Ossetian Myths. From the Thunderer Uacilla and the Ominous Ruymon to the Narts' Apple Tree and the Dove-Girl

Who are the Narts and why is the memory of their feats still alive? How did the supreme god Khuytsau create the Universe? Who is Uastyrdji and why is he called upon during the most important moments of life in Ossetian tradition?

This publication opens doors to Ossetian mythology — an ancient and coherent system of views, where the world is structured vertically into three spheres inhabited by heavenly patrons, heroes, and beings from the demonological circle. The pages of the book reveal key motifs — from the creation of the Universe and the sacred role of prayer to the images of patrons, hunting mythology, and the language of animals and birds, through which the Ossetians explained the structure of existence.
Diаnа Sokaeva — Doctor of Philological Sciences, leading research associate, head of the Department of Folklore and Literature at the North Ossetian Institute of Humanities and Social Studies named after V.I. Abaev of the Russian Academy of Sciences; she was the first to systematically organize the fairy tale and non-fairy prose of the Ossetians in detail and studied the persistent motifs of Ossetian folklore and their ethnographic analogs.