a wonderful collection. So much was new to me, The notes at the end of each saga give some fascinating insights, Colarusso explores links with Yggdrasil the sacred world tree of the Norse, Prometheus, Hittite myth, Woden, Shiva, ancient storm gods, Odysseus, etc etc, To take just one fascinating example in Saga, which is a Round Dance to Yeli god of lightning, Colarusso wonders if Yeli is a theonym derived from the Semitic El the Biblical God or perhaps more likely from the biblical Elijah “worshipped as a sort of lightning storm god in the Caucasus and the steppe to the north.
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Often, the differences with other myths are more fascinating than the similarities, For example, Sagaseems to be a retelling of the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops, but the action takes place in a hollow tree rather than a cave, and the hero escapes over a glacier, not the sea.
I liked the story of Gunda, who will only marry a man who can wrestle her to the ground those who fail have their ears cut off and stuck on her fence post.
I knew a Gunda once she wasnt at all like that although her mother was quite scary,
One of the many attractive features of this corpus is the treatment of women, They are often portrayed as warriors Amazon does not come from the Greek meaning “without breasts” this is a folk etymology suggesting they cut off a breast to draw their bows but from a Circassian word meaning “forest mother”.
Female warriors were no myth in this part of the world, In one saga, the Nart Warzameg comes to the reluctant decision that his wife Setanaya must leave him, but invites her to take away whatever is most precious to her.
She takes him having first drugged and kidnapped him, This tale, though not without a certain humorous brutality, is typical of the way women arent just damsels in need or rescuing, but powerful agents.
And the equality and affection between the sexes is touching,
Modesty, respect for women, and restraint of the appetites are all traditional Caucasian virtues which are found both in the sagas and in the contemporary Caucasus.
These are all attractive features, We may owe them more than we realise, The concept of the English gentleman, for example which may be dying but is not yet dead is traced back to medieval concepts of chivalry which, according to Colarusso, may be an elaboration of the mores of war brought to Europe by Sarmatian and Alanic mercenaries in the late Roman Empire.
I like that idea. This book is a treasure house, not just for the delight of the sagas themselves, but also for the thought provoking connections on almost every page.
NART SAGAS, the collection of myths from Caucusus is a very well presented book, The Circassian, Abkhaz, Abaza and Ubhyk Corpus oftales provides an insight into the culture and belief of the Caucussians,
These myths once again highlight an ancient mystery of why myths about Gods and Giants in farflung civilizations across the globe from Scandinavia to India have the same contours and roles for the heroes and villains though names vary.
It is this thread of commonality that give rise to theories of alternative appearance of man, which does not accept Darwins theory of evolution either fully or partly.
Myths and Legends from various civilizations have interested me from my preteens, When I first read the Norse myth of Baldur the Beautiful and how Loki tricked his blind brother Hod to throw the mistletoe on him all plants, animals, elements and metals except the mistletoe had promised Baldurs mother Frigga not to hurt him and kill him, I really wept.
The Tale was so stirringly written, I dont remember whose translation it was, it touched and stirred the childs heart in me, The story of the Apples of Youth and the exploits of Thunder God Thor all were a treat, Greek and Roman mythology followed, but after nearly half a century, I have laid my hands on another collection of Myths this time from Caususus, it kept me enraptured for many a days it took me to finish it.
Today the reading of myths is viewed with a wider horizon by me than in my preteens,
The notes at the end of each saga shows depth of analysis, relationship to other myths like Greek, Norse, Indo Iranian, etc.
John Colarusso has done a very commendable job of laying open these myths and sagas for the English readers, with good translation and annotations.
A book worth treasuring and a must read on the list of all lovers of myths, Essential reading for anyone interested in the myths and languages of the Caucasus, its about Circassian legends, a very old legends even oldest than Greeks,
I like this book, coz it is the first one in English about our legends, . . An amazing collection of stories finally rendered into English, Heavy on the linguistics, but the average reader can skip over those sections, There is some repetition among the tales because they have been collected from various people who tell they same cycle of stories, This was a very interesting read although for me also somewhat dissapointing, I found the notes to each saga too scanty and sometimes farfetched, I had hoped for more parallells with other IndoEuropean mythologies and missed many parallells from the Celtic world I saw many relations with the stories of Pryderi, Peredur, Cú Chulainn etc.
Then again what I lacked in this book opens new possibilities for me to research and perhaps it was not the main scope of this book to provide extensive comparative notes.
Entertaining and enlightening since I knew nothing of these sagas or the ancient Caucasus
before opening the book, but the nature of what Colarusso and his fellow scholars
are doing makes the stories somewhat repetitive.
Also,
the translations are a bit uneven, at times
yielding modern exclamations and nearslang with jarring results, But fun overall. I had the honour of being in his Mythology class at McMaster University a decade ago, Brilliant man. Brilliant book. Definitely recommended. An interesting collection of myths, but occasionally hard to read, I came across simple versions of these stories as a child, having a great fun reading them together with my brother, laughing at some funny ones and being enchanted by others.
And even though at that time I didnt consider them to be more than very original fairytales, they stuck with both of us to such a degree that even after some decades we still remembered many of them, including some of the supercomplicated names of the main heroes.
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Now some decades later, while researching the ancient sites and civilisations possibly related to the ancient religion of the Sun, I suddenly remembered the great hero of these sagas Sosruko who similarly to other ancient heroes like Persian Mithra for example was said to have been born of stone, and so fiery he could not be touched.
Excited to delve deeper into these sagas, as well as the culture that produced them, I ordered this wonderful English translation by J, Colaruso, and my journey has begun anew
Journey into the humanitys ancient past, where a civilisation of people much taller than us though it seems not giants in the usual sense lived their everyday lives filled with bravery, unmatched chivalry, and magic.
These people the ancient Narts, are considered to be the distant ancestors of the people of North Caucasus, and indeed, there are references in some of the sagas to “people much smaller in stature” that came to populate the area towards the end of Narts civilisation.
Reading these stories with more attention this time, it was fascinating for me to discover this amazing society with its specific rules and ways of life, with strong traits of matriarchy and a deep respect for a woman still present.
Society where magic was interwoven with life, where Gods or maybe we should call them “spiritually advanced people/beings usually living in higher dimensions" could be contacted, and some even living among the Narts, like the famous Divine blacksmith Tlepsh similar in description to Svarog of the Slavs, Hephaestus of the Greeks, or even Germanic Odin in some of his aspects.
Similarly to other researchers, I also noticed surprising similarities between the Nartic society and the ancient Irish society of the Ulster Cycle, which brings even more questions about the possible migrations of people in the ancient times
Too much could indeed be written about these enchanting tales, and I still feel like I havent even scratched the surface! Having only read some Circassian/Adyghean Nart Sagas, I feel like the next step is to get the Ossetian ones, for a bigger picture and more connections to be made.
To somehow conclude this review, I would say that if you are like me, feeling like there is some hidden mystery buried in the mountains of Caucasus, a mystery about humanitys ancient past and perhaps forbidden history, dont hesitate to get to know the Narts! Its more than worth it.
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