AMIRANI
Georgian
c. 2000 BCE - Medieval
When the Greeks came to Colchis on the Black Sea, they identified the region with the Aea of the Argonaut story, not least because the native mythology seemed to recall the Argonauts' venture so well. The character of Amirani is known primarily from a medieval epic and folk tales collected in the nineteenth century. Though he is often compared to the Greek Prometheus because both characters were punished by being chained under mountains, other parts of his elaborate myth cycle parallel different mythic figures, including Jason. Scholars are uncertain how much of this material is genuinely ancient, dating back perhaps as far as 2000 BCE; how much of this material involves influences from Greek or Iranian myth; and how much of this material is of a much more recent vintage. The consensus seems to be that the Amirani figure dates back in origin to the second or late third millennium BCE, and his battle with the dragon, discussed below, to sometime in the Iron Age, drawing on a genuinely ancient Proto-Indo-European tradition. Some Proto-Indo-European scholars hold the position that early Caucasian mythology influenced Greek myth as far back as the Mycenaean period. It is possible that the Amirani myth influenced the development of the Argonaut cycle after the Greeks colonized Colchis; however, given the paucity of evidence, the influence might also have gone the other way.
AMIRANI
Amirani was born the son of the goddess Dali and a mortal hunter, but he was ripped from the womb after the hunter's jealous wife, Darejan or Darejani, killed the goddess. Amirani had two half-brothers, and he bore symbols of the sun and the moon on his shoulders, and a gold tooth in his mouth. Together, the brothers had many, many adventures as they quested across the landscape, prompted by an offer of gold in reward for avenging the death of man at the hands of a terrible giant.
Amirani was born the son of the goddess Dali and a mortal hunter, but he was ripped from the womb after the hunter's jealous wife, Darejan or Darejani, killed the goddess. Amirani had two half-brothers, and he bore symbols of the sun and the moon on his shoulders, and a gold tooth in his mouth. Together, the brothers had many, many adventures as they quested across the landscape, prompted by an offer of gold in reward for avenging the death of man at the hands of a terrible giant.
Amirani and his brothers came across the terrible giant, whom they intended to kill. The giant pleads for his life by telling them of a maiden:
"Darejani's son," he cried, "O kill me not, I beg of thee!
And I shall tell thee of a maid who lives beyond a magic sea.
So fair is she that ev'n the sun has never seen the like before.
Her dress is made of wondrous silks and gold that sunbeams o'er it pour.
Source: M. Kvesevala (ed.), Anthology of Georgian Poetry, trans. Venera Urushadze (1948; reprint Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2001).
The comparisons to Medea and the Golden Fleece are quite clear. Amirani and his brothers kill the giant, called a devi, anyway. From his head came three worms that grew into dragons (cf. Spartoi). The heroes killed two of the dragons, but the third dragon swallowed Amirani, the son of Darejan (cf. Douris cup depiction of Jason in the dragon). The dragon tries to wind itself around a tree (like Jason’s dragon), but his bowels hurt. He calls to his mother (where the mother came from, I have no idea), who replies:
"None but the son of Darejan can ever harm thee, dearest child."
"He who is in me has a tooth of gold." the dragon writhing sighed.
"Woe to thy mother and to thee, for that is Darejani's child!"
Source: Kvesevala, Anthology of Georgian Poetry.
Amirani (or in some versions his brothers) takes out a knife and cuts open the dragon. Amirani emerges. This dragon is sometimes depicted as a European-style serpent and other times as a sea-borne creature, a whale-dragon, or even as a dev, a type of evil giant itself:
As for the whale-dragon, it has deep roots in the culture of the Caucasian tribes. Stone engravings and sculptures of fish, considered by historians to be idols of the pagan era, have been found in Georgia and are dated as belonging to the second millennium B.C.
Source: Dodona Kiziria, “Amirani: A Georgian Folk Hero,” Folklore Forum 7, no. 7 (1974): 133.
Amirani and his brothers traveled to the ends of the earth in search of Qamari, the fair maiden clothed in a silk raiment as golden as the sunbeams:
Qamari's parents lived amidst the suns and stars in heavens high;
Above the world their castle fine hung swinging in the azure sky.
Source: Kvesevala, Anthology of Georgian Poetry.
He found her in this celestial castle and made plans with her to run away from her father to marry.
Qamari told Amirani to make haste for —
"If my father finds us here, to escape his anger will be late."
So Amirani and Qamari rode away in great haste...
Source: Kvesevala, Anthology of Georgian Poetry.
Qamari’s father pursued the pair (cf. Aeetes and Absyrtus), and in desperation Amirani commits suicide, only to be resurrected by a magic herb provided by Qamari (cf. Medea’s cauldron and herbs) on the advice of a mouse.
The final stage of Amirani’s career parallels that of Bellerophon with the punishment of Prometheus:
Stories of giants who are chained on mountains are still current in the Caucasus. Thus in the district of Kabarda, on the northern slope of the Caucasus, a story goes that a giant is chained to the rock on Mt. Elburz for having tried to hurl down God. Seldom has it been given to mortal men to see him; but no man may see him twice. He lies in a sort of swoon, but from time to time he wakes up and asks his guards if the rushes still grow on earth and the sheep still drop their young. When they say 'Yes,' he falls into a fury and clanks his chains; that makes thunder. He rages and howls; that makes storms. At last he weeps in helpless fury; that makes the rain and swells the torrents that come rushing down from the high hills and tell the world of his woes.
The Georgians say that a giant called Amiran lies chained in a cave upon Mt. Elburz. But he has two black dogs that lick his fetters; so the fetters grow thinner and thinner, till every year on Good Friday they are as thin as a leaf, and next day they would snap in two, if it were not that on the Friday evening or the Saturday morning all the smiths in Georgia give some swingeing blows on their anvils; that rivets the giant's chains once more.
Source: J. G. Frazer, commentary on Pausanias, Description of Greece, vol. III, trans. J. G. Frazer (London: Macmillan and Co., 1898), 542.
"Darejani's son," he cried, "O kill me not, I beg of thee!
And I shall tell thee of a maid who lives beyond a magic sea.
So fair is she that ev'n the sun has never seen the like before.
Her dress is made of wondrous silks and gold that sunbeams o'er it pour.
Source: M. Kvesevala (ed.), Anthology of Georgian Poetry, trans. Venera Urushadze (1948; reprint Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2001).
The comparisons to Medea and the Golden Fleece are quite clear. Amirani and his brothers kill the giant, called a devi, anyway. From his head came three worms that grew into dragons (cf. Spartoi). The heroes killed two of the dragons, but the third dragon swallowed Amirani, the son of Darejan (cf. Douris cup depiction of Jason in the dragon). The dragon tries to wind itself around a tree (like Jason’s dragon), but his bowels hurt. He calls to his mother (where the mother came from, I have no idea), who replies:
"None but the son of Darejan can ever harm thee, dearest child."
"He who is in me has a tooth of gold." the dragon writhing sighed.
"Woe to thy mother and to thee, for that is Darejani's child!"
Source: Kvesevala, Anthology of Georgian Poetry.
Amirani (or in some versions his brothers) takes out a knife and cuts open the dragon. Amirani emerges. This dragon is sometimes depicted as a European-style serpent and other times as a sea-borne creature, a whale-dragon, or even as a dev, a type of evil giant itself:
As for the whale-dragon, it has deep roots in the culture of the Caucasian tribes. Stone engravings and sculptures of fish, considered by historians to be idols of the pagan era, have been found in Georgia and are dated as belonging to the second millennium B.C.
Source: Dodona Kiziria, “Amirani: A Georgian Folk Hero,” Folklore Forum 7, no. 7 (1974): 133.
Amirani and his brothers traveled to the ends of the earth in search of Qamari, the fair maiden clothed in a silk raiment as golden as the sunbeams:
Qamari's parents lived amidst the suns and stars in heavens high;
Above the world their castle fine hung swinging in the azure sky.
Source: Kvesevala, Anthology of Georgian Poetry.
He found her in this celestial castle and made plans with her to run away from her father to marry.
Qamari told Amirani to make haste for —
"If my father finds us here, to escape his anger will be late."
So Amirani and Qamari rode away in great haste...
Source: Kvesevala, Anthology of Georgian Poetry.
Qamari’s father pursued the pair (cf. Aeetes and Absyrtus), and in desperation Amirani commits suicide, only to be resurrected by a magic herb provided by Qamari (cf. Medea’s cauldron and herbs) on the advice of a mouse.
The final stage of Amirani’s career parallels that of Bellerophon with the punishment of Prometheus:
Stories of giants who are chained on mountains are still current in the Caucasus. Thus in the district of Kabarda, on the northern slope of the Caucasus, a story goes that a giant is chained to the rock on Mt. Elburz for having tried to hurl down God. Seldom has it been given to mortal men to see him; but no man may see him twice. He lies in a sort of swoon, but from time to time he wakes up and asks his guards if the rushes still grow on earth and the sheep still drop their young. When they say 'Yes,' he falls into a fury and clanks his chains; that makes thunder. He rages and howls; that makes storms. At last he weeps in helpless fury; that makes the rain and swells the torrents that come rushing down from the high hills and tell the world of his woes.
The Georgians say that a giant called Amiran lies chained in a cave upon Mt. Elburz. But he has two black dogs that lick his fetters; so the fetters grow thinner and thinner, till every year on Good Friday they are as thin as a leaf, and next day they would snap in two, if it were not that on the Friday evening or the Saturday morning all the smiths in Georgia give some swingeing blows on their anvils; that rivets the giant's chains once more.
Source: J. G. Frazer, commentary on Pausanias, Description of Greece, vol. III, trans. J. G. Frazer (London: Macmillan and Co., 1898), 542.
