The al is the childbed demon of the Daghestani peoples, feared among the Tsakhur as among their Lezgic neighbors. Imagined as a hideous woman, sometimes with long hanging breasts, matted hair, or reversed feet, she preys on women in labor and on the newborn in the perilous days before the naming rite, and in the harshest tellings she reaches into the mother to seize the liver or lungs. Against her the household set iron, a knife or sickle laid in the bed and cradle, kept a lamp burning, and did not leave mother or infant alone. The al belongs to a demon-type known across the Caucasus, the Iranian world, and the Turkic steppe under cognate names such as Albasty; sources differ on her precise form from village to village, but the protective regime of iron and vigilance is constant.