Albasty

Albasty is the female demon of childbirth, shared by the Tsezic peoples with the wider Caucasus and Central Asia, who preys on women in labour and their newborns. She may smother mother or child, or substitute a changeling for the infant, and in the fuller tale carries off the mother's lungs or liver toward running water, so that the woman dies if the organs touch the stream. Her name and the analogues that surround it, from the al of the Lezgins and the ali of the Georgians to the almasty of the Chechens and Ingush, reach back to deep antiquity. Scholars note that her magical attributes and surviving hints of a kindly role suggest that she was once a beneficent goddess of fertility, of the hearth and of the wild animals of the hunt, later blackened into a demon of the birth-chamber.

Domains

• childbirth danger
• disease affliction

Powers

• attacks women in childbirth and their infants
• carries off the mother's lungs or liver to the water

Sources

• Albasty is the female demon hostile to women in childbirth and to newborns among the Daghestani peoples, including the Tsezic communities studied for the antagonists of mothers and infants.: R. I. Seferbekov, 'Персонажи низшей мифологии народов Дагестана' (Makhachkala, 2019) (secondary)
• Traces of benevolent functions and her attributes suggest Albasty was once a good goddess, patroness of fertility, hearth and of wild animals and the hunt.: 'Албасты', in Мифы народов мира, ed. S. A. Tokarev (Moscow, 1980–1982) (secondary)