The Common Mythic Roots of a Kisti Legend and the Georgian Ballad Eteriani

The Kisti Chechen tale “The vine of love” was recorded in Tusheti in the 2nd half of the 19th century by I. Tsiskarishvili, and a Russian version of it was published in the journal Zurna.2 The Russian text is a stylized rendering, overlayering the poignant story of two doomed Kisti lovers. The heart of the story is how a young man and woman died unmarried, because of a friend’s betrayal: Believing a falsehood told by a shepherd, that an evil spirit was at the water spring, Omar-Ali mistakenly killed his lover Gazelo who had been awaiting him there. When the lad found out to his horror what he had done, he killed the deceitful shepherd, and then himself. In view of the artlessness of the story, one could consider it an ordinary example of folklore, if not for evidence from beginning and end of the story which demonstrates its link to mythic thought and traditional ritual. In particular, in the introduction it is said that every Kisti knows this story, and they sing it at festive gatherings. At the end it is stated that from the graves of the lovers, whom the people buried side-by-side, there grew two grapevines, which attached themselves to a nearby tree, and wrapped around each other, as once did the young people buried beneath them.