Lux Esoterica (Nifiluz)

In the stone-vaulted houses of Mardin and Adana, in the dowry chests of Kurdish brides and upon the mirrored glass paintings that hang above marriage beds throughout southeastern Anatolia, one figure recurs with the insistence of a dream that will not release the dreamer. She has the face of a serene and beautiful woman, crowned; her body below the waist is that of a great serpent, and from her serpentine length branch smaller snakes, each one crowned in miniature, so that she is not merely a snake-woman but a sovereign whose very flesh is a court. She is Shahmaran — from the Persian Shah-e Maran , the King of Snakes, though the title has settled upon a queen — and her legend, told among Kurds, Turks, Arabs, and Persians for many centuries, is one of the most piercing meditations on trust, betrayal, and the price of wisdom that any folk tradition has produced. The Man in the Well The tale is most often attached to a poor young man named Camsap (in other tellings Jamasp, or Yada Cams...