Tuesday, July 29, 2014

TFBT: Nart Sagas from the Caucasus

While exploring an underground used-book full of musky leather bound books I began talking with the clerk.  We had something in common, we were both classicists.  (Are all clerks at used bookstores classicists?)  His academic credentials gave him far great claim to the title.  I asked about a fairy tale I had long looked for; a witch and king in a marriage of convenience. He didn’t know the specific tale, but he knew a similar motif in the Nart Sagas from the Caucasus by John Colarusso. 


Oddly enough, I was familiar with the Nart sagas thanks to My Adventures in the Caucasus by Alexander Dumas.   Monsieur Dumas is the person who made me aware that the people of the Caucasus knew about the binding of the Titan Prometheus.  It is Saga 34 in Colarusso’s book.

Colarusso translates myriad folk tales from the myriad peoples of the Caucasus.  All though these peoples used indifferent languages, practiced different traditions and worshipped different versions of the Abrahamic God they all seemed to share similar folk tale.  The “Nart” are the demi-god children of a Golden Tree.  The tales are degenerate myths of ancient gods.  They did not display the artistry or length I expected from a “saga”.   The wives are witches or fairy brides.  It is easy to read into them the Choice of Achilles, Prometheus/Loki, the Sword in the Stone all sorts of Indo-European mythological myths.  But, maybe it is better to read them as the wise folk tales and ancient lays they are. 

7 comments:

  1. What was the name of "Prometheus"? Was he rescued at the end?

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  2. Maya,

    There were several versions. The most "promethean" was named Naga I believe and yes he was rescued from the eagle and his chains. The other character was a giant, whom everyone was glad to leave there.

    Bill

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    1. I forgot to mention that what brought fire, light and life to the Nart was that the rescuer shot a couple of holes in the giant eagle's wings and that is how light returned to the world.

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    2. Poor giant!
      I recently read with my son an etiological folk tale. According to it, once there were no reptiles, amphibians and storks. For unidentified reasons, God entrusted a closed bag to a man and told him not to open it. The man of course untied it to peep inside, like Pandora and Odysseus' crew. The bag was full of snakes, lizards and frogs that crawled away in all directions. God transformed the man into a stork and told him that he would remain in this shape until he collects back all the crawly things.
      My son was unimpressed by the tale, apparently considering it pure and meaningless fiction. My father, however, remembered how he first read it as a child. He was very upset and felt pity to the poor stork. He took his pencil and wrote a "scholium": "Twenty years later, the man had collected all creatures and was restored to his human form."
      I guess that essentially the same mechanism saved many Greek mythological characters and brought e.g. the Danaids to new husbands, Iphigenia to Tauris, Achilles to Leuce, Heracles, Ariadne and Semele to Olympus, Cronus to the Islands of the Blessed, and Prometheus away from the crag ( don't know the exact location).
      The gods may have been saved also in order to prevent them from breaking free on their own and starting a nice new celestial war, like Loki.

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    3. Maya,

      Scholia as salvation! I love the notion. Your father and son read the same fairy tales how fun. My son loved the same Dr Seuss as I; "I Belong in the Zoo". After that he and I advanced to "Calvin and Hobbs"

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  3. It is interesting to me that these tales are thought by some to preserve very primitive features, while your impression was that they were degenerate. What traits of degeneracy did you mention? (Without having read the sagas, I tend to believe you. I am fairly skeptical that something not preserved in written form until very modern age could be authentically ancient.)

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  4. Apparently, the names of the fairies and magical beings are versions of Irani gods names predating the Prophet Zoroaster.

    Bill

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