leqsebi

VIOLET ON THE MOUNTAIN
which had befallen them was an expression of divine wrath. Besides gifts of precious metals,
Georgian shrines received animal sacrifices. Two different types of sacrificed animal are mentioned
in the hymn to the Archangel: wild and domestic. Should a hunter kill an ibex or other important
prey, he would give thanks to the gods for delivering the animal to him and sacrifice its horns to the
shrine. Domestic animals (oxen, sheep, goats) were slaughtered in the shrine precincts, and a portion
of their meat presented to the deity. The variant of this hymn in SbMat specifies that the sacrificed
oxen were uskhway. This means that they were specially fattened by their owners and never used for
farm work. These pampered animals were slaughtered on special occasions. The text of the hymn to
the Archangel is closely related to that of the well-known Svanetian liturgical song Lile. Lile (the
meaning of this word or name is no longer known) is believed by some to have been a hymn to the
sun, which was later redone as, or combined with, an invocation of the Archangel (MP 177-183).
Because of this hymn’s importance in the field of Georgian folklore studies, I will give here a
translation of the complete text of a version of Lile collected by A. Shanidze in the Upper Svan
village of Tskhumar in 1923:
Oi, Lile, You are filled with glory, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, Glory, glory, O Archangel, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, We are praying for our welfare, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, May his power stand beside us, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, You have offerings inside (your shrine), oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, You have offerings of oxen, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, They have horns bedecked with gold, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, You have offerings of rams, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, They have long and twisted horns, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, On every ridge they paw and bellow, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, Deer are lying at your base, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, Your embrasures ringed with falcons, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, A golden ring-wall lies around you, oi, Lile!
Oi, Lile, A flawless house was built for you, oi, Lile!
39. Survili (“Wish”). Source: PKh 192. Recited by M. Gusharashvili in 1937 in the Pshavian village
Tvalivi. Variants in OL 44 #63; GMD 243. This is a poem about unrequited love, dammed up within
the singer like a lake, as deep as the crimson snake is long. There is, alas, no outlet: the young
woman does not — or will not — acknowledge his love. The intense image of a lake of blood
(siskhlis t’ba) does occur elsewhere in Georgian folklore. The warrior-hero Amirani and, in a quite
different context, the deity Iaqhsar are nearly drowned in blood after slaughtering a family of ogres.
Charachidzé [PC 43-46] sees in these accounts the echoes of a ritual purification, part of the
initiation of a shaman or warrior. Whether anything in the wistful love poem presented here can be
explained in the light of Charachidzé’s findings is a question best left for future research .
40. Aleksi Bidzashvili (“Cousin Aleksi”). Source: PKh 187-188. Recited by Giorgi Mart’iashvili in
1942 in the Pshavian village Gudarakhi.
41. Sheq’varebulis guli (“A lover’s heart”). Source: PKh 192-193. Recited by G. Ts’ik’lauri in 1941 in
the village Ingeti. The term “rye-colored boy” (vazhk’atso svilis perao) does not sound as silly in
Georgian as in English. It denotes a light-brown, sun-tanned complexion .
42. T’ilebis korts’ili (“The wedding party of the lice”). Sources: GMD 140, 247; Ko 214. The poem as
presented here is an amalgam of two closely related versions: one recited by Giorgi Dadalauri and
Memtskhware Archemashvili in the Pshavian village Magharosk’ari in 1913, and the other by M.
Ogaidze in the province of Tianeti.
43. T’rpiali (“Love”). Source: PKh 200; variant Ko 216-7. Recited in 1936 in the Pshavian village
Shuapkho by Elisbar Elisbarashvili. It is probably the case that the “old ways” against which the
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