Anadolu İnanç Söylenceleri: Egeria’nın Anlatılarında Balıklıgöl ve Kral Abgar
Anatolian Belief Legends: Balıklıgöl and King Abgar in Egeria’s Narratives

Summary/Abstract: Anatolia’s rich historical geography led to the emergence of verbal cultural inheritance sustained by different civilizations, communities and faiths. While some of the legends are attributed to the different regions reflecting similar characteristics by successors who adds motifs peculiar to them without distorting the main theme, some of them are created as irrelevant to each other by the communities with various faiths. For the folklorists, the narrator’s and the audience’s perception of reality which is independent from the historical and scientific facts is the main element to separate the legends from the myths. There is no doubt that non-existence of pagan ancient people who would accept all the things real produced by imagination and explain the creation of universe, human-being, plants or animals by relating it with a cause left the perception of reality to the narratives of the successors who have the audiences with different thinking and faith. The personalities and events change although this perception of reality is permanent for the communities of closer period of time when compared to the prehistory. In this paper, Balıklıgöl in the province of Şanlıurfa which can be a sample for the legends of which plots revolve around different persons and events in the same place is introduced. There are accounts related to the city of Şanlıurfa (Edessa) in Egeria’s diary written in letters who went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands in the 4th century A.D. from Gaul. The most interesting one among these accounts is the legend about the emergence of Balıklıgöl which revolves around King Abgar.

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