OSSETIAN
MYTHOLOGY
Ossetian
mythology is the collective term for the beliefs and practices of
the Ossetian people of the Caucasus region, which contains several
gods and supernatural beings. The religion itself is believed to
be of Sarmatian origin, but contains many later elements from Christianity,
and the Ossetian gods are often identified with Christian saints.
The gods play a role in the famous stories about a race of semi-divine
heroes called the Narts.
Deities
:
• Huycau
or Xucau : The chief of the gods.
• Uastyrdzhi
("Saint George") : The patron of males and travellers,
and the guarantor of oaths. Main patron of North Ossetia–Alania.
• Uacilla
("Saint Elijah") : Also spelled Watsilla. God of rain,
thunder and lightning. As protector of the harvest he is known as
(Hory Uacilla, "Uacilla of the wheat"). Anyone struck
by lightning was considered chosen by the god and, if they survived,
a sheep was sacrificed in their honour. His festival was celebrated
in the summer with the sacrifice of a lamb and a bull and the drinking
of specially brewed beer. On that day women baked bread in silence
as a mark of reverence.
• Safa
: God of the hearth chain. The most important domestic deity for
Ossetians.
• Donbettyr
: Lord of the waters. His name is a fusion of the Ossetian don (meaning
water) and Saint Peter. He uses his chain to drag down those who
unwarily go swimming too late to his realm at the bottom of the
sea. He has many beautiful daughters, comparable to the Rusalki
of Slavic mythology. Up to the 19th century, his day was celebrated
on the Saturday following Easter by young girls.
• Dzerassae
: One of Donbettyr's daughters, the mother of many Nart heroes.
• Tutyr
: Lord of the wolves. Identified with Saint Theodore of Tyre.
• Fælværa
: The name is possibly a conflation of Saints Florus and Laurus.
Fælværa was the protector of sheep and his festival
was celebrated before sheep-shearing in September. He only has one
eye. He is often the enemy of Tutyr.
• Æfsati
: A male hunting god.
• Kurdalægon
: The heavenly smith. A close friend of the Narts.
• Satana
: Mother goddess, mother of the Narts.
• Saubarag
("black rider") : The god of darkness and thieves. Identified
with Satan.[citation needed]
• Huyændon
Ældar. Lord of the fish. A great magician and a spirit who
behaves like an earthly chief ("ældar"). His name
means "Lord of the Strait" (according to Abaev, this is
most probably the Cimmerian Bosphorus, the modern Strait of Kerch).
• Barastyr
(also transliterated Barastaer or Barastir) Ossetian psychopomp
: The ruler of the underworld who assigns arriving dead souls to
either paradise or his own realm.
• Aminon
: Gatekeeper of the underworld.
• Alardy
: Lord of smallpox, who had to be placated.
The uac- prefix in Uastyrdzhi and Uacilla has no synchronic meaning
in Ossetic, and is usually understood to mean "saint"
(also applied to Tutyr, Uac Tutyr, perhaps Saint Theodore, and to
Saint Nicholas, Uac Nikkola). The synchronic term for "saint",
however, is syhdaeg (cognate to Avestan Yazata). Gershevitch (1955)
connects uac with a word for "word" (Sanskrit vac, c.f.
Latin vox), in the sense of Logos.
Kurys
(Digor Burku) is a dream land, a meadow belonging to the dead, which
can be visited by some people in their sleep. Visitors may bring
back miraculous seeds of luck and good fortune, sometimes pursued
by the dead. Inexperienced souls may bring back fever and sickness
instead. Gershevitch (with V.I. Abaev) compares the name Kurys to
the mountain Kaoiris in Yasht 19.6 (Avestan *Karwisa), which might
indicate that the name is a spurious remnant of origin legends of
Airyanem Vaejah of the Alans.
Folklore
:
Ossetian folkore also includes several mythological figures, including
those in the Nart sagas, such as Batraz, a warrior hero.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Ossetian_mythology
