between these two great traditions, but they also show similar parallels with, of all things, the Arthurian cycle” (Littleton/Malcore 2000: xix). The Arthurian legends are based on a pre-feudal heroic epic among the Sarmatians and Alans who found themselves in England and France as part of the Roman armies and during the Great Migration of Peoples. This circumstance turned out to be so decisive that it allowed to assert: “the core of what later became the Arthurian and Grail literature was born on the steppes of ancient Scythia among a remarkable people whose impact on both the history and folklore of the West is only just beginning to be appreciated” (Littleton/Malcor 2000: 283).
Analysis of the works of other researchers (Dumézil, Vielle, Sattsaev, etc.) allows to expand not only the geographical boundaries of the epic, but also to deepen its chronological framework. In particular, the parallels between the Nart epic and ancient Iranian religious and epic monuments (Avesta, Shahnameh) as well as ancient Indian epic heritage (Ramayana, Mahabharata) suggest that the mythological core of the Nart epic dates back to the Aryan culture, which is part of the Indo-European culture. Ossetians and Iranians, as genetically related peoples, could inherit common things in the epic from the times when their ancestors still lived together and formed one people (Sattsaev 2008: 146). Thus, the origins of the formation of the mythological core of the Nart epic, through Iranian mediation, go back to the 2nd millennium BC, to the Indo-Iranian (Aryan) period. At the same time, although more than a thousand years passed from the collapse of the Aryan society to the Scythians, there were changes in the everyday, economic and social life, the Aryan ideal still served as a basis for explaining and justifying the social and political structure of the Scythian society.
Nart epic is a noticeably more archaic variant of this genre than e. g. Shahnameh and other literary epic cycles of Iranian peoples and from this viewpoint it is of great interest for the study of the distant past of the Iranians.
The Scytho-Ossetian ethno-cultural parallels have been enriched by new research. Nevertheless, the identified parallels cannot be considered exhaustive; the achieved level of comparative study of the Nart epic is far from complete. The continuation of the study of these parallels and the involvement of young scholars in them is very tempting, for, as the famous Scythologist E. E. Kuz’mina wrote, “ethnography and folklore of the Ossetians are an important source for the reconstruction of Scythian mythology and the elucidation of its genetic links with the Indo-European mythological system” (Kuz’mina 1983: 103).