Devs

A man yawns, stretches, and feels an itch at the side of his throat. In the old Armenian highlands that was reason enough to reach for a stick. An itch around the throat, the ear or the tongue, a sneeze, a yawn that came from nowhere: an old book of charms lists all of these as signs that a dev was close by. The cure was to cut the air. A stick or a sword swung through an empty room, or driven at a suspicious corner, sent the thing away. A careful sleeper kept the blade within reach all night.

The word came into Armenia from Iran. It is the same word as the daeva of the Zoroastrian books and the div of Persian story, and it arrived in the long centuries when Armenia lived under Iranian kings and shared much of their religion. The Armenians took the name and wore it down to fit their own country. They knew Ahriman, the lord of the daevas, only as a foreign figure out of someone else’s creed. Their own name for the power behind bad things seems to have been simply Char, the evil one. Snow, hail, ice, storm, darkness and dangerous beasts were all counted as his work, or as the work of the devs.

The fullest early account comes from Eznik of Kolb, a churchman who wrote in the fifth century to argue against the beliefs his neighbours still held. He gives a second name for these beings, ays, and explains it as breath. That fits the picture he argues with. A dev had a body, but a very fine one, close to air. Devs were male and female. They married each other, and they often took human husbands and wives. They were born, and perhaps they died. They were not a rabble either. They lived under a king of their own.

They came mostly at night. In dreams a dev put on the shape of a wild animal to frighten the sleeper. Awake, a person might meet one as a snake, or as another person on the road. Fainting and madness were laid at their door.

What they liked best was stone. Rocky ground and broken walls were theirs, and even bold men kept away from such places. The old Armenian histories keep a small exchange that shows how deep the idea ran. An Armenian lord dared a Persian prince to ride ahead of him across a field of rocks. The prince told him to go first himself, since only devs could gallop over stony ground. It was an insult, and a neat one.

The charm books went further and said there was nothing in the world a dev could not get inside and use. That was the churchman’s dev, a spirit setting traps on a person’s path. The country dev was another matter, and by the time folklorists began writing down Armenian tales in the nineteenth century he had put on a great deal of weight. This dev is a giant with a huge head sunk on his shoulders and eyes as big as clay bowls. Some have a single eye. He lives in a cave with his brothers, sleeps heavily, and guards a pile of gold. He is strong beyond measure. He is also stupid.

The hero tales use him the way other countries use ogres. In the epic of the house of Sassoun, the boy David is sent out as a herdsman and loses his animals to a band of forty devs. He follows them to their cave in the hills. The air inside is cold and smells of smoke and old meat, and the treasure of generations of robbery is heaped along the walls. David kills all forty and brings the hoard home to his uncle. A generation on, his son Mher rides out against a dev of his own. In a much later story by the poet Hovhannes Tumanyan a White Dev stands guard over a flower of paradise, and he is not altogether a villain. The tales know black devs and white devs, and either kind may turn out cruel or kind.

So the dev has two sets of powers. The spirit can change shape, enter dreams, slip into any object, and strike a person with fits or madness. The giant has plain bodily strength, great age, and wealth.

Both have their limits. The spirit cannot stand a swung stick or a drawn blade. The giant can be beaten by any farm boy with a strong arm and a little sense. And both are tied to the bare places, the rocks and ruins where nobody chooses to live.

Around the devs stood their near relations: the druzes, lying female spirits who came to men in sleep, and the pariks, enchantresses who kept to ruins as well. Ordinary people were never quite sure whether these were devs or some other sort of monster.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are devs in Armenian mythology?

Devs are the evil spirits and giants of Armenian belief and folklore. In older religious writing they are airy beings that haunt stony places and ruins and cause dreams, fainting and madness. In later folk tales and the Armenian national epic they are huge, strong, rather foolish giants who steal cattle and hoard treasure.

Where does the Armenian word dev come from?

The Armenian word dev comes from Iranian, and is the same word as the Zoroastrian daeva and the Persian div. It entered Armenian during the centuries of Iranian rule and religious influence. An older Armenian name for the same beings is ays, which the fifth-century writer Eznik of Kolb explained as meaning breath.

What do Armenian devs look like?

The spirit devs of older belief have fine, air-like bodies and can appear as wild beasts, snakes or human beings. The devs of Armenian folk tales are very large creatures with an enormous head and eyes as big as clay bowls, and some have only one eye. The tales speak of both black and white devs.

How did people protect themselves from devs?

People protected themselves from devs by cutting the air or striking suspicious spots with a stick or a sword. Keeping such a weapon nearby while sleeping was thought to give safety through the night. Stony ground and ruins, where devs were believed to live, were avoided.

Do devs appear in the Armenian epic of Sassoun?

Yes. In the epic of the house of Sassoun the young hero David tracks forty devs to their cave, kills them all, and takes their treasure home to his uncle. His son, the younger Mher, also fights a dev.

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Al, Vishap, Aralez, Mher, Vahagn, Aramazd, Div, Angra Mainyu, Aka Manah, Peri, Devi, Ogre, Giant