Monsters in the Stories of Kobani

Amal Ma'mo

In oral literature, and especially in stories, various roles are played. But in fact, what attracts the most attention is the role of the "demon", because this role is used in many ways in the stories of Kobani. Also, because most of the stories in this region involve monsters, they are shown in different ways.

Some have seven heads, some are blind and one-eyed, some have large earrings, and some throw people into the sky with their breath.

Dew or Dev is used in mythology by the Kurdish people and some other nations. The word Dew (demon) in the dictionary means an aesthetic or a creature of large size or means a large and powerful person. This word is also used in everyday life, for example, they say that someone is like a demon, that is, a strong and powerful person.

In addition to demons, some other words are also used in other myths, such as "dewaz" which means the greatest of demons, and "dewana" which also means "Dew", a beast or animal.

We can find many stories about demons in Kurdish folklore that are not only related to Kobani but also presented as demons in any region.

The demon is a fictional creature found in folk tales. The demon is one of the two-sided characters in the stories because it often symbolizes evil, fear, and oppression, in some places it symbolizes compassion, help, and heroism, and sometimes it supports the oppressed and the avenger of the oppressor. We can say that in the stories where the role of the demon is found, they show two-way conflicts, such as good and evil, wisdom and folly, greed and satisfaction. Let's look at a paragraph from the story of Bozan Agha:

"Shepherd is as tall and strong as a poplar tree, you'd think this shepherd spent his life in caves. We go to him. He welcomes us. He puts his cloak on the ground for us. We sit on it. When darkness takes over the ground, we look into each other's eyes to catch the shepherd. The shepherd looks at us and finds that we mean evil, he gets up and ties all four of us together. It turns out that the shepherd is a monster. He hid himself in a shepherd's cloth. He tied us together and put us before Him. When we reached a peak, a cave appeared, the door of the cave was a large stone, opened the door, took us inside, and closed the door again.

After a while, he lighted the cave with a fire. He took some bread out of the oven and put it in front of us and told us to eat it. We looked at each other, how we should eat. We eat our own bread.

The demon sharpened two of his horns and put them in the coals. A friend ate enough before us and withdrew from the table. The demon got up, threw our friend to the ground, put his horn in one eye, and took it out of the other.”

The demon is a creature in human form, and he is tall, big, and strong because he can block the entrance to the cave with a huge stone. They are also imposter and cannibal, which is why they play a bad role in most Kobani stories.

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