ABSTRACT
A certain Cherbysh, in Ingush-Chechen tradition, is the hero of a legend in which he ambushes a party of Kabardans on their way to raid Georgia - after destroying bridges behind and in front of them. He was a native of Gumlet (Gve1eti according to a pencilled note by the late J. F. Badde1ey), a few versts to the south of Kazbek. He was rewarded by the 'Georgian' king Giorgi (? Giorgi X of Kartli, d. 16°5) with the grant of lands between GveIeti and Kazbek (cf. Etnograficheskoye Obo{reniye, 1901, No. I, article by V. F. Miller, 'Stranichka iz severo-kavkazskago bogatyrskago eposa', p. 63). The story has some resemblance to the Koroghlu cycle of tales where, in Anatolia, the hero is a highwayman and balladsinger while, among the Uzbeks, he is a frontier officer serving a great lord or khan (cf. AlIen, PTP, n. 21 and p. 50). It is clear from our text that Cherebash's settlement was the first Georgian post covering the exit from the Daryal Gorge.
