CivilWar’s Reviews > Mitos hititas: Entre Oriente y Occidente > Status Update

what gets me is that Pajares talks of it having both a "historical" and "mythical" element, with a double action in the world of men and the world of the gods which intertwine: that's just Myth & Epic in the IE world! It's why Dumézil called it "myth & epic"! It's true not just of Homer but of the two big Indian epics, of Germanic saga (specially Starkaðr with its discussion between gods), of the Irish Táin, etc

the Gurparanzaḫu epic is very very comparable with the rape (both in the classical and modern senses of the word) scene in the Nibelungenlied, between Sigfried and Brunhild, at least typologically; I doubt anyone else has seen that, though.

The "Song of Release" remains one of the most fascinating pieces of Hurro-Hittite literature lol, though regrettably its fragmentary state makes surefire analysis impossible.

cf. also Valerius' role and strategy in the war with Clusium (aided by the One-Eyed and the One-Armed, no less, like the binders of Fenrir); Salm's death in the Šāhnāma ("Salm's body was split in two. He gave orders that the head be spitted on a spear and then [b]he raised it into the clouds[/b]...", in epic transposition, Ferdowsi's method throughout being disguising what used to be literal in poetic language.

Yet further developments in the understanding of the Song of Ullikummi, all of which confirm my comparative analysis with the Fenrir myth and role in myth & religion; previous details I had either not noticed or paid no mind too, as I was not approaching the text from this angle, where it all snaps into focus at once. The parallels are actually shocking in how close they are!

mostly on eschatological myths & epics (Óðinn & Týr vs the first-functional evil, þórr vs the second-functional evil, etc, likewise in the Mahābhārata and in the Bundahišn). There is also something of, one feels, the etiological myth for the origin of creepy crawlies, like at the start of the Mahābhārata but more similarly, actually, to that of the Bundahišn. This leaves us without a solid 2nd F. enemy due to lacuna.

Interestingly, the dragon, which is often the second-functional enemy par excellence in Indo-European myth & epic, is here characterized in terms of the third-function very consistently: it's his insatiable appetite for everything that is destroying the world, and appropriately there is a theme of "3rd F vs 3rd F" (perhaps even the third vs the triple if Hedammu had three heads, but it's too fragmentary to tell) seen

the Illuyanka myth of Hittite (perhaps Hattic) origin, and not only that, but the seduction of the monster at sea is of neither "Hurrian" (I mean here Indo-Aryan, which made up the Hurrian elite as is well-documented) nor Hittite but altogether non-IE in origin, because it's a well known scene from the Baal Cycle that only appears in Egyptian translation, where Aštart seduces the Sea in an identical way.

The fragmentary song of Ḫedammu (allegedly Hurrian "apše", which allegedly just means "snake" and thus "dragon") is more interesting than most give it credit for, cause it's a mix of the well-known Indian tale-type where an apsara is sent to any creature, including snakes, whose concentration on austerities scare the gods, and a myth of how the third-functional but fully trifunctional goddess beats her male peers and

The fact that "the wolves were peaceful" rather than there being no wolves itself immediately brings to mind to Ossetian Tutyr, "the shepherd of wolves", by whose will wolves attack shepherds or not; the excess of abundance with no labor is definitely a Golden Age motif which is curious, but though unrelated to such a thing, Rudra-Śiva too is like Dionysus the god of excess (see Bernard Sergent's book on the matter)