Gorkut Ata, better known internationally as Dede Korkut, is the legendary sage and patriarch of the Oghuz Turks, the framing narrator and name-giver of the Book of Dede Korkut. A soothsayer, counsellor to khans, and master of the kopuz who sings the deeds of heroes, he is claimed by the Turkmen as an ancestral figure and revered as the patron-saint and protector of all bagshy. His tradition, rooted in the medieval Oghuz world, has continued in living Turkmen veneration alongside the later musical patrons Baba Gammar and Ashyk Aýdyň.