Er Tostik
Kazakh · demigod · Kazakh traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Er Tostik is the hero of the best-loved of Kazakh magic tales, the miraculous youngest of the eight sons of the herdsman Ernazar. Betrothed to the wise maiden Kenzhekei and mounted on the speaking tulpar Shalkuiryk, he is dragged down into the subterranean world, where he passes through the realm of Bapy Khan the king of serpents and struggles against monstrous adversaries, among them the many-headed devouring hag. Winning the serpent-king's favor, he is carried back to the surface world on the vast wings of the bird Samuryk, whose nestlings he has saved from a dragon. The tale preserves an old shamanic pattern of descent and return, and Er Tostik stands as the archetypal questing hero of Kazakh folk narrative.
Domains
- heroism valor
- underworld journey
Powers
- journeys to the underworld and returns
Epithets
- сегіз ұлдың кенжесі Ер Төстік — Er Tostik, the youngest of eight sonsEr-Tostik, in Kazakhskie narodnye skazki (1971). (secondary)
Relations
- enemy: Jalmauyz KempirAmong the monstrous adversaries he must defeat in his subterranean wanderings.Er-Tostik, in Kazakhskie narodnye skazki (Alma-Ata, 1971). (secondary)
Sources
- Er Tostik is the hero of the classic Kazakh magic tale of the same name, the youngest of eight sons who descends to the underworld and returns with the help of a speaking tulpar and the bird Samuryk.: Er-Tostik recorded in Radloff, Proben, Bd. III (1870). (primary); Chadwick and Zhirmunsky, Oral Epics of Central Asia (1969). (secondary)