The Ideology Of The Ninth And Tenth Centuries 121
that the symbol of the bident is associated with the Great Goddess. In her
opinion, to distinguish the male from the female character “which are almost
indistinguishable not so much among the symbols, but in the very persona of
the sacral king” is extremely difficult. In the image of the god of fertility—the
sacral king—and the priest the male and female principles are often merged.487
The concept of the divine ancestor-twins (Demiurges brothers) is part of
the mythology of various Turkic, Iranian and Ugrian peoples, where they are
opposed to one another as the rulers of the Upper and Lower Worlds.488 For
the Ob-Ugrian people they are Numi-Torum and Kuly-Otir. The main hero of
the Ob-Ugrian mythology, however, is Ekva-Pygris, who is depicted as a goose
or rabbit and is the son of the goose Kaltas. He is “sent from the sky to the earth
to rule the people”.489 Among the Turks this belief is embodied in the images
of Erlik and Ulgen. Erlik, in the form of a duck, took the first land under water.490
Similar ideas can be found in the mythological images of the Georgian
Queen Tamar (1184–1207) and her sister. Iu. Karpov compares the two sisters
with the description of a pair of Georgian kings from an earlier age. “As a form
of government, the dual kingship inferred not so much the antagonism of
the rulers, as their complementarity that probably stemmed from the socio-
cultural and mythological phenomenon of duality, reflected on a political
plane”.491 According to Georgian beliefs, Queen Tamar is not dead, but sleep-
ing and will wake to help her people when needed.492
The divine twin brothers appear in the mythology of most dualistic religious
systems. The Cathars, for example, developed the concept of them into two
opposing male-female pairs. They express the view that “all existing things are
ruled by the antagonism between pairs with similar structures, but opposite
natures”.493
487 Flerova 2001a, 126.
488 Meletinskii 1976, 187; Stoianov 2006b, 173–183; Karpov 2001, 361.
489 Meletinskii 1976, 187.
490 L’vova, Oktiabr’skaia, Sagalaev, and Usmanova 1988, 98. A similar storyline can be found
in some Bulgarian folk tales. See Ivanov 1970, 327–382.
491 Karpov 2001, 349–361.
492 Karpov 2001, 363; similar to the legend of Marko who did not die, but lives a solitary life
somewhere on a high mountain or hidden in a deep cave and will return to deliver his
people (Arnaudov 1996, 530–531). On the semantic link between Marko and Mara, see
Stepanov 2007, 46–49.
493 Stoianov 2006b, 370–371. On the saint twins in Bulgarian folklore who represent specific
kinds of holy triads of saints, uniting the male and female principle, see Popov 1991 and
- Of particular interest is St. Todor who unites the male and female principle (he
is androgynous by nature and has a female incarnation—St. Todorichka). St. Todor is a
mediator between the two worlds. He arrives on a white horse from the nether world of