Alazhan, 'the Red Woman', is reckoned the most dangerous spirit of Talysh belief, a demoness who preys on women in childbirth and on newborn infants. She is pictured as a black-skinned woman with enormous eyes and pendulous breasts that she throws back over her shoulders, an image that links her to the Al or Albasty, the childbirth demon feared across the Caucasus and the Iranian plateau. The birth chamber was guarded against her with iron, with watchfulness and with prayer during the perilous days after delivery. Her prominence reflects the high stakes of infant and maternal mortality in traditional Talysh society, where the dangers of the childbed were personified in a single, vividly imagined adversary.