Sharvili

Sharvili is the hero of the Lezgin national heroic epic, a warrior of incredible strength who defends the Lezgin land against foreign invaders. His signature trait is invulnerability so long as his feet touch the earth, so that he can be defeated only by being lifted or lured from the ground. Tradition holds him to have been a real man of the village of Akhty; in one telling he is born to the childless shepherd Daglar and his wife Tsükver after they eat a red-cheeked apple given them by the old sage Kas-Buba, who names the child 'son not only of Daglar and Tsükver but of all the people.' The epic, sung in some twenty tales, was assembled in modern form in the 1950s and published in Lezgin (1999) and Russian (2008); Sharvili is honoured with an annual festival in Dagestan.

Domains

• heroism strength

Powers

• is invulnerable while his feet touch the earth

Relations

• companion: Kas-BubaThe sage Kas-Buba gave Sharvili to his childless parents and named him, then guided and aided him throughout the epic.Z. Rizvanov, B. Salimov (comp.), Sharvili... Makhachkala, 2008 (secondary)

Sources

• Sharvili is the hero of the Lezgin heroic epic, a warrior of prodigious strength invulnerable so long as his feet touch the earth, who defends the Lezgin land against foreign invaders; tradition makes him a native of Akhty.: Z. Rizvanov, B. Salimov (comp.), Sharvili: lezginskiy narodnyy geroicheskiy epos. Makhachkala, 2008 (secondary); Russian Wikipedia, 'Sharvili', ru.wikipedia.org (tertiary)
• In one version Sharvili is born to the childless shepherd Daglar and his wife Tsükver after they eat a red-cheeked apple given by the old ashug Kas-Buba, who names the child 'son of all the people'.: 'Epos Sharvili - bestsennyy pamyatnik istorii', chernovik.net (secondary)