THE POETIC INTERPRETATION OF HELPER AND OPPONENT CHARACTERS IN UZBEK AND KYRGYZ FAIRY TALES

Аннотация

Thearticle analyzes thepoeticinterpretation ofleading and supporting characters in Uzbek and Kyrgyz folk fairy tales. Also, although magicians are often depicted as helpers, in some fairy tales they are embodied in the form of rivals, for example, in fairy tales, the motif of transformation, magical objects and animals (wolf, bird) help the hero or play an important role byhelpinghim pass trials. Keywords: magical fairy tale, auxiliary character, rival character, motif of transformation, magical object, mythological image, antithesis. Leading andSupportingCharacters in Fairy Tales The leading and supporting characters in magical fairy tales can consist of supernatural beings who either live in a parallel world or do not live there at all. These are traditional characters. Often, they are depicted as helping a human who is the hero of the fairy tale, representing the real world. The magician, as the most widespread epic helper character, holds an important place in the magical fairy tales of both the Kyrgyz and Uzbek peoples, just as in the fairy tales of all nations. Forexample, this can beclearly seenin theKyrgyz folk tale“TheChild andtheMagician.” In this tale, an old man and woman who live in extreme poverty have only one son. They spend all their remaining wealth, sometimes laughing and sometimes crying, helplessly. Eventually, they are forced to send their son to the city as a servant (malay). At first, no one comes to help the boy. After several days, the old man becomes very tired and sits down on a boulder by the roadside, sighing deeply, “Oh-h!” Suddenly, an old man with a beard appears mysteriously before him and asks, “Why did you call me!?” The father replies, “I did not call you; I just sighed from exhaustion.” It is worth noting that in Kyrgyz fairy tales, the utterance of “Oh” or “Ohh” often leads to the sudden appearance of a powerful helper or assistant character before the epic hero. This exclamation is usually spoken by the hero at a moment of great exhaustion or boredom. At that moment,theepic helper unexpectedly appears. It should also be mentioned that in Kyrgyz fairy tales, the epic helper or magician is often depicted as an old man — a bearded elder. He appears mysteriously, either by a spring or along a roadside. Sometimes, theirnames are even given. For example, in thefairy tale “The Boy and the Magician,”the mysterious old man introduces himselfas “My nameis Okish!” The magician asks the old man about his situation. The old man sighs again and says, "What can I tell you? My household is empty, and I am searching to give my son’s strength to someone." Then the magician asks for the boy and promises to teach him. He says he will return to take him https://ijmri.de/index.php/jmsi volume 4,issue5,2025 1145 exactly one year later. Agreeing to this, the old man receives a gold coin, and the magician disappears with theboy. The boy studies under the old magician and meets his daughter. The daughter calls the boy “her apprentice” and tells him about her father’s magic, but warns that her own skill is superior. She warns that her father has no intention of letting the boy leave and plans to keep him a slave forever. Secretly, thedaughter teaches theboyher ownmagic. A year later, the old man returns to the magician and says, “The time has come, give me my son!” But the magician whispers something, and seven black cats appear. The magician says the old man can find his son among them. The old man cannot recognize his son and returns crying. He comes again the following year. This time, when the magician whispers, seven red foxes appear. Again, theoldman cannot identify his son and returns empty-handed. At this point, the mysterious image of the magician is marked byhis power to transform a person, by a single prayer, sometimes into a cat, sometimes into a fox. Moreover, the black color of the cat symbolizes evil and misfortune [6, 95], while the red color of the fox symbolizes blood and death, indicating that the magician embodies the evil desire for death. Thus, in this tale, the magician is portrayed as an antagonist tohumans. Six years later in the story, the magician says: “You have not recognized your son for six years. If you fail again this year, your son will belong to me forever.” The oldman weeps and begins to leave when suddenly a black horse gallops after him. The horse introduces itself, saying, “I am your son,” and tells him that next year, among seven black horses, he will be the third from the right before disappearing. Here, the black horse taking human form corresponds to the poetic traditions of Turkic folk tales, where the color black symbolizes grandeur. A human is regarded as the most magnificent of all creatures created byGod. Among the Uzbek and Kyrgyz peoples, there exists a taboo against selling an animal together with its belongings. The above passage depicts a negative situation arising from the violation of this taboo. Specifically, an old man took a horse to the