Kibirhan is a night-being of Dargin lower mythology, at times manifesting as a spirit of the house. It presses upon sleeping people and throttles them, holding them rigid and unable to move, in the manner of the nightmare or 'old-hag' demons known widely in Caucasian folklore. Yet Kibirhan is also an oracle: a sleeper bold enough to seize the moment and demand 'What is my fate?' wins from it a prophecy of what is to come. It thus stands on the threshold between the malevolent presser-of-sleepers and the fate-revealing familiar.