Гьорол эбел, the Mother of the Wind, is one of the four personified Mothers of Avar tradition, mistress of the mountain gales that scoured the crags, drove the storm-clouds and winnowed the threshing-floors. Together with the Mothers of earth, water and disease she is held to have separated out of a single primordial mother-creator, each taking one element as her domain. In an agrarian world where wind meant both the blessing of the winnowing breeze and the menace of the blizzard, her favour and restraint were sought in the seasonal weather rites of the highland Avars.