The Circassian Nart hero born from a stone struck by a shepherd, then tempered in a smith's forge until his whole body is steel except the knees, which the tongs gripped during quenching and left vulnerable. Best known for stealing fire from a race of giants to save the freezing Narts, he is eventually killed through his one weak point, a fate matching Achilles' in the wider comparative literature Colarusso's introduction discusses.
Facts
Cult
Attributes and IconographySosruko has no cult image of the kind a temple religion would produce; his defining visual attribute, carried into the illustrated retellings the Nart sagas have inspired, is his body of steel save for the vulnerable knees the smith's tongs gripped during his tempering, the mark by which he is recognized rather than any single fixed likeness. 1 Function
Domain / Function Attributions
Mythic AssociationSosruko is born from a stone struck by a shepherd and tempered in a smith's forge until his whole body is steel except the knees. He steals fire from a race of giants to save the freezing Narts, and is eventually killed through his one weak point. 1 Belief
TheologyPolytheistic: many gods 1 A Circassian Nart hero of miraculous birth, within the same pre-Christian Caucasus religious system in which Wastyrdzhi is an actively worshipped holy being. Attestation
Veneration TodayHistorically attested; no continuous cult 1 HistoricityLegendary: known from narrative tradition, not the historical record 1 Correspondences & Relations
Connections
Child Of
Satanaya is named as the mother of the Nart heroes across the Ossetian and Circassian tellings, including Sosruko (Soslan), whom she raises as her own after his miraculous birth from stone.
Source Nart Sagas from the Caucasus (Colarusso)John Colarusso
Worshipped In
Source Nart Sagas from the Caucasus (Colarusso)John Colarusso
Sources
1. Nart Sagas from the Caucasus (Colarusso)
John Colarusso, Princeton University Press, 2002Colarusso's translation of the Sosruko fire theft cycle
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