Magical Objects, Birds, and Animals in Georgian-Turkish Folktales

Abstract

Within the oral creative traditions of various peoples, the fairy tale — particularly the magic tale — occupies a significant position, functioning as a mechanism of “psychological release” for collective creative energy and as an authentic articulation of a people’s foundational worldview. The magic tale has its own structural features and conventionally incorporates diverse magical agents, including enchanted objects, birds, and animals.
Over the course of centuries, Georgian-Turkish relations were conditioned by wars of conquest and cultural coexistence, circumstances that shaped similar narrative motifs in the folklore of both peoples. Turkish folklore, much like broader Eastern cultural traditions, drew substantively upon Arabic oral storytelling. Over time, it developed into distinct narrative forms, including the so-called "old woman’s tales" and the performative narratives of the wandering storyteller (meddah). The former circulated primarily among the lower social strata, yet meddahs often borrowed their storyline from "old woman’s tales". The spread and influence of these storylines extended to Georgia as well, where the fairy-tale epic corpus is primarily attested in the published compilations of folklore collectors from the second half of the nineteenth century onward.
This article aims to explore the similarities, differences, and narrative functions of magical objects, birds, and animals featured in Georgian and Turkish fairy tales. This analysis contributes to the broader investigation of an important issue in folklore studies.