Solomon
Amhara–Tigrinya highland folk religion · mortal · Amhara–Tigrinya highland folk religion traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
In the folk-Christian imagination of the highlands, shaped by the Kebra Nagast, King Solomon is less the biblical monarch than the wise progenitor of Ethiopia's sacred kingship. Renowned for a wisdom given by God, he receives the Queen of Sheba at his court and, by a stratagem involving a forbidden draught of water, wins her to his bed. Their son Menelik carries both the Solomonic blood and, in the epic, the tabot of Zion to Aksum, making Solomon the fountainhead of the dynasty that ruled the Christian highlands into the twentieth century.
Children
Domains
- sovereignty
- wisdom
Powers
- sires the founder of the Ethiopian royal line
Epithets
- ሰሎሞን ጠቢቡ — Solomon the WiseKebra Nagast; trans. Budge (1922). (primary)
Relations
- lover: MakedaKebra Nagast, chapters 25–30; trans. Budge (1922). (primary)
- child: Menelik IKebra Nagast, chapters 32–34; trans. Budge (1922). (primary)
Sources
- In the Kebra Nagast the biblical king Solomon fathers Menelik I upon the Queen of Sheba, becoming the divinely wise progenitor of Ethiopia's Solomonic dynasty.: E. A. Wallis Budge (trans.), The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek (Kebra Nagast) (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), chs. 25–34. (primary)