The peoples of Central Asia had legends about the lover spirits peri (pari), who often turned out to be the patron spirits of shamans and shamans.
According to the testimony of A. Ye. Bertels, peri live in the air, "do not sit on the ground", they are winged, very beautiful women living in a distant heavenly kingdom. They can appear to people in a dream and "charm", remaining distant and inaccessible, bringing a lot of grief, illness and even death from inaccessible love to the person in love.
One of the ancient texts of the Avesta connects the idea of peri with insanity, obsession. According to the Avesta, peri bring special harm, distracting the righteous Zoroastrians from fulfilling their religious duties with love spells.
Usually a female image is associated with peri, but this is not entirely true. Among the lowland Tajiks, for example, they were most often represented as both men and women. Sometimes they took the form of an animal (snake). The original appearance of the peri was considered human. It is in this form that they seem to come into contact with people.
The people also believed that the peri fell in love with a person and demanded reciprocal love from him. If they are rejected, then they get angry and leave, punishing the person with illness. For the love of peri, they either pay with luck, or give a person the strength to communicate with the world of spirits, the ability to foresee fate and heal diseases. In this case, their chosen one became a shaman or shaman.
Peri were of two kinds - clean and unclean. In this case, their good or bad qualities were not meant. It was just that the first category of peri was too clean and did not tolerate ritual impurity. People who have patrons of clean peri were forbidden to visit the houses of unclean people and eat with them, they should also not do anything prohibited by Islam, not eat food prepared without strict observance of ritual purity. If, nevertheless, a person violated these instructions, he immediately fell ill.
The second category of peri, unclean, preferred dirt on clothes, in a dwelling and demanded uncleanliness from their chosen one.
The spirit of peri, falling in love with a person, was usually of the opposite sex. However, according to O. Muradov's materials, there were cases when the peri allegedly chose a person of the same sex for himself. In such cases, the relationship was limited to friendship without a sexual connotation. Then the chosen one peri did not have aversion to the real spouse, and family life could continue normally. The connection with the spirit of the peri could be short-term or very long-term, sometimes like a legal marriage.
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According to OA Sukhareva, a Tajik woman from the village of Kaftarkhon (near Samarkand) told her about how the intimate relationship with the Peri was presented. According to her, she herself was a witness of what was happening, since her niece Dodara, a girl of about twelve, an orphan, turned out to be the chosen one of the peri.
Once, on some occasion, they visited a mazar (an object of pilgrimage, usually the grave of a Muslim saint). After some time, the girl was chased by lumps of earth flying from somewhere, which fell on her shoulders, then on her feet. These lumps could be seen by everyone present, the narrator herself saw them.
Then the sound "chir-chir" or "chivi-chivi" began to be heard, similar to the chirping of a bird. Wherever the girl sat, the sound moved with her, persistently pursued her and did not give rest. By that time, the girl was already married, and they rushed to marry her. However, clods of earth flying at her and the incessant squeak did not even allow her husband to lie down next to her.
All the women attending the wedding heard the squeak, but saw nothing. Dodaroi said that a small man, half an arshin in height, appeared before her, dressed as a young student of a madrasah, with a turban on his head.
The shaman, whom Dodaroy was brought to to tell fortunes, established that a peri man named or nicknamed Mullo-khon fell in love with the girl. He told her: "I have come to you and will never leave." Peri did not allow her husband to approach her, and she remained a virgin. Mullo Hon demanded that the ritual ram be slaughtered and Dodaroi was ordained as a shaman.
The relatives hoped that after that the events described would end. However, Dodara and her husband could not afford to buy a ram. In the end, on the orders of the same spirit, they slaughtered a chicken, cooked a ritual broth, and Dodaroi accepted initiation. A curtain was hung in her room, and she became a shaman of the highest rank (such shaman women are distinguished by the fact that the sounds made by their patron spirit are heard by others).
Dodaroi said that when she entered the curtain, she sometimes saw a frog, a turtle or a snake there, but more often the peri appeared to her in the form of a small man. According to Dodaroi, Mullo-khon had parents: his father Dodaroi was called "my grandfather-ishan", his mother - "darling-grandmother." She said that she lives with her patron-peri as with her husband, the rapprochement occurs in a dream. …
Peri, who was in love with Dodara, instilled in her disgust for her husband and forced her to divorce him. But after a while, her relatives married her off again. Then Mullo-khon got angry and left her, harming her in revenge: with the birth of each child, she fell ill and could not breastfeed, and they died.
The second story about a similar story was also heard in Samarkand from a Tajik woman who was born in the village of Urgut, but lived in Samarkand all her life. And in this story, the chosen one of the peri turned out to be a girl of about thirteen, the storyteller's stepdaughter. As a sign of election, clods of earth began to fly into the yard out of nowhere, and in such abundance that the entire middle of the yard was littered with debris.
The male fortuneteller, who was contacted to find out the reason, discovered that Peri fell in love with the girl and demands that she become a shaman. Parents and neighbors were very skeptical about this. However, anyone who expressed disbelief was immediately punished by a huge lump of earth flying almost to his head, a splinter of glass that fell out of nowhere on a dish of pilaf placed in front of him, or, for some unknown reason, firewood suddenly caught fire in his shed.
The girl became a fortune-teller shaman without even taking initiation. She said that three spirits came to her: one - of a very terrible look, frightening her, the other - dressed in black clothes, and the third - in white clothes. All three spirits are women, and the third is the same age as the girl. This went on for exactly one year. Once, when they came to tell fortunes, she said that she did not see anyone, the spirits did not appear. This was the end of the shaman's career. The surrounding people assumed that other shaman women, out of envy of her luck, "tied" her spirits.
In the third case, the chosen one of the peri was a young man of about thirteen (the storyteller's husband). When he was 13 years old, one night the peri wrapped him sleepy in a blanket and carried him to his uncle's garden. There he woke up and was very surprised to find himself not in bed. Taking a blanket, he went home, and when he approached the irrigation ditch that ran near the door, he heard the sounds of music under the tree. At the gate of his house stood a horse with a mane and tail, decorated with bells and sabers.
The boy wanted to go, but the horse turned its back and blocked the passage. At this time, a peri woman appeared. She said: “Will I allow a horse to kill such a handsome young man? Say bismollo and come by. She led him past the horse, entered the house with him and put him to bed. Since then, he entered into a relationship with Peri, she often came to him, slept with him and played. He was married, but the peri did not allow him to pay attention to his wife, and family life did not work out, although the couple continued to live together.
In the village of Ura-Tyube, they also talked about a shaman named Parikhon. The peri-man who fell in love with her did not allow her to live with her husband; this led to a divorce. By order of the peri, Parikhon led a very secluded life, she did not show herself to any of the men, even to relatives.
If she had to leave the house, she covered her face especially carefully. She said that Peri appears to her in the form of a handsome man, hugs her, kisses her, and there is a constant intimate relationship between them.
The Tajiks believed that children could be born from an alliance with the Peri. More often they were imaginary children. The aforementioned Parikhon from Ura-Tyube announced from time to time that she was expecting a child from Peri. After a while, she said that she had a child, and her figure really took on the same appearance. However, no one saw her children. According to her, the father-peri takes them away as soon as they are born. The shaman herself allegedly saw them, but for others they are invisible.
Sometimes the relationship with the peri was explained by the birth of real children, especially endowed with some distinctive features. In Samarkand, blondes were called "peri-zot" - born from peri. According to the story of a Tajik woman from the Khrojaakhrar village, her neighbor, a girl, had three-year-old twins whose birth was attributed to her connection with the Peri.
They once miraculously disappeared. Their mother said that she put the children in the cradle, for some reason she went out, and when she returned, the cradles were empty. She believed that the children were carried away by the peri-father, and this explanation did not raise doubts among the residents of the village.
There was also a belief that if a peri woman had children, then the real wife seemed to remain sterile. This is how the mentioned Tajik woman from Ura-Tyube explained her childlessness, whose husband allegedly had a beloved peri, who gave birth to two children from him - a boy and a girl.
The narrator allegedly managed to see this peri: as she was advised, one evening before going to bed, she performed a ritual ablution and pretended to fall asleep. After a while, it seemed to her that a young woman entered and lay down next to her husband on the other side. It was peri.
Some narrators, however, said that the relationship with the Peri was purely platonic. But it is difficult to explain the prolonged abstinence of lovers without sexual release.
In addition to air peri, water peri were also distinguished, in the form of beautiful men and women. They pull the person they liked into the water - this explains the accidents. If such a person was rescued, magical power was recognized for him. In addition to the peri, the shaitan was considered the culprit of erotic dreams. From the shaitan, women can have children; growing up, they become vicious, become thieves, drunkards, drug addicts.
The notions of intimate relations of people with the Peri, except for Tajiks, were recorded among the Kazakhs, Uzbeks-Sarats, outside Central Asia - among the Bashkirs.
The Baloch people had similar beliefs about peri as beautiful girls with wings. They are "beautiful as angels." They appear to a young man or even an adult man in a dream, he falls in love with a peri, dries up, becomes sick and dies.
Sometimes, on the contrary, peri falls in love with a young man and then helps him in all matters and contributes to his success in life. Peri can be male or female. Their kingdom is supposedly high in the sky.
The Bartangians (one of the Pamir peoples of Tajikistan) called the beautiful mountain spirits the word "pari" (peri). Each person had their own bet. Pari fell in love with earthly youths and took them to the mountains, they also abducted small children. If a bet lover cheated on her, she would kill him.
According to the beliefs of the Yazgulem people (Western Pamir), when a bet marries a young man, he must vow not to look at her at times, for at certain moments she throws off the veil and floods everything around with radiance.
There was also the idea of wagers - beautiful young men who take earthly girls as wives. The Wakhans had a belief that devas and pari lived in the river, leaving it only at night, as they lost the ability to move when the sun's rays fell on them.
The Pamiris subdivide bets into good and evil and, accordingly, into Muslims and infidels. In the form of animals, good bets appeared in the form of beautiful birds (falcon, parrot, dove), as well as in the form of a beaver or a non-poisonous white or yellow snake; evil bets, on the contrary, - in the guise of poisonous snakes, frogs, turtles, wild, including predatory animals, such as a tiger.
In human form, benevolent bets are beautiful girls and young women in white, blue or red clothes, boys or men. The evil bets had a repulsive appearance of a girl or an old woman in dirty torn clothes, with shaggy hair; just as unkempt were the male bettors in this category. There was a betting hierarchy: they had their own check, elders, and so on.
As a result of the connection between man and bet, extraordinary children were born. They could take people with them and fly away with them through the air. The bets of the Dardas and Kafirs are very beautiful, blond women with white and red skin, in blue or green clothes. Sometimes these are ugly old women in a black headdress of married women or their beautiful daughters in a white headdress of girls. Young wagers get in touch with people.
In Hunza (Kashmir), they believe that bets are smaller than earthly women, but at the same time their power is very great, they can fly. They live in fortified villages high in the mountains, where they collect treasures. They have their own rulers. Descending from mountain peaks, they take the form of animals (mountain goat, ram), eagle or raven.
Each person has his own bet, which serves as a guardian angel, but an ordinary person does not see it. Only a shaman can see. Like people, bets adhere to different religions: there are Christian bets, Muslims, Hindus, and so on. Wars sometimes arise between them. Pari, like humans, are mortal creatures. They talk about bet cemeteries.
In the view of the Shina-speaking tribes (Pakistan, India), bets are also women (peri) and men (peri-an). They resemble humans in appearance and eat human food. At the same time, they say that their eyes have a vertical pupil. They can fly, but if you throw cow dung on the peri or on her dress, or hold her in the smoke of a cow dung campfire, the bets lose their ability to move.
Pari wear green clothes, and only they are entitled to clothes of this color. If any of the people put on green clothes, the bets get angry and kill that person.
The attitude of bets towards ordinary people cannot be called benevolent. For example, it is believed that if someone finds himself in a deserted place at noon, bets can rip out his eyes and blind him. If the new home turns out to be unhappy, it is attributed to the insidious influence of the bet. According to some stories, children and adults are being stolen. It happens that bets take a man with them every night, but he spends the day among people. One story is recorded about the marriage of a bet with a shaman.
It is interesting that the Avesta speaks of bets that look like stars and heavenly bodies:
"They themselves acquired a form resembling celestial bodies, so that they could turn, move and rotate, dragging away lesser spirits and hiding from material beings in their own light and radiance, directing their radiance to other creatures in order to cause them pain, illness, death …"
Peri-spirits can not only fly through the air, but at will, they become invisible or visible. They, moreover, can deprive consciousness, reason, make you insane. Sorcerers can summon these spirits to their aid, or drive them out.
If you look closely, one cannot fail to notice the similarities between the peri and the characters of European folklore.
So, the characteristics and features of the appearance of the peri spirits make them related to the images of elves. Both elves and peri are distinguished by amazing, magical beauty, they are male and female, have their own hierarchy, rulers, are divided by genders (air, water peri), enter into sexual relations with a person, may have offspring from him. Elves can also kidnap children and adults, take revenge for treason and insults, are able to deprive the mind and send madness. For the most part, people are unfriendly.
The specific features of the appearance of the peri give them an even greater resemblance to the elves of Germanic folklore - this is, first of all, small stature, blond hair, radiance, wings, and a fondness for green clothes.
The functional features of elves and peri are identical - both of them cannot stand the sun's rays, while losing their mobility, they can become visible and invisible, at will take different forms, guard treasures, fight among themselves.
In addition, peri, like the elves of European folklore, are able to impose a prohibition-taboo on their chosen one, for example, from time to time not to look at the peri's wife. Finally, another important feature of the image of the peri, bringing them closer to elves and other similar spirits, is that they both acted as intermediary spirits and patrons of shamans and sorcerers and obeyed magical techniques.