"You Narts are a haughty and stubborn race."

December 4, 2004 7:24 PM

Narts! The Nart Sagas are arguably the most essential ingredient of Circassian Culture, to which they are what Greek mythology is to Western Civilization. Though much less known than their Greek counterparts, the Nart epic tales are no less developed. The heroism, sagacity, guile and ferocity of the Nart demi-gods are more than matches to those of the Greek Pantheon. If this selection of stories captures your interest, you might want John Colarusso's Nart Sagas from the Caucasus; you can read the introduction online ("A ship sailing across the Black Sea in the year 1780 eventually would have come upon a lush shore at the eastern end of the dark gray waters..."). Although they seem to have been brought by the Ossetes (and J. Cassian is posting an Ossetian tale, The Death of Soslan, on his blog), they're everywhere in the Northern Caucasus. And some people say they were the source of the King Arthur stories.
posted by languagehat (13 comments total)

Fascinating post, LH.

This line, though, seems a bit odd if you stop to think about its implications: "Despite Sosriqwe's puny stature and dark complexion, he proved to be the most cunning and resourceful amongst the Narts," [em. mine, natch]. I wonder if it's editorializing on the part of the page's author or a reflection of something else.
posted by clockzero at 7:37 PM on December 4, 2004

The Arthurian thread is really interesting so far. Fantastic links.
posted by the_bone at 7:39 PM on December 4, 2004

Curse you, languagehat...I can't afford any more books at the moment!

Nice stuff.
posted by rushmc at 8:00 PM on December 4, 2004

Good stuff, languagehat. I can't get enough of European mythology.

I think those who say that the Circassian myths are the basis of most European mythology are guilty of major lumping, bad linguistics and a tendency to use little things to make grand arguments. They also tend to forget that pre-historic and early historic peoples moved around a lot more than we often think.

But, I am not a linguist, nor an anthropologist, and need to do more reading. Like this stuff.
posted by QIbHom at 8:13 PM on December 4, 2004

neat stuff lh!
posted by kamylyon at 8:19 PM on December 4, 2004

Showing the kids how it's done--wonderful post.

"SWARTHY SAUSRYQUA,
THE IRON-EYED* DARKSOME MAN,
MOST INTREPID KNIGHT.
. . . .

* AN EPITHET WHOSE ORIGINAL SIGNIFICANCE IS NOW UNKNOWN."

Interesting. It sounds familiar to me, but I'll have to dig for awhile before I turn up anything. I recently re-read Seamus Heaney's Beowulf and may be getting an echo from there. Beautiful stuff though, and totally new to me. Thanks.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 9:40 PM on December 4, 2004

Wow. Great stuff. Thanks, LH.

The parallels with the World Tree of Norse mythology remind me of the question of the Old Testament creation story, and it makes me wonder if that whole primordial "tree of life" concept is much more universal than we usually think.
posted by soyjoy at 9:49 PM on December 4, 2004

posted by anthill at 12:18 AM on December 5, 2004

The parallels with the World Tree of Norse mythology remind me of the question of the Old Testament creation story, and it makes me wonder if that whole primordial "tree of life" concept is much more universal than we usually think.

soyjoy, I once had the opportunity to talk about this (and other similar matters) with a Buryat shaman. They "climb" a nine branch tree-ladder to go to the upper world.

We concluded that traders, raiders and the migrations of peoples led a lot of stories to be traded, shaped and coloured. Good stories get repeated, to this day.

I still think Jungian archetypes are bs, though.
posted by QIbHom at 8:49 AM on December 5, 2004

Great post!

There's some evidence to suggest that many of Europe's pre-Christian religions are derivatives of the religion of the proto Indo-European peoples who gaves us the root of so many languages.

(A lingusitic connection between the Caucasian languages and the IE family has been suggested and studied, but not really proven.)
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:06 AM on December 5, 2004

Language =/ religion. PIE is a language, possibly a family of languages.
posted by QIbHom at 5:53 PM on December 5, 2004

PIE is a language, possibly a family of languages.

No shit! I thought it was a dessert and slang for a woman's sex organs. Thanks for setting me straight on that one, you condescending fucker.

The point that I was making is the speakers of PIE may (as in "might") have spread religion as well as language.

(Yes, I garbled when didn't finish changing my phrasing at the last second. It should read "speakers of proto Indo-European.")
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:49 AM on December 6, 2004

Mayor Curley, you strongly implied that the speakers of PIE had one religion in your comment. We don't know that, and, furthermore, have no reason to think that.

I agree with you that religion moves around, too. Stories get shared. And they mutate, agglutinate and split.

But, this discussion is about Circassian mythology, not about PIE. Changing the topic then blaming your unclear phrasing on my attitude (which I'm still looking for) is puzzling.
posted by QIbHom at 6:55 AM on December 6, 2004