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Georgian mythology

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Later influences include the mythologies of the Ancient Greeks, the Vainakh peoples and Iranians – the last-named comprising both the belief systems of the Northern Iranian nomad Scythians and Sarmatians (still preserved to some extent in the mythology of their descendants the Ossetians) and that of the Zoroastrian religion of the Ancient Persian empire, which has left an enduring legacy among the nations of the Caucasus. (See also Iranian religions)

Georgian myths and legends are preserved mainly as popular tales, many of them eventually fusing with Christian legends after the Christianization of Georgia seventeen centuries ago. The evangelizing of Georgia, however, was far from uniform. While the lowland populations embraced Christianity in the fifth century, the highlanders of the mountain valleys in the Greater Caucasus range were converted some ten centuries later – and only superficially. Survivals of pagan beliefs and practices in the Georgian plains are thus, understandably, heavily influenced by Christianity, lacking in mythological unity and essentially folkloric.

The mountain Georgians, on the other hand, preserved a rich and well-organized [pagan] religious system to the beginning of the twentieth century, with differentiated cults that continued to be productive [thanks largely to the persistence of] a priestly class with an orally-transmitted body of knowledge.

— Georges Charachidzé

Khevsur/Pshav creation myth (northeastern Georgia)

In the beginning, there existed only the head god (მორიგე ღმერთი) and his Sister. She made him unhappy, so he cursed her. The sister became a demon. For every good thing that the head god created, the Demon created an evil thing to mar it and oppose it. Women too was a creation of the Demon, as were the lesser demons (Georgian: დევი, romanized: devi – see below), while men and the lesser gods were creations of Morige Ghmerti. The lesser gods grew weary in their unceasing fight with the demons and fled to the upper world of Zeskneli (ზესკნელი), leaving behind the men. The men however lacked the power to resist the demons, so the lesser gods (Georgian: ღვთის შვილნი, romanized: ghvtis shvilni – see below) hunted down the demons and drove them underground to the netherworld of Kveskneli (ქვესკნელი). The demons left behind them the women who, like them, were part of the evil creation.

Men and women are thus only emanations of, or substitutes for, the gods above and the demons below, respectively. The same principle holds true for all created things: the entities and substances of the universe are divided into two antagonistic series, one wild and demonic, the other social and divine. The only entities or substances that are truly real are those of the upper world of Zeskneli and the lower world of Kveskneli. The middle world inhabited by humans is thus only a place of passage and meeting, and the beings who people it have no essence in themselves, being only emanations of the divine or subterranean worlds, or else their unions.

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