The Nart sagas (; ; ) are a series of tales originating from the North Caucasus. They form much of the basic mythology of the ethnic groups in the area, including Abazin, Abkhazians, Adyghe people, Ossetians, Karachays-Balkars, and to some extent Chechen people-Ingush people folklore.
Etymology
The term
nart comes from the Ossetian Nartæ, which is
plurale tantum of nar.
The derivation of the root
nar is of
Iranian peoples origin, from
Proto-Iranian *nar for 'hero, man', descended from Proto-Indo-European
(the name of the Roman emperor
Nero also derives from this same root). In
Ingush language and
Chechen language, the word
nart means 'giant'.
Characters
Some of the characters who feature prominently in the sagas are:
-
Sosruko (Ubykh language, Abkhaz language and Adyghe language: sawsərəqʷa (Саусырыкъо); ) – a hero who sometimes also appears as a trickster
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Batraz () – the leader and greatest warrior of the Narts
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Satanaya (; ; ) – the mother of the Narts, a fertility figure and matriarch
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Tlepsh (Adyghe and Abaza language: ; ) – a blacksmith deity
-
() – a trickster figure compared by Georges Dumezil to the Norse god Loki
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Pkharmat () – in the Nakh peoples' Vainakh religion, a blacksmith figure who steals fire from the gods for the mortals
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Akhsar and Akhsartag () are twin brothers who are heroes in Ossetian mythology and sons of Warhag. Akhsartag is also the father of the narts Uryzmaeg and Haemyts.
-
Dzerassae () – daughter of the sea-god Donbettyr, and mother of many Nart heroes.
-
Uryzmaeg (; ; , Орзми, Ingush language: Урузман, Abkhaz language, Abaza language: Уазырмас, ) is the hero of the Nart saga, son of Akhsartag and Dzerassae.
-
Haemyts (, , , , , , , ) is the hero of the, son of Akhsartag and Dzerassae, the father of the hero Batraz and the twin brother of Uryzmaeg, with whom they often went on conquest campaigns together.
Study and significance
The first Westerner to take note of the Nart stories was the German scholar Julius von Klaproth, who traveled to the Caucasus during the first decade of the 19th century.
The earliest written account of the material is attributed to the
Kabardians author Shora Begmurzin Nogma, who wrote in Russian in 1835–1843, published posthumously in 1861. A German translation by
Adolf Berge was published in 1866 . The stories exist in the form of prose tales as well as epic songs.
It is generally known that some of the Nart corpora have an ancient Iranian core, inherited from the Scythians, Sarmatians, and Alans (the latter being the ancestors of the Ossetians). However, they also contain abundant local North Caucasian accretions of great antiquity, which sometimes reflect an even more archaic past.
The Ossetes consider the Nart epic to be a central feature of their national identity.
The Northwest Caucasian (Adyghe language, Abkhaz-Abasin and Ubykh) versions are also highly valuable because they contain more archaic accretions and preserve "all the odd details constituting the detritus of earlier traditions and beliefs", as opposed to the Ossetian ones, which have been "reworked to form a smooth narrative".
Connections to other mythology
Some motifs in the Nart sagas are shared by Greek mythology. The story of
Prometheus chained to
Mount Kazbek or to
Mount Elbrus 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.
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 Alans, some of whom migrated into northern France at around the time the Arthurian legends were forming. As expected, these parallels are most evident in the Ossetian versions, according to researcher John Colarusso. For more details, see "Historicity of King Arthur – Lucius Artorius Castus and the Sarmatian connection."
Differences between Nart legends
There are some differences between the various versions of the Nart legends. For example, the Ossetian versions depict the Nartic tribe as composed of three distinct clans that sometimes rival one another: the brave Æxsærtægkatæ (to whom the most prominent Narts belong), the rich Borætæ, and the wise Alægatæ; the Circassian versions do not depict such a division. The Abkhaz versions are unique in describing the Narts as a single
nuclear family composed of Satanaya's one hundred sons.
All of these versions describe the Narts as a single coherent group of (mostly) "good" heroes.
Some Nakh (Chechen people-Ingush people) legends include a group called the Nart-Orxustxoi, which includes the most prominent Narts known from the other versions (e.g. Seska-Solsa corresponding to Sosruko/Soslan, Khamtsha-Patarish corresponding to Batraz/Batradz, etc.) In contrast to the Ossetian and Abkhaz versions, the Nakh legends depict the Narts as warlike bandits who fight against local good heroes such as Koloi-Kant and Qinda-Shoa (with Qinda-Shoa corresponding to Sawway/Shawey).
Shayan Javadi, the Persian translator of "Nart" by matching the Ossetian, Abkhaz, Abaza, Circassian, and Ubykh versions, has been able to identify the lineage of some characters who have only been named. For instance, by recreating a character named "Qânzezâd (Abaza: Qanzhoquo)," he believes that he is the son of Azaukhan in the Ossetian version.
See also
Sources
Further reading
Circassian Nart sagas
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, English translations
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, Russian translations
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Articles:
Ossetian Nart sagas
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, three collections of legends (Dzhanayev, Gutiev and Skodtayev/Kibirov, the latter from the Digor dialect area). The first collection (the 1946 Dzhanayev edition) is also available in the form of older and newer audio recordings
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: a translation, with slight modifications, of the Dzhanayev edition at the previous link
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(legends collected from the Digor dialect area, edited by M. Gardanti)
Abkhaz Nart sagas
Karachay-Balkar Nart sagas
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, detailed set of tales
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Russian translations from
Chechen-Ingush Nart sagas
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Accounts of Chechen and Ingush beliefs by Ch.E.Akhriev
Miscellaneous
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, Causcasian folklore articles
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Дувакин Евгений Николаевич. "Кельто-кавказские фольклорные параллели и возможные сценарии их происхождения"
(дата обращения: 29.09.2021). (In Russian)
External links
