Tip Of My Tongue

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[SOLVED] Old foreign myth (not roman/greek), with a god with invincibility being killed (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by ooli@lemmy.world to c/tipofmytongue@lemmy.world

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I read it during the 80 in a book about various myth from around the world. It was not fiction, all other myths were well-known if obscure (like the Maori creation myth of new Zealand by the demigod Maui) For years now, I tried to find what culture , and what religion this was about without finding. ChatGPT never heard of this story. Here is the story as I recall it:

A child is born from a burning stone (may be cause it came from the sky)
A God ( could be his mother or father) hold the burning child with tongs
The child is then placed in a vial containing a liquid granting invincibility
As the tong hold the child, his hips did not touch the liquid, thus are is weak spot
A evil man/god try to kill the child by throwing wheel at him from a mountain
the child (grown up now) block a wheel with his head, then back, but die when he block it with his hip

Did anyone heard about this myth?

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[–] Uruanna@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

This guy Crecganford on Youtube made a searchable database of the mythology index https://www.mythologydatabase.com/ , but it looks like he put a login requirement since the last time I looked it up. Creating an account is free, and I find this on the "Achilles' heel" motif :

https://www.mythologydatabase.com/get_motifs.php?myth=l15a1

Caucasus - Asia Minor. (Cite)

Kabardian people [sledges strive to destroy too strong Sosruko; offer him to roll a wheel up the mountain; push him with his head; S. performs everything; the old woman says that when S. was taken out of the stone womb that gave birth to him, the blacksmith grabbed his thigh with forceps, it became covered with bone and became vulnerable; sledges offer to roll the wheel with his thigh; the wheel crushed his thigh, S. died]: Lopatinsky 1891a:46;

Wikipedia's page for Sosruko points to this http://iccs.synthasite.com/nart-epos.php which calls him Sosriqwe and presents him as a variation of Prometheus and Loki, a trickster who steals fire from the gods and get punished for it.

[–] ooli@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

SOLVED .Thank you very much So it was Sosruko from a caucasus myth

[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Could it be that it isn't an actual ancient myth, but a modern(ish) story that reinterprets the myth of Achilles in the context of a different culture? Because that is suspiciously similar.

[–] ooli@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

I start to believe the author sneak in one of their story among all other true myth. But that would be kind of unethical in a dictionary about myth aimed at children. I'm pretty sure, they gave the name of a land, since every myth was organized around the land they came from.

Plus the idea of throwing wheels to kill someone, is so random, I'm inclined to think it came from a real mythos.