Persian and Caucasus Myths by Matt Clayton

Author:Matt Clayton [Clayton, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-04T22:00:00+00:00

Section I: Myths and Folktales

Sosruko’s Sword (Circassia)

The Nart Sosruko is among the most important heroes in Caucasian myth and legend. Like most heroes, he has an unusual birth. In some versions of the tale, he is born out of a rock (his name literally means “son of a stone”) and then taken to the smithy of Tlepsh, the god of blacksmiths, to be finished. Sosruko has superhuman strength and preternatural growth; he is big enough to ride a horse by the time he is one year old.

When Sosruko was still a very young boy, he liked to visit Tlepsh at his forge, and Tlepsh was always happy to see him. One day, Sosruko went to Tlepsh’s forge. Tlepsh was hard at work. “Greetings, Sosruko!” Tlepsh said. “My, how you’ve grown. You’ll be almost as big as me soon, and I think you’re old enough to help me at my work. Can you pump the bellows for me?”

Sosruko was proud that Tlepsh wanted his help. He went to the bellows and lifted the handle. When he pushed the handle down, the air came out in such a fierce stream that it blew away the fire, tools, and everything else that stood in its path. The only thing that did not move was the anvil because it was buried deep in the ground.

“That’s enough of that, my lad. But I want to see how strong you really are. See if you can lift my anvil,” Tlepsh said.

Sosruko tried, but he could barely budge the anvil.

“Ah, you still have some growing yet to do, I see. Never fear! You’ll be strong enough one day,” Tlepsh said.

Every day, Sosruko went to the forge and tried to lift the anvil whenever Tlepsh wasn’t looking, and every day he was able to lift it a little bit further out of the ground. Finally, the day came when he was able to lift the anvil all the way up. He decided that he would surprise Tlepsh with this new feat of strength. He went to the forge very early in the morning, picked up the anvil, and put it in front of the forge door.

When Tlepsh arrived later to start his work, he said, “What is this here? Who moved my anvil? Who besides me is strong enough to do that?”

Tlepsh did not receive the answer to his question until the next day, when three young men, all of whom were Narts, came to the forge. One of the young men was carrying a scythe. Sosruko also was at the forge, watching Tlepsh at his work.

“Greetings,” Tlepsh said to the visitors. “What brings you to my forge?”

“We want you to help settle an argument,” the man carrying the scythe said. “This here is a magic scythe. It does all its work by itself. My brothers each say that the scythe should belong to them, but I say it should be mine. We don’t want our quarrel to come to blows, so we hoped you could help us settle it.

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