... When, despite the efforts of the Narts to take care of him, the baby sun wanders off, the Narts are left without guidance, in a state in which their fate is unpredictable.

Yggdrasil, the Norse tree—derived from ygg “terrible” and drasil “steed”—was taken to be an incarnation of the horse the Norse supreme god, Odin, rode during his exploits.  Thus, the trees of both traditions are intimately associated with raids.  In the Circassian myth these raids are nocturnal and are illumined by the child of the tree, the Milky Way.  Perhaps related to this theme is the fact that in the Norse myth women are said to have cooked and eaten Yggdrasil’s fruit to ensure safe childbirth, so there is a procreative dimension here as well.

The Circassian tree possesses the life that lies beneath the earth, while Yggdrasil’s three roots reach down separately into a well of memory and understanding, a well of fate and destiny, and the mouth of a dragon of destruction. 

Although the Norse netherworld is more elaborate than the Circassian, Yggdrasil’s root to the well of fate and destiny is guarded by three women, the Norns, so that at an earlier date the Norse tree may have had a more pronounced feminine aspect, much more like the Circassian.  Tlepsh himself bears some similarities to Odin, who is closely associated with Yggdrasil in a number of ways.  Both gods have large hats, both make use of walking sticks, and both travel vast distances in short periods.

The Circassian myth has a remarkable celestial significance absent from any Norse Yggdrasil myth.  Lady Tree gives birth to the Milky Way, which in Circassian is “Milky Footpath.”  That the Milky Way is considered a “baby sun” is most striking.  Perhaps the Milky Way is thought of as uncoalesced celestial light, which in its mature form is manifested preeminently as the sun. 

The seven women who tend this celestial infant seem to parallel the Seven Sisters, the Greek Pleiades, a tight grouping of stars in the winter sky located near the Milky Way.  Equally striking is the theme that the world has no edge.  This is not a modern interpolation, for this theme alone is the subject of other myths surrounding Tlepsh and his wanderings.  I leave it to the reader to ponder the planetary and astronomical wisdom hinted at by these aspects.