Barbal
Svan · deity · Svan traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Barbal, in Svan Barbal or Barbol, took her name from Saint Barbara but carries a far older office as a goddess of the sun and of fertility. In the reconstruction of Georgian scholars she was in remote antiquity a solar deity of the proto-Georgian farming peoples, whose warmth ripened first the soil and then the womb of woman and beast; from this she became a goddess of the harvest, of childbearing, of poultry and cattle, and of healing. Her cult clusters about the winter feasts of fire and light, when torches and bonfires marked the sun's rebirth. She overlaps closely with the hearth-goddess Lamaria, and the two goddesses of the domestic and feminine sphere are at times treated as one.
Domains
- sun
- harvest fertility
- healing
Powers
- ripens crops and quickens the womb
Relations
- ally: LamariaBoth are goddesses of feminine and domestic fecundity, sometimes identified with one another.Bardavelidze, Vera (1957), Drevnejshie religioznye verovanija..., Tbilisi (secondary)
Sources
- Barbal (Barbol), from Saint Barbara, is in the Svan and wider Georgian tradition an ancient solar and agrarian fertility goddess, patroness of the harvest, of women's and cattle's fecundity, and of healing.: Bardavelidze, Vera (1957), Drevnejshie religioznye verovanija..., Tbilisi (secondary)