Barg

Barg, the Sun, is personified in Lak lore most often as a luminous woman, sister or one-time lover of the Moon. The central sun-and-moon narrative, widespread across Daghestan and recorded among the Laks, tells how the two once shone equally until a quarrel: in the commonest version the Sun, stung by the Moon's boast of surpassing beauty, flings mud or snow at his face, and the marks remain to this day, so that the Moon shines pale and the two may never meet in the sky. Sources differ on whether the pair are siblings or thwarted lovers, and on which of them is female. As the day-star she ripens the highland grain, and her eclipse was feared as her being seized or swallowed.

Domains

• sun
• daylight and heat

Powers

• shines by day
• ripens the fields

Epithets

• Баргъ-нину — Mother SunГамзатов Г.Г., Далгат У.Б. Традиционный фольклор народов Дагестана. М.: Наука, 1991. (secondary)

Relations

• sibling: BarzSun and moon are kin in the Lak sky-myth, though sources differ on whether they are sister and brother or estranged lovers.Халидова М.Р. Мифологический и исторический эпос народов Дагестана. Махачкала: ИИЯЛ ДНЦ РАН, 1992. (secondary)

Sources

• In Lak cosmology the sun (barg) is a personified luminary bound in a kin-myth with the moon that explains the moon's dimness and its dark markings.: Халидова М.Р. Мифологический и исторический эпос народов Дагестана. Махачкала: ИИЯЛ ДНЦ РАН, 1992. (secondary); Гамзатов Г.Г., Далгат У.Б. Традиционный фольклор народов Дагестана. М.: Наука, 1991. (secondary)