Betgil

Also Known As: also Betkil; Georgian ბეთქილი; the doomed hunter of the Svan ballads of the goddess Dali
Region/Culture: Central and Eastern Europe
Mythos: Georgian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Heroes and Mortals
Mythical Attributes: Betgil is a mortal hunter of Svaneti who never comes home empty-handed for as long as he keeps the love-token of Dali, the goddess of the horned game.
Role in Mythos: He is the best-known lover of Dali and the hunter whose broken promise and fall from the cliff are sung in the Svan round dance that carries his name.
Relation to Humans: Betgil is one of the villagers himself, a man dancing in the ring with his kinsmen when the goddess comes for him. Svan communities sing his lament while dancing a solemn round dance in late winter and spring, and in neighbouring Racha the dance is held to change the weather.

The dance is slow. Men stand in a ring in the snow of a Svan village with their arms on each other’s shoulders, stepping sideways, and the song they sing has no joy in it. The refrain comes round again and again in the old language of the valley: poor Betgil, unhappy Betgil. They are mourning a man who was once dancing in exactly such a ring, on exactly such a day, when a white animal walked into the middle of it.

Betgil was a hunter in Upper Svaneti, the high country under the wall of the Caucasus where the stone towers stand. Hunting there meant ibex and chamois, and ibex and chamois belonged to someone. Their owner was Dali, whom the Svans call Dæl, a woman of unearthly beauty with long golden hair and skin so white it gave off light. She lived among the crags where no path went, kept the horned herds as a shepherd keeps sheep, and decided which hunter would find game and which would climb all day for nothing. Now and then she chose a hunter for herself.

She chose Betgil. She gave him a token, a bead in most tellings and a ring or charm in others, and with it a condition. He was to have nothing more to do with mortal women. That included his own wife. In return the mountain opened for him. Betgil would go up before light with his rope and come down by evening with a carcass across his shoulders, the hide still warm against his neck, and he did this every single time. Nobody in the village hunted like him. Nobody asked too loudly why.

Then he broke the rule. Some versions say he simply went back to his wife’s bed. Others say it was his sister-in-law, and one telling gives her the name Tamar. The bead passed into the woman’s hands, taken or given, and it was gone from him when it mattered. Dali knew at once. A goddess who can count every ibex on a mountain can count her own beads.

She did not send a storm. She came down herself in the shape of a white chamois, on the day the village was dancing, and ran straight into the ring. The animal passed between Betgil’s legs and broke out the far side toward the cliffs. A white chamois is the kind of prize a hunter sees once in a life. He dropped out of the dance and went after it, and in one account two companions went with him as far as they could.

The chase went up. The chamois kept just ahead, over scree, then over ledges, then onto bare rock where the ledges narrowed to the width of a boot. Behind him the path was crumbling away as fast as he used it, or vanishing under fresh snow. He could not go back. He could only climb, and when the climbing ran out he was fixed to the face of the mountain by his right hand and his left foot, with nothing under the other two. There the chamois turned around and was Dali again. She asked him where her bead was. He had no answer worth giving. She vanished and left him hanging.

What follows is the part the singers linger over. Betgil calls down to the people gathered at the foot of the cliff. In one telling his friends bring ropes and ladders, and the mountain grows taller to keep him out of reach. He knows by then that he is going to die, so he uses the time to put his affairs in order, shouting his instructions down the rock: how he is to be mourned, what food is to be set out in his name, that his mother must be looked after and given her bread. Then he falls, or in some versions jumps. Certain variants put the moment at daybreak, when the light and the dark come apart and the morning star shows. The lament ends on the rocks below and says plainly that Dali had her revenge.

Nothing explains where Betgil came from. He has no divine parent, no wonder birth and no destiny. He is a village hunter, and the ballad begins when the goddess notices him. That is the whole of his origin.

His gifts were all on loan. The unfailing luck, the full pack, the reputation, every bit of it came from the bead and from the woman who gave it, and it went when her favour went. He had the skill and nerve of any Svan hunter, which is a great deal, and it took him exactly as high as she wanted him to go. He was a good hunter with a powerful lover. That was all.

His weakness was the bargain itself. Dali asked him to live as a husband to nobody but her while he went on sleeping under his own roof with his own family around him, and he could not do it. Against her he had no defence at all: she owned the animals, the cliffs and the weather on them, and she could become the one quarry he would never refuse to chase. The Svans did not forget him. Villages in Upper Svaneti still sing his ballad to the solemn round dance each year as winter ends, and in Racha, the next province over, people hold that dancing it can turn the weather.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Betgil in Georgian mythology?

Betgil, also spelled Betkil, is a legendary hunter from Svaneti in the mountains of northwestern Georgia. He is the best-known mortal lover of Dali, the goddess of ibex and chamois. Betgil broke his promise to her and died in a fall from a cliff, and the Svans sing a ballad about him during a round dance.

What promise did Betgil make to Dali?

Dali gave Betgil a love-token, usually a bead, and required him to stay away from all mortal women, including his own wife. While he kept the promise he never came home from a hunt empty-handed. He broke it by sleeping with his wife or, in other versions, his sister-in-law, and Dali’s bead ended up with the woman.

How did Betgil die?

Dali turned herself into a white chamois, ran through the village round dance between Betgil’s legs, and lured him up a mountain. The path crumbled behind him until he was left clinging to the cliff by his right hand and left foot. Dali took her own form again, asked for her bead, and vanished, and Betgil fell or jumped to his death.

What is the Betgil round dance?

The Betgil ballad is a Svan-language lament sung while dancing a slow, solemn round dance in Upper Svaneti. Its refrain means “poor Betgil, unhappy Betgil.” It is performed in late winter and spring, and in the neighbouring region of Racha the dance is believed to change the weather.

Was Betgil a god or a mortal?

Betgil was a mortal. He was an ordinary village hunter with no divine parentage, and his remarkable success in the hunt came entirely from Dali’s favour. When he lost her favour he lost his luck and his life.