Armenian Mythology by Mardiros H. Ananikiam

Index

CHAPTER XI
THE WORLD OF SPIRITS AND MONSTERS

THE ARMENIAN world of spirits and monsters teems with elements both native and foreign. Most of the names are of Persian origin, although we do not know how much of this lore came directly from Iran. For we may safely assert that the majority of these uncanny beings bear a general Indo-European, one might even say, universal character. So any attempt to explain them locally, as dim memories of an cient monsters or of conquered and exterminated races will in the long run prove futile. One marked feature of this vital and ever-living branch of mythology is the world-wide uniformity of the fundamental elements. Names, places, forms, combinations may come and go, but the beliefs which underlie the varying versions of the stories remain rigidly constant. On this ground mythology and folklore join hands.

The chief actors in this lower, but very deeply rooted stratum of religion and mythology are serpents and dragons, good or evil ghosts and fairies, among whom we should include the nymphs of the classical world, the elves and kobolds of the Teutons, the vilas of the Slavs, the jinn and devs of Islam, etc. ¹

At this undeveloped stage of comparative folklore it would be rash to posit a common origin for all these multitudinous beings. Yet they show, in their feats and characteristics, many noteworthy interrelations and similarities all over the world.

Leaving aside the difficult question whether serpent-worship precedes and underlies all other religion and mythology, we have cumulative evidence, both ancient and modern, of a world-wide belief that the serpent stands in the closest relation to the ghost. The genii, the ancestral spirits, usually appear in the form of a serpent. As serpents they reside in and protect, their old homes. Both the serpent and the ancestral ghost have an interest in the fecundity of the family and the fertility of the fields. They possess superior wisdom, healing power, and dispose of wealth, etc. They do good to those whom they love, harm to those whom they hate. Then these serpents and dragons frequently appear as the physical manifestation of other spirits than ghosts, and so we have a large class of serpent-fairies in all ages and in many parts of the world, like the serpent mother of the Scythian race, ² and like Melusine, the serpent-wife of Count Raymond of Poitiers (Lusignan). Further, the ghosts, especially the evil ones, have a great affinity with demons. Like demons they harass men with sickness and other disasters. In fact, in the minds of many people, they pass over entirely into the ranks of the demons.

Keeping, then, in mind the fact that, as far back and as far out as our knowledge can reach, the peoples of the world have established sharp distinctions between these various creatures of superstitious imagination, let us run over some of the feats and traits which are ascribed to all or most of them. This will serve as an appropriate introduction to the ancient Armenian material.

They all haunt houses as protectors or persecutors; live in ruins, not because these are ruins, but because they are ancient sites; have a liking for difficult haunts like mountains, caves, ravines, forests, stony places; live and roam freely in bodies of water, such as springs, wells, rivers, lakes, seas; possess subterranean palaces, realms and gardens, and dispose of hidden treasures; although they usually externalize them selves as serpents, they have a marked liking for the human shape, in which they often appear. They exhibit human habits, needs, appetites, passions, and organizations. Thus they are born, grow, and die (at least by a violent death). They are hungry and thirsty and have a universal weakness for milk; they often steal grain and go a-hunting. They love and hate, marry and give in marriage. In this, they often prefer the fair sons and daughters of men (especially noble-born ladies), with whom they come to live or whom they carry off to their subterranean abodes. The result of these unions is often not always a weird, remarkable, sometimes also very wicked, progeny. They steal human children, leaving change lings in their stead. They usually (but not always) appear about midnight and disappear before the dawn, which is her alded by cockcrow. They cause insanity by entering the human body. Flint, iron, fire, and lightning, and sometimes also water, ³ are very repugnant to them. They hold the key to magical lore, and in all things have a superior knowledge, usually combined with a very strange credulity. They may claim worship and often sacrifices, animal as well as human.

Although these beings may be classified as corporeal and incorporeal, and even one species may, at least in certain countries, have a corporeal as well as incorporeal variety, it is safe to assert that their corporeality itself is usually of a subtle, airy kind and that the psychical aspect of their being is by far the predominating one. This is true even of the serpent and the dragon. Finally, in one way or another, all of these mys terious or monstrous beings have affinities with chthonic powers.

Largely owing to such common traits running through almost the whole of the material, it is difficult to subject the Armenian data to a clean-cut classification.

I. SHAHAPET OF LOCALITIES

The Shahapet (Iranian Khshathrapati, lord of the field or of the land) is nothing else than the very widely known serpent-ghost (genius) of places, such as fields, woods, mountains, houses, and, especially, graveyards. It appears both as man and as serpent. In connection with houses, the Armenian Shahapet was probably some ancestral ghost which appeared usually as a serpent. Its character was always good except when angered. According to the Armenian trans lation of John Chrysostom, even the vinestocks and the olive-trees had Shahapets. In Agathangelos Christ Himself was called the Shahapet of graveyards, ⁴ evidently to contradict or correct a strong belief in the serpent-keeper of the resting place of the dead. We know that, in Hellenistic countries, grave stones once bore the image of serpents. We have no classical testimony to the Shahapet of homesteads, but modern Armenian folklore, and especially the corrupt forms Shvaz and Shvod, show that the old Shahapet of Armenia was both a keeper of the fields and a keeper of the house. The Shvaz watches over the agricultural products and labours, and appears to men once a year in the spring. The Shvod is a guardian of the house. Even today people scare naughty little children with his name. But the identity of these two is established by a household ceremony which is of far-off kinship to the Roman patermlia } itself an old festival of the dead or of ghosts, which was celebrated from February 13 to 21. In this connection Miss Harrison has some remarks " on the reason for the placating of ghosts when the activities of agriculture were about to begin and the powers of the underground world were needed to stimulate fertility." ⁵ But the Armenians did not placate them with humble worship and offerings: they rather forced them to go to the fields and take part in the agricultural labours. This ancient ceremony in its present form may be described as follows: 6 On the last day of February the Armenian peasants, armed with sticks, bags, old clothes, etc., strike the walls of the houses and barns saying: "Out with the Shvod and in with March!" On the previous night a dish of water was placed on the threshold, because, as we have seen, water is supposed to help the departure of the spirits, an idea also underlying the use of water by the Slavic peoples in their burial rites. Therefore, as soon as the dish is overturned, they close the doors tightly and make the sign of the cross. Evidently, this very old and quaint rite aims at driving the household spirits to the fields, and the pouring out of the water is regarded as a sign of their departure. According to the description in the Pshrank, the Shvods, who are loath to part with their winter comforts, have been seen crying and asking, "What have we done to be driven away in this fashion? Also they take away clean garments with them and return them soon in a soiled condition, no doubt as a sign of their hard labours in the fields.

The house-serpent brings good luck to the house, and some times also gold. So it must be treated very kindly and respect fully. If it departs in anger, there will be in that house endless trouble and privation. Sometimes they appear in the middle of the night as strangers seeking hospitality and it pays to be kind and considerate to them, as otherwise they may depart in anger, leaving behind nothing but sorrow and misfortune.

As there are communal hearths, so there are also district serpents. The serpent-guardian of a district discriminates care fully between strangers and the inhabitants of the district, hurting the former but leaving the latter in peace. ⁷

As the Armenian ghost differs little from other ghosts in its manner of acting, we shall refer the reader for a fuller description to the minute account of it given in Abeghian's Armenischer Volksgltwbe (chapters 2 and 6).

II. DRAGONS

The close kinship of the dragon with the serpent has always been recognized. Not only have they usually been thought to be somewhat alike in shape, but they have also many mythical traits in common, such as the dragon's blood, the serpent's or the dragon's stone, ⁸ the serpent's or the dragon's egg, both of the latter being talismans of great value with which we meet all over the world and in all times. They are corporeal beings, but they have a certain amount of the ghostly and the demoniac in them. Both can be wicked, but in folklore and mythology they are seldom as thoroughly so as in theology. Of the two, the dragon is the more monstrous and demoniac in character, especially associated in the people's minds ⁹ with evil spirits. He could enter the human body and possess it, causing the victim to whistle. But even he had redeeming qualities, on account of which his name could be adopted by kings and his emblem could wave over armies. In the popular belief of Iran the dragon can not have been such a hopeless reprobate as he appears in the Avestan Azi Dahaka.

Mount Massis, wrongly called Ararat by Europeans, was the main home of the Armenian dragon. The volcanic character of this lofty peak, with its earthquakes, its black smoke and lurid flames in time of eruption, may have suggested its association with that dread monster. But the mountain was sacred independently of dragons, and it was called Azat (i.e., Yazata (?), "venerable").

The Armenian for dragon is Vishap, a word of Persian origin meaning "with poisonous saliva." It was an adjective that once qualified Azi Dahaka, but attained an independent existence even in Iran. In the Armenian myths one may plaus ibly distinguish "the chief dragon " and the dragons, although these would be bound together by family ties; for the dragon breeds and multiplies its kind. The old songs told many a wonderful and mysterious tale about the dragon and the brood or children of the dragon that lived around the Massis. Most of these stories have a close affinity with western fairy tales. Some wicked dragon had carried away a fair princess called Tigranuhi, seemingly with her own consent. Her brother, King Tigranes, a legendary character, slew the dragon with his spear in a single combat and delivered the abducted maiden. ¹⁰

Queen Sathenik, the Albanian wife of King Artaxias, fair and fickle as she was, had been bewitched into a love affair with a certain Argavan who was a chief in the tribe of the dragons. Argavan induced Artaxias himself to partake of a banquet given in his honour in "the palace of the dragons," where he attempted some treacherous deed against his royal guest. The nature of the plot is not stated, but the King must have escaped with his life for he kept his faithless queen and died a natural death. ¹¹

The dragon (or the children of the dragons) used to steal children and put in their stead a little evil spirit of their own brood, who was always wicked of character. An outstanding victim of this inveterate habit common to the dragons and Devs of Armenia and their European cousins, the fairies ¹² was Artavasd, son of the above mentioned Artaxias, the friend of Hannibal in exile and the builder of Artaxata. History tells us that Artavasd, during his short life, was perfectly true to the type of his uncanny ancestry, and when he suddenly disappeared by falling down a precipice of the venerable Massis, it was reported that spirits of the mountain or the dragons themselves had caught him up and carried him off.

More important than all these tales, Vahagn, the Armenian god of fire (lightning), won the title of "dragon-reaper "by fighting against dragons like Indra of old. Although the details of these encounters have not come down to us, the dragons in them must have been allied to Vrtra, the spirit of drought.

The epic songs mentioned also Anush, as the wife of the dragon and the mother of the children of the dragon. She lived in the famous ravine in the higher peak of the Massis.

The records as they stand, permit us to conjecture that be sides the dragon as such, there was also a race of dragon-men, born of the intermarriage of the dragon with human wives. But we cannot be very certain of this, although there would be nothing strange in it, as the history of human beliefs teems with the "serpent fathers "of remarkable men, and the character of the Iranian Azi Dahaka himself easily lends itself to these things. The children of the dragon also, whether mixed beings or not, dwelt around the Massis and were regarded as uncanny people with a strong bent towards, and much skill in, witchcraft. ¹³

However it may be about the children of the dragon, it is incontestable that the dragons themselves were a very real terror for the ancient Armenians. We are told that they lived in a wide ravine left by an earthquake on the side of the higher peak of the Massis. According to Moses, Eznik, and Vahram Vardapet, ¹⁴ they had houses and palaces on high mountains, in one of which, situated on the Massis, King Artaxias had enjoyed the dangerous banquet we have mentioned.

These dragons were both corporeal and personal beings with a good supply of keen intelligence and magical power. They boasted a gigantic size and a terrible voice (Exishe). But the people were neither clear nor unanimous about their real shape. They were usually imagined as great serpents and as sea-monsters, and such enormous beasts of the land or sea were called dragons, perhaps figuratively. We find no allusion to their wings, but Eznik says that the Lord pulls the dragon up " through so-called oxen "in order to save men from his poisonous breath. ¹⁵ The dragons appeared in any form they chose, but preferably as men and as serpents, like the jinn of the Arabs. They played antics to obtain their live lihood. They loved to suck the milk of the finest cows. ¹⁶ With their beasts of burden or in the guise of mules and camels they were wont to carry away the best products of the soil. So the keepers of the threshing floor, after the harvest, often shouted ," Hold fast! Hold fast!" (Kail Kal!) probably to induce them to leave the grain by treating them as guarding genii. ¹⁷ But they carefully avoided saying "Take! Take! " (Ar! Ar!}.

The dragons also went hunting just as did the Kaches with whom we shall presently meet. They were sometimes seen running in pursuit of the game (Vahram Vardapet) and they laid traps or nets in the fields for birds. All these things point to the belief that their fashion of living was like that of men in a primitive stage of development, a trait which we find also in western and especially Celtic fairies.

It would seem that the dragons as well as their incorporeal cousins the Kaches claimed and kept under custody those mortals who had originally belonged to their stock. Thus Artavasa was bound and held captive in a cave of the Massis for fear that he might break loose and dominate or destroy the world. ¹⁸ Alexander the Great, whose parentage from a serpent or dragon-father was a favorite theme of the eastern story-mongers, was, according to the mediaeval Armenians, confined by the dragons in a bottle and kept in their mountain palace at Rome. King Erwand also, whose name, according to Alishan, means serpent, was held captive by the dragons in rivers and mist. He must have been a changeling, or rather born of a serpent-father. For he was a worshipper of Devs and, according to Moses, the son of a royal princess from an unknown father. He was proverbially ugly and wicked and possessed an evil eye under the gaze of which rocks crumbled to pieces. ¹⁹

Like most peoples of the world, Armenians have always associated violent meteorological phenomena with the dragon. This association was very strong in their mind. In a curious passage in which EXishe (fifth century) compares the wrath of Yezdigerd I to a storm, the dragon is in the very centre of the picture. We need not doubt that this dragon was related to the foregoing, although ancient testimony on this subject leaves much to be desired. Eznik's account of the ascension of the dragon " through so-called oxen " into the sky, is in perfect accord with the mediaeval Armenian accounts of the " pulling up of the dragon." This process was always accompanied by thunder, lightning, and heavy showers. Vanakan Vardapet says: "They assert that the Vishap (the dragon) is being pulled up. The winds blow from different directions and meet each other. This is a whirlwind. If they do not overcome each other, they whirl round each other and go upward. The fools who see this, imagine it to be the dragon or something else." Another mediaeval author says: "The whirlwind is a wind that goes upward. Wherever there are abysses or crevasses in the earth, the wind has entered the veins of the earth and then having found an opening, rushes up together in a condensed cloud with a great tumult, uprooting the pine-trees, snatching away rocks and lifting them up noisily to drop them down again. This is what they call pulling up the dragon." ²¹

Whether the dragon was merely a personification of the whirlwind, the water spout, and the storm cloud is a hard question which we are not ready to meet with an affirmative answer, like Abeghian ²² who follows in this an older school. Such a simple explanation tries to cover too many diverse phenomena at once and forgets the fundamental fact that the untutored mind of man sees many spirits at work in nature, but rarely, if ever, personifies Nature itself. To him those spirits are very real, numerous, somewhat impersonal and versatile, playing antics now on the earth, now in the skies, and now under the ground. In the case of the dragon causing storms, to the Armenian mind the storm seems to be a second ary concomitant of the lifting up of the dragon which threat ens to destroy the earth. ²³ Yet, that the original, or at least the most outstanding dragon-fight was one between the thunder or lightning-god and the dragon that withholds the waters is an important point which must not be lost sight of. ²⁴

We must not forget to mention the worship that the dragon enjoyed. Eznik says that Satan, making the dragon appear appallingly large, constrained men to worship him. This worship was no doubt similar in character to the veneration paid to evil spirits in many lands and perhaps not entirely distin guished from serpent-worship. According to the same writer, at least in Sassanian times even Zrvantists (magians?) indulged in a triennial worship of the devil on the ground that he is evil by will not by nature, and that he may do good or even be converted. ²⁵ But there was nothing regular or prescribed about this act, which was simply dictated by fear. As the black hen and the black cock ²⁶ make their appearance often in general as well as Armenian folk-lore as an acceptable sacrifice to evil spirits, we may reasonably suppose that they had some role in the marks of veneration paid to the dragon in ancient times. But we have also more definite testimony in early martyrological writing (History of St. Hripsimeans) about dragon worship. The author, after speaking of the cult of fire and water (above quoted) adds: "And two dragons, devilish and black, had fixed their dwelling in the cave of the rock, to which young virgins and innocent youths were sacrificed. The devils, gladdened by these sacrifices and altars, by the sacred fire and spring, produced a wonderful sight with flashes, shakings and leapings. And the deep valley (below) was full of venomous snakes and scorpions."

Finally the myth about the dragon's blood was also known to the Armenians. The so-called "treaty " between Constantine and Tiridates, which is an old but spurious document, says that Constantine presented his Armenian ally with a spear which had been dipped in the dragon's blood. King Arshag, son of Valarshag, also had a spear dipped in the blood of "reptiles" with which he could pierce thick stones. ²⁷ Such arms were supposed to inflict incurable wounds.

III. KACHES

The Kaches form a natural link between the Armenian dragon and the Armenian Devs of the present day. In fact they are probably identical with the popular (not theological) Devs. They are nothing more or less than the European fairies, kobolds, etc. Their name means " the brave ones," which is an old euphemism (like the present day Armenian ex pression " our betters," or like the Scots "gude folk") used of the spirit world and designed to placate powerful, irresponsible beings of whose intentions one could never be sure. From the following statements of their habits and feats one may clearly see how the people connected or confused them with the dragons. Our sources are the ancient and mediaeval writers. Unlike the dragon the Kaches were apparently incorporeal beings, spirits, good in themselves, according to the learned David the Philosopher, but often used by God to execute penalties. Like the Devs, they lingered preferably in stony places with which they were usually associated and Mount Massis was one of their favorite haunts. Yet they could be found almost everywhere. The country was full of localities bearing their name and betraying their presence, like the Stone of the Kaches, the Town of the Kaches, the Village of the Kaches, the Field of the Kaches (Katchavar, " where the Kaches coursed "), etc. ²⁸

Like the dragons, they had palaces on high sites. According to an old song it was these spirits who carried the wicked Artavazd up the Massis, where he still remains an impatient prisoner. They hold also Alexander the Great in Rome, and King Erwand in rivers and darkness, i.e., mists. ²⁹ They waged wars, which is a frequent feature of serpent and fairy, commu nities, and they went hunting. ³⁰ They stole the grain from the threshing floor and the wine from the wine press. They often found pleasure in beating, dragging, torturing men, just as their brothers and sisters in the West used to pinch their victims black and blue. Men were driven out of their wits through their baleful influence. Votaries of the magical art in mediaeval Armenia were wont, somewhat like Faust and his numerous tribe, to gallop off, astride of big earthen jars, ³¹ to far-off places, and walking on water, they arrived in foreign countries where they laid tables before the gluttonous Kaches and received instructions from them. Last of all, the mediaeval Kaches (and probably also their ancestors) were very musical. The people often heard their singing, although we do not know whether their performance was so enthralling as that ascribed to the fairies in the West and to the Greek sirens. However, their modern representatives seem to prefer human music to their own. According to Djvanshir, a historian of the Iberians of Transcaucasia, the wicked Armenian King Erwand built a temple to the Kaches at Dsung, near AkhalkaXak in Iberia (Georgia).

IV. JAVERZAHARSES (NYMPHS)

These are not mentioned in the older writers, so it is not quite clear whether they are a later importation from other countries or not. They probably are female Kaches, and folk lore knows the latter as their husbands. Alishan, without quoting any authority, says that they wandered in prairies, among pines, and on the banks of rivers. They were invisible beings, endowed with a certain unacquired and imperishable knowledge. They could neither learn anything new nor for get what they knew. They had rational minds which were incapable of development. They loved weddings, singing, tambourines, and rejoicings, so much so, that some of the later ecclesiastical writers confused them as a kind of evil spirits against whose power of temptation divine help must be in voked. In spite of their name ("perpetual brides") they were held to be mortal. ³² The common people believed that these spirits were especially interested in the welfare, toilette, marriage, and childbirth of maidens. There are those who have supposed that Moses of Chorene was thinking of these charming spirits when he wrote the following cryptic words: "The rivers having quietly gathered on their borders along the knees (?) of the mountains and the fringes of the fields, the youths wandered as though at the side of maidens."

V. TORCH (OR TORX)

Torch is in name and character related to the Duergar (Zwerge, dwarfs) of Northern Europe and to the Telchins of Greece or rather of Rhodes. ³³ This family of strange names belongs evidently to the Indo-European language, and designated a class of demons of gigantic or dwarfish size, which were believed to possess great skill in all manner of arts and crafts. They were especially famous as blacksmiths. In antiquity several mythical works were ascribed to the Greek Telchins, such as the scythe of Cronos and the trident of Posei don. They were mischievous, spiteful genii who from time immemorial became somewhat confused with the Cyclops. The Telchins were called children of the sea and were found only in a small number.

The Torch, who can hardly be said to be a later importa tion from Greece, and probably belongs to a genuine Phrygo- Armenian myth, resembles both the Telchins and the Cyclops. In fact he is a kind of Armenian Polyphemos. He was said to be of the race of Pascham (?) and boasted an ugly face, a gigantic and coarse frame, a flat nose, and deep-sunk and cruel eyes. His home was sought in the west of Armenia most probably in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea. The old epic songs could not extol enough his great physical power and his daring. The feats ascribed to him were more wonderful than those of Samson, Herakles, or even Rustem Sakjik (of Segistan), whose strength was equal to that of one hundred and twenty elephants. ³⁴

With his bare hands the Armenian Torch could crush a solid piece of hard granite. He could smooth it down into a slab and engrave upon it pictures of eagles and other objects with his finger-nails. He was, therefore, known as a great artisan and even artist.

Once he met with his foes, on the shores of the Black Sea, when he was sore angered by something which they had evidently done to him. At his appearance they took to the sea and succeeded in laying eight leagues between themselves and the terrible giant. But he, nothing daunted by this distance, be gan to hurl rocks as large as hills at them. Several of the ships were engulfed in the abyss made by these crude projectiles and others were driven off many leagues by the mighty waves the rocks had started rolling. ³⁵

VI. THE DEVS

Ahriman, the chief of the Devs, was known in Armenia only as a Zoroastrian figure. The Armenians themselves prob ably called their ruler of the powers of evil, Char "the evil one" Just as Zoroastrianism recognized zemeka "winter," as an arch demon, so the Armenians regarded snow, ice, hail, storms, lightning, darkness, dragons and other beasts, as the creatures of the Char or the Devs. ³⁶ Although they knew little of a rigid dualism in the moral world or of a con stant warfare between the powers of light and the powers of darkness, they had, besides all the spirits that we have de scribed and others with whom we have not yet met, a very large number of Devs. These are called also ais (a cognate of the Sanscrit asu and Teutonic as or aes) which Eznik explains as " breath." Therefore a good part of the Devs were pictured as beings of "air." They had, like the Mohammedan angels, a subtile body. They were male and female, and lived in marital relations not only with each other, but often also with human beings. ³⁷ They were born and perhaps died. Nor did they live in a state of irresponsible anarchy, but they were, so to speak, organized under the absolute rule of a monarch. In dreams they often assumed the form of wild beasts ³⁸ in order to frighten men. But they appeared also in waking hours both as human beings and as serpents. ³⁹

Stony places, no doubt also ruins, were their favorite haunts, and from such the most daring men would shrink. Once when an Armenian noble was challenging a Persian viceroy of royal blood to ride forward on a stony ground, the Prince retorted: " Go thou forward, seeing that the Devs alone can course in stony places." ⁴⁰

Yet according to a later magical text, there can be nothing in which a Dev may not reside and work. Swoons and in sanity, yawning and stretching, sneezing, and itching around the throat or ear or on the tongue, were unmistakable signs of their detested presence. But men were not entirely helpless against the Devs. Whoever would frequently cut the air or strike suspicious spots with a stick or sword, or even keep these terrible weapons near him while sleeping, could feel quite secure from their endless molestations. ⁴¹ Of course, we must distinguish between the popular Dev, who is a comparatively foolish and often harmless giant, and the theological Dev, who is a pernicious and ever harmful spirit laying snares on the path of man. To the latter belonged, no doubt, the Druzes (the Avestic Drujes), perfidious, lying, and lewd female spirits. Their Avestic mode of self-propagation, by tempting men in their dreams, ⁴² is not entirely unknown to the Arme nians. They probably formed a class by themselves like the Pariks ⁴³ (Zoroastrian Pamkas enchantresses), who also were pernicious female spirits, although the common people did not quite know whether they were Devs or monsters. ⁴⁴ These, too, were mostly to be sought and found in ruins. ⁴⁵

VII. ALS

The most gruesome tribe of this demoniac world was that of the Als. It came to the Armenians either through the Syrians or through the Persians, who also believe in them and hold them to be demons of child-birth. ⁴⁶ Al is the Babylonian Aluy one of the four general names for evil spirits. But the Armenian and Persian Al corresponds somewhat to the Jewish Lilith and Greek Lamia.

Probably the Als were known to the ancient Armenians, but it is a noteworthy fact that we do not hear about them until mediaeval times. They appear as half-animal and half-human beings, shaggy and bristly. They are male and female and have a " mother." ⁴⁷ They were often called beasts, nev ertheless they were usually mentioned with Devs and Kaches. According to Gregory of Datev ⁴⁸ they lived in watery, damp and sandy places, but they did not despise corners in houses and stables. A prayer against the Als describes them as impure spirits with fiery eyes, holding a pair of iron scissors in their hands, wandering or sitting in sandy places. Another unnamed author describes an Al as a man sitting on the sand. He has snake-like hair, finger-nails of brass, teeth of iron and the tusk of a boar. They have a king living in abysses, whom they serve, and who is chained and sprinkled up to the neck with (molten?) lead and shrieks continually.

The Als were formerly disease-demons who somehow came to restrict their baleful activities to unborn children and their mothers. They attack the latter in child-birth, scorching her ears, pulling out her liver and strangling her along with the unborn babe. They also steal unborn children of seven months, at which time these are supposed in the East to be fully formed and mature, in order to take them "deaf and dumb" (as a tribute? ) to their dread king. ⁴⁹ In other passages they are said to blight and blind the unborn child, to suck its brain and blood, to eat its flesh, and to cause miscarriage, as well as to prevent the flow of the mother's milk. In all countries women in child-bed are thought to be greatly exposed to the influence and activity of evil spirits. Therefore, in Armenia, they are surrounded during travail with iron weapons and instruments with which the air of their room and the waters of some neighbouring brook (where these spirits are supposed to reside) are frequently beaten. ⁵⁰ If, after giving birth to the child, the mother faints, this is construed as a sign of the Als presence. In such cases the people sometimes resort to an extreme means of saving the mother, which consists in exposing the child on a flat roof as a peace-offering to the evil spirits. ⁵¹ Identical or at least very closely connected with the Al is Thepla, who by sitting upon a woman in child-bed causes the child to become black and faint and to die. ⁵²

VIII. NHANGS

These monster spirits, at least in Armenian mythology, stand close to the dragons. The word means in Persian, "crocodile," and the language has usually held to this matter-of-fact sense, although in the Persian folk-tale of Hatim Tai, the Nhang appears in the semi-mythical character of a sea-monster, which is extremely large and which is afraid of the crab. The Armenian translators of the Bible use the word in the sense of "crocodile" and "hippopotamus." However, the Nhangs of Armenian mythology, which has confused an unfamiliar river monster with mythical beings, were personal ⁵³ and incorporeal. They were evil spirits which had fixed their abode in certain places and assiduously applied themselves to working harm. They sometimes appeared as women (mermaids?) in the rivers. At other times they became seals (phok) and, catching the swimmer by the feet, dragged him to the bottom of the stream, where, perhaps, they had dwellings like the fairies. ⁵⁴ In a geography (still in MS.) as cribed to Moses, the Nhangs are said to have been observed in the river Aragani (Murad Chay?) and in the Euphrates. After using an animal called charchasham for their lust, vampire-like they sucked its blood and left it dead. The same author reports that, according to some, the Nhang was a beast, and according to others, a Dev. John Chrysostom (in the Armenian translations) describes the daughter of Herodias as more bloodthirsty than " the Nhangs of the sea." ⁵⁵

IX. ARLEZ (ALSO ARALEZ, JARALEZ)

Ancient Armenians believed that when a brave man fell in battle or by the hand of a treacherous foe, spirits called " Arlez" descended to restore him to life by licking his wounds. In the Ara myth, these spirits are called the gods of Semiramisj also in a true and realistic story of the fourth century about the murder of Mushegh Mamigonian, the commander of the Armenian king's forces. ⁵⁶ " His family could not believe in his death . . . others expected him to rise; so they sewed the head upon the body and they placed him upon a tower, saying, "Because he was a brave man, the Arlez will descend and raise him." Presumably their name is Armenian, and means "lappers of brave men," or "lappers of Ara" ⁵⁷ or even "ever-lappers." They were invisible spirits, but they were de rived from dogs. ⁵⁸ No one ever saw them. Evidently the dogs from which they were supposed to have descended were ordinary dogs, with blood and flesh, for Eznik wonders how beings of a higher spiritual order could be related to bodily creatures. The Arlez were imagined to exist in animal form as dogs. ⁵⁹

X. OTHER SPIRITS AND CHIMERAS

The Armenians believed also in the existence of chimeras by the name of Hambans or Hambarus Jushkapariks (Vushkapariks), Pais, and sea-bulls, all of which are manifestly of Persian provenience. Yet the nature and habits of these beings are hidden in confusion and mystery.

The Hambarus are born and die. They appear to men as suming perhaps different forms like the Devs and Pasviks. They are probably feminine beings with a body, living on land and particularly in desert places or ruins. Von Stackelberg thinks that the word Hambartma means in Persian, "house-spirits." This is possibly justified by the shorter form, Anbar, which may convey the sense of the falling of a house or wall; so the original Hambaru may be interpreted as a ghostly inhabitant of a deserted place. The word may also mean "beautiful" or even "a hyena." An old Armenian dictionary defines it as Chartho (?) if it lives on land, and as "crocodile," if it lives in water. But the oldest authorities, like the Armenian version of the Bible and Eznik, consider the Hambarus as mythologi cal beings. Threatening Babylon with utter destruction Isaiah (Armenian version, xiii. 21-22) says, "There shall the wild beasts rest and their houses shall be filled with shrieks. There shall the Hambarus take their abode and the Devs shall dance there. The Jushkapariks shall dwell therein and the porcu pines shall give birth to their little ones in their palaces." Hambaru here and elsewhere is used to render the cretp (siren) of the Septuagint. ⁶⁰

Another chimerical being was the Jushkaparik or Vushkaparik, the Ass-Pairika, an indubitably Persian conception about which the Persian sources leave us in the lurch. Its name would indicate a half-demoniac and half-animal being, or a Pairika (a female Dev with amorous propensities) that appeared in the form of an ass and lived in ruins. However Eznik and the ancient translators of the Bible use the word through a hardly justifiable approximation to the ass-bull of the Septuagint (Isaiah xiii. 22, xxxiv. n, 14). According to Vahram Vardapet (quoted by Alishan) the Jushkaparik was imagined, in the middle ages, as a being that was half-man and half-ass, with a mouth of brass. Thus it came nearer the conception of a centaur, which word it served to translate in Moses of Khoren's history. Sometimes also to make the confusion more confounded, it is found in the sense of a siren and as a synonym of Hambaru.

We are completely in the dark in regard to the Pais which boasted human parenthood (presumably human mothers). There were those in Eznik's time who asserted that they had seen the Pais with their own eyes. The old Armenians spoke also of the Man-Pai. ⁶¹ The Pais seem to be a variety of the Pariks.

The case is not so hopeless with the sea-bull, a chimerical monster which propagated its kind through the cow, somewhat after the manner of the sea-horses of Sinbad the Sailor's first voyage. Men asserted that in their village the sea-bull as saulted cows and that they often heard his roaring. We can well imagine that immediately after birth, the brood of the monster betook themselves to the water, like the sea-colts of the Arabian Nights story which we have just mentioned. ⁶² But this sea-bull may also recall the one which Poseidon sent to Minos for a sacrifice and which was by the wise king unwisely diverted from its original purpose and conveyed to his herds, or the one which, on the request of Theseus, Poseidon sent to destroy Theseus innocent son, Hippolytus.

Another such chimeric monster, but surely not the last of the long list, was the elephant-goat (fhlachal) . ⁶³

NOTES

1. See art. "Fairy" in ERE v. 678 f. See also Kirk, Secret Commonwealth of Elves, etc. Its analysis largely supports ours which was made independently on the basis of more extensive material.

2. Herodotus, iv. 9. The Greek view of the origin of the Scythians was that they were born from the union of Herakles with a woman who was human above the waist and serpent below.

3. Goldziher, "Wasser als Damonenabruhrendes Mittel," in ARW, xiii. [1910] 274 f. This may have reference to water in its relation to the birth of fire or to the lightning.

4. Agathangelos, p. 57. Cf. the cross of the archangel Michael in graveyards of Roman Catholic churches, e.g., French.

5. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1903, p. 540.

6. This description is based on the account given by Alishan and in Pshrank. Some confusion has arisen in regard to the true nature of this old rite, owing to the fact that Shvod was thought to be Shubat, the Syriac name of a month corresponding to February. But it is certain that originally Shvod was the name of a class of spirits.

7. For a comparative study of serpent-worship and serpent-lore see art. "Serpent" in ERE xi.

8. According to Frazer, GB 3 , part 7, Balder the Beautiful, London, 1913, ix. 15, the serpent's stone is identical with the serpent's egg. This, however, is not quite certain. Nor should this egg be confused with that in which a fairy's or dragon's external soul is often hidden (ibid., ii. io6f.).

9. Later magical texts use the word " dragon " in the sense of evil spirit.

10. For parallels see J. A. MacCulloch, The Childhood of Fiction: A Study of Folk-Tales and Primitive Thought, London, 1905, chap. 14, "The Dragon Sacrifice," and E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, London, 1894-96.

11. Chalatianz (p. 12) speaking of modern Armenian folk-tales about the dragons reciprocated love for highborn matrons and maids, mentions also the fact that there are many parallels in Slav, Rumanian, and Wallachian folk-tales, and that it is the sons or brothers of these infatuated women who persecute the monster, often against the enamoured woman's will.

12. See art. " Changeling " in ERE iii. 358f.

13. We know that the Persian Azi Dahaka, a corporeal creature and helper of Ahriman, had a human representative or could person ify himself as a man.

14. Quoted by Alishan, p. 194.

15. This pulling up of the dragon out of a lake by means of oxen appears also in Celtic (Welsh) folklore.

1 6. In England the Lambton Worm required nine cows milk daily. Luther, in his Table-Talk, describes a diabolical child a "Kill-crop," which exhausted six nurses. The house-serpent also is often fed on milk, while in other instances the serpent is said to be disinclined to milk.

17. House-fairies (the Brownie of Scottish folk-lore) thrash as much grain in a night as twenty men can do. See Kirk, Secret Commonwealth, Introd. by A. Lang, p. 24.

18. There is a contradiction here. In the original Persian story the world-destroyer is the dragon himself, chained by the hero Thraetona.

19. These rocks were exposed in the morning to his eyes in order to neutralize their baleful influence during the day. The evil eye is blue. Before it, mountains, even the whole world may flame up. (Pshrank, p. 180.)

20. For whirlwinds in connection with jinn, fairies, demons, and witches see " Fairy " in ERE v. 688*.

21. Alishan, p. 66. In more recent collections of folklore, God, angels, and even the prophet Elijah, have taken the place of the ancient weather god and his helpers. The usual weapons are iron chains and the lightning. Sometimes it is a cloud-monster that is being driven hard and smitten with the lightning so that he shrieks. At other times it is the dragon hung in suspense in the sky that is trying to break h\s chains in order to reach and destroy the world. Angels pull him up and fasten his chains. The thunder-roll is the noise of the chains and of the affray in general. According to another and probably older account, the dragon that lives in the sea or on land, must not live beyond a thousand years. For then he would grow out of all proportion and swallow up everything. Therefore, just before he has reached that age, angels hasten to pull him up into the sky. There he is often represented as being consumed by the sun, while his tail drops down on earth to give birth to other dragons. A magical text of more recent date speaks of the Serpent who remains in hiding for one hundred years, then is taken into the skies, like a dragon, where he acquires twelve heads and four bridles (Lkam, Arabic). The lightning is often a sword, arrow or fiery whip which the Lord is hurling at the devil, who is fleeing, and who naturally and gradually has taken the place of the ancient dragon, as the Muhammedan Shaytan crowded out the eclipse dragon.

22. Abeghian, p. 78.

23. Here, however, the meteorological dragon seems to have become fused with the eschatological dragon. Whether these two were originally identical or can be traced to different sources is an important question which need not be discussed here. See Frazer, GB 3 part 7, Balder the Beautiful, London, 1913, i. 105 f.

24. Abbott in his Macedonian Folk-lore (chap, xiv.) gives a very interesting account of the dragon beliefs there, which have a close affinity both with the Indian Vrtra and the Armenian Vishap. The Macedonian dragon is a giant and a monster, terrible, voracious and somewhat stupid, but not altogether detestable. He is invariably driven away by a bride who boldly asserts herself to be " the Lightning's child, the Thunder's grandchild and a hurler of thunderbolts!" Here Indra and Vrtra are unmistakable.

25. The relation of such doctrines to the faith of the Yezidis is unmistakable (J. Menant, Les Yezidis, p. 83; Parry, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery) p. 358 f.

26. In Greek and Latin mythology the powers of Hades accept only black gifts and sacrifices, such as black sheep, heifers, beans, etc.

27. Among other things this would recall the arrows of Herakles which had been dipped in the bile of the Lernean Hydra.

28. Alishan, p. 191; Abeghian.

29. Vahram Vartabed, quoted in Alishan, p. 194.

30. Perhaps the fairies dart, which killed people and cattle in Scotland and elsewhere, is a dim reminiscence of this hunting habit of the fairies.

31. Modern Armenian folk-lore also knows of witches with a tail who fly to foreign lands astride upon such jars.

32. Cf. the Muslim " Brides of the Treasuries," fairy guardians of hidden treasure. Western fairies also are often imagined as mortal and as seeking to attain immortality through intermarriage with human beings. However in other instances it is they who try to free human children " from dying flesh and dull mortality " by im mersing them in fairy wells. In Pshrank (p. 194), a man stumbles into a wedding of these fairies, near the ruins of a water-mill. After an oath upon the Holy Eucharist, he is allowed to taste of their wine of immortality and to take a wife from their number.

33. I owe this identification to Dr. J. W. Chapman. For the Telchins, see Blinkenberg, " Rhodische Urvolker," in Hermes, 1 [1915] pt. 2, pp. 271 if. and the authors named by him. In an article in the Hushartzan (Memorial Volume) of the Mechitarists of Vienna, Nicolaos Adontz finds in Torch the Hittite god Tarqu.

34. Moses of Choren makes Torch the head of the noble house called " AngeX Tun," interpreting the word AngeX as " ugly." The expression means rather " The Vulture's House," and Torch's connec tion with that house is an unfounded conjecture of Moses own or of his legendary sources.

35. See Appendix IV, The Cyclops.

36. Eznik, p. 191, EXishe, p. 65.

37. An nth cent, writer reports that a woman died leaving a husband and some children. While the man was perplexed as to how to take care of the orphans, a very beautiful woman appeared unexpectedly and lived with him, taking good care of him and the children. But after a while for some reason she disappeared. She was recognized as a female Dev. Modern Armenians are still catching mermaids by sticking a needle into their clothes. These can be married or held in servitude and they will stay as long as the needle remains.

38. Eznik, p. 178.

39. Faustus, v. 2.

40. Moses, iii. 55.

41. Eznik, p. 178 f.

42. Vendidad, xviii. 45-52.

43. Under the influence of later Persian romantic conceptions of the Peris or Houris, the modern Armenian Parik has also become a most charming fairy.

44. Eznik, p. 97 f.

45. See on the modern Armenian Devs, Chalatianz, p. xiii f.; Lalayantz, " Traditions et superstitions de PArmenie," Revue des tra ditions ^o^ulaires y x. [1895] J 93^J F. Macler, art. "Armenia (Christian)," in ERE i. 80 2; Pshrank, p. 170. Macler's is a good summary of the two preceding studies. The present-day Armenian Dev is a very large being with an immense head on his shoulders, and with eyes as large as earthen bowls. Some of them have only one eye (Pshrank, p. 170).

46. Goldziher, ARW x. [1907] 44.

47. This "mother of the Als " resembles the Teutonic devil's grandmother.

48. Quoted by Alishan, p. 222.

49. To steal unborn children is a trait of the nocturnal demon Kikimora of the Slavs also, but rather a rare notion among other peoples. The tribute mentioned in the text resembles the Scottish tradition of the similar tribute paid by the fairies to the devil, usually a human victim (see J. A. MacCulloch, artt. " Changeling," "Fairy," in ERE iii. 360, v. 678).

50. Modern Parsis burn a fire or light in the room, probably for the same purpose. (See J. J. Modi, art. "Birth (Parsi) " in ERE ii. 66 1, though the writer fails to give the reason underlying this practice.)

51. The spirits of Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday eve, of which Abeghian (p. I2O f.) and, following him, Lalayantz, speak, are Christian inventions. Wednesday and Friday, as fast days, and Sunday as a holy day, are supposed to avenge themselves on those who do not respect their sanctity.

52. The Als are known also to modern Armenian folklore (Abe ghian, p. 1 08 f.). But sometimes the Devs assume their functions (see Pshrank, p. 170), and they not only steal the mother's liver, but also bring the child, probably born, to their chief, substituting for him a changeling. See also Appendix V, The At.

53. As this seems to be a self-contradiction, it is perhaps better to take it as a refutation by Eznik of those who said that the Nhang was a personal being.

54. In a similar manner the Teutonic Nixies showed themselves in the form of bulls and horses, and lured men maliciously into the abyss. (S. Reinach, Orpheus, Eng. trans., London, 1909, p. 133).

55. Alishan, p. 62 f.

56. Faustus, v. 36.

57. See p. 68.

58. Eznik, p. 98 f. It is difficult to tell whether these beneficent spirits belonged to the original stock of Armenian beliefs or whether they were a survival of the Urartian or even Babylonian spirit world. Plato does not mention them in his brief and philosophical "Er" myth, although how the dead hero's body was taken up whole (intact), without some process of healing, is hard to see. The myth about a slain hero's return to life is, however, rather foreign to Greek thought, and this trait may not have reached him at all. G. H. Basmajian, an Armenian Assyriologist, in his short Comparative Study of our Aralez and the Babylonian Marduk (Venice, 1898), points out that Marduk had four dogs, Ukkumu, " the snatcher," Akkulu, " the eater," Iksuda, " the snatcher," and Iltepu, " the satisfier," and that he himself is said in a cuneiform fragment from Koyunjuk, now in the British Museum (K. 8961), " to recall the dead to life," and (line 10) "to give life to the dead bodies." Yet this view, which had already been held by Emine and V. Langlois (Collection des hlstoriens anciens et modernes de P Armenie, Paris, 18679, i. 26, note i), cannot be said to be the last word on this interesting but obscure point. Marduk's dogs do not lick wounds, nor is Marduk himself specially famous for restoring dead heroes to life. Licking wounds to heal them is the most important feature of these gods or dog spirits. (For a parallel see p. 204 of the African section of this volume.) Prof. Sayce saw some connexion between the Arall mountain and the Armenian Aralez, while another scholar has sug gested Aralu or Hades as a possible explanation. Basmajian comes perhaps nearer to the solution. Sandalgian (Histoire documentaire de l y Armenie y ii. 599) quotes the letter of Sargon speaking of golden keys found in the temple of Khaldis in Mutzatzir, in the form of goddesses wearing the tiara, carrying the dented harp and the circle and treading upon dogs which made faces. But the same author (pp. 754759) says that arales meant for the ancient Armenians inhabitants of Arali (Summerian Hades), but later generations, having forgotten the original sense of the word, developed the myth of the Aralezes, from the last syllable which conveyed to them the meaning of lapping.

59. Alishan, p. 177 f.

60. See also Isaiah, xxxiv. 13, Jeremiah, 1. 39, in the old Armenian version.

6 1. Alishan, p. 185.

62. The sea-bull resembles the Celtic Water-bull, the Tarbh Uisge of the West Highlands, which had no ears and could assume other shapes. It dwelt in lochs and was friendly to man, occasion ally emerging to mate with ordinary cows. The similar Tarroo Ushtey of the Isle of Man begets monsters. Both have a curious resemblance to the Bunyip, a mythical water monster of the Australian blacks. See J. A. MacCulloch, The Religion of the Ancient Celts Edinburgh, 1911, p. 189; Mythology of AIL Races, Boston, 1916, ix. 280.

63. Besides many of the above mentioned spirits, modern Arme nians know at least two others, the Hotots and the Old Hags of the Swamps. The Hotots are like devils, but they are not devils. In the winter and in the spring they live in rivers and swamps. When they appear they are all covered with mire. They do not deceive men as the devils do, but they allure them by all sorts of dances, jests, and grimaces. When the unsuspecting victim follows them for the sake of being amused, and who can resist the temptation they pull and push him into their miry abode. The Old Hags of the marshes also live in pools and swamps. They are terrible to see. They are enormous, thick, and naked, with heads as big as bath-house domes, with breasts as large as lambs hanging down. Horses, oxen, buffaloes, men, children and other living beings are drawn into their watery abode and drowned by them. (Pshrank, pp. 171172.) See also Appendix VI, " The Finger Cutters of Albania."

Index