Syrdon

THE CLOSEST KNOWN INDO-EUROPEAN PARALLEL TO LOKI, on Dumézil's 1948 identification, and the corpus did not hold him. He is also the reason the Ossetian harp exists: the twelve-stringed fændyr is strung with the sinews of his murdered sons. Demigod is the COMPUTED tier here, not an assertion — Gætæg is a water-spirit (numen, 1.0) and Dzerassæ a demigod (0.5), which the registry averages to 0.75.

Parentage

• Gætæg
• Dzerassae

Domains

• trickery
• invention of the fændyr
• mischief among the narts
• contrivance of heroes deaths

Relations

• enemy: Soslan
• sons slain by: Khæmyts
• son of: Gætæg
• son of: Dzerassae

Sources

• Reference treatment of Syrdon (Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. ŠḲRDON; Ossetian Nart sagas): the trickster of the Ossetian Nart sagas, the son of Gætæg and Dzerassæ, of whom it is said that the Narts can neither live with him nor live without him; he is the inventor of the Ossetian fændyr, a miraculous twelve-stringed harp he made from the bones, hair and veins of his beloved sons after they were treacherously killed by Xämiţ; Georges Dumézil identified him, in his 1948 monograph Loki, as the closest known Indo-European parallel to the Norse Loki; jealous of Soslan, he brought about the hero's death by inciting the devils to shoot his horse's hooves and by calling on the Wheel of Balsæg.