Kurdish Folk Epics: From Memê Alan to Siyabend û Xecê

At a Glance

An epic is a long folk narrative that the dengbêjs sing in melody. Hundreds live among the Kurds; this article introduces the most widespread.
Memê Alan is the chief epic of the oral tradition: the love, never to be fulfilled, of Mem, prince of the city of Muxurzemîn, and Zîn of Cizre.
Memê Alan and the Mem û Zîn written by Ehmedê Xanî are not the same thing. One is an anonymous folk epic, the other a single-author literary work.
Siyabend û Xecê leans against Mount Süphan, north of Lake Van, called Sîpanê Xelatê in Kurdish. The mountain is almost the epic's third hero.
Zembîlfiroş is the epic of a prince who leaves the throne to sell baskets. He resists an offer of love from a palace; its theme is virtue, and refusing to bow to power.
Kerr û Kulik and Binevşa Narîn are also among the widespread epics; twentieth-century collectors set down several variants of each.
The same epic shifts from district to district. Folklore calls this şax: the branches of one tree.
The epics do three jobs: they teach geography, they weigh morality, they carry history.
The first great collection was printed in Yerevan in 1936. The Celîl brothers' Zargotina Kurda collection and Western lexicographers set this legacy down.

A winter night, a high village. A log of oak burns in the hearth. The room is crowded: children on knees, elders along the wall.

The dengbêj strokes his graying mustache, puts a hand to his ear, and begins: Memê Alan. Everyone in the room knows this story. They know Mem will die, they know Zîn will follow him. Still no one stirs. When Beko's name comes up, someone mutters low; in the dungeon passage a woman wipes her eye with the corner of her veil.

Why is a story listened to when its ending is known? Because an epic is not news. An epic is a school a people builds for itself. The lesson repeats every winter, so that it will not be forgotten.

What Is an Epic, and Who Carries It?

An epic is a long narrative sung in melody: love, war, exile, death. In Kurdish these narratives are also called beyt or çîrok. The carrier is well known: the dengbêj, the master singer who carries a people's memory in his voice. The dengbêj uses no instrument; his voice is both the strings and the stage. The inner working of that tradition we described in our article on the dengbêj.

Dr. Mehrdad R. Izady records that traveling singers carried hundreds of epics village to village. The repertoire runs to hundreds: Memê Alan, Siyabend û Xecê, Zembîlfiroş, Kerr û Kulik, Binevşa Narîn, Memê û Eyşê, Sêva Hecî, and many more. Rohat Alakom's folklore study lists these names in a long roll.

So who is the author of these epics? No one and everyone. Each dengbêj changes the narrative in his own breath. That is why different forms of the same epic live from district to district. Folklore calls this şax; the word means "branch" in Kurdish. The trunk is one, the branches many.

Memê Alan: The Love the Fairies Brought

The chief epic takes the seat of honor. The backbone of Memê Alan, variants aside, runs like this.

Mem is the son of the ruler of a distant city; in most branches the city is named Muxurzemîn. In Cizre lives Zîn, the sister of the Botan mîr, the ruler of the district. The two have never seen each other. One night the fairies step in: they bring the sleepers together for a single night in one room. Waking, the young pair first think it a dream, then exchange rings. In the morning each wakes in his own city, a stranger's ring on the finger.

The rest is a journey. Mem mounts his horse, Boz; in some tellings the name is Bozê Rewan. He reaches Cizre and forms a bond of brotherhood with the town's champion, Qeretajdîn. One of the best-loved scenes is here: when the secret is about to be exposed, Qeretajdîn sets his own house on fire to shield his guest. Then the chess passage; Mem plays the mîr when Zîn appears, and the game, like the heart, is thrown into confusion. The schemer Beko enters. Mem falls into the dungeon and dies, before he can leave it or as soon as he does; Zîn cannot live for grief. From Beko's blood a thornbush grows between the two graves.

Does this story sound familiar? There is a reason. Ehmedê Xanî took this folk narrative in 1694 and built the literary masterpiece Mem û Zîn. The two are not the same: Memê Alan is anonymous and oral, Mem û Zîn is from a single pen. The story of that difference is in our article on Xanî. The oral branch reached writing too: the French Kurdologist Roger Lescot published a long variant in 1942, and by his records Armenian collectors who knew Kurdish had printed three more. The word was carried into writing by many hands.

Siyabend û Xecê: On the Slope of Süphan

The second great love epic leans against a mountain. North of Lake Van stands Mount Süphan, rising past four thousand metres; in Kurdish it is Sîpanê Xelatê, the Süphan of Ahlat. That is the epic's stage.

Siyabend is a headstrong youth from the Silîvî region. Xecê is a beautiful girl watched over by her brothers. In the variants Rohat Alakom relays, the brothers grow suspicious. In the end the two flee, and take shelter on the slope of Süphan. They live a short happiness.

Then comes that scene. Siyabend sleeps with his head on Xecê's knee. The text collected by the Celîl brothers says, in approximate translation, this: a drop of tears from Xecê's eye falls on Siyabend's face. He wakes and asks, "Xecê, why did you weep?" (translation approximate) She denies it. The reason shows itself soon: wild deer are crossing the slope. In some variants the deer have first entered Xecê's dream, and Siyabend misreads it.

Siyabend goes after the herd. Xecê pleads: leave them, it is a pity. He does not listen. Alakom's question is well placed: where does this stubbornness come from? The hunt answers. The deer's antler finds Siyabend and throws him from the cliff. Xecê keens on the slope; in most variants she dies too, in some casting herself from the same cliff.

Alakom points to one more thing. In this epic the wisdom rests with Xecê: she reads the dream right, she sees the danger in advance. Siyabend's stubbornness calls down the disaster. The epics often give women this role: the one who sees but is not heard. We followed that thread in our article on Kurdish women in history.

Zembîlfiroş: The Prince Who Sold Baskets

The third epic is not a love triangle but a story of trial. Its name tells the trade: zembîl means basket, and zembîlfiroş means basket seller.

The narrative Martin van Bruinessen summarizes runs like this. Zembîlfiroş is in fact a ruler's son. In his youth he meets death and misery face to face, is shaken, and leaves his crown and palace. With his wife he chooses a poor life, weaving and selling baskets by hand. His road brings him to the seat of a princedom; in some variants the town is Silvan. The lady of the town, the Xatûn, is smitten the moment she sees him. She calls him to her palace, declares her love openly, offers wealth. Zembîlfiroş refuses: he is a penitent with a family at home to keep. To escape, he throws himself from the palace tower.

The Xatûn does not give up. She disguises herself, tricks Zembîlfiroş's wife with gifts, and for one night waits in the wife's clothing, in the wife's house. Returning in the dark, the man notices the silver anklet on the woman's foot: this is not his wife. He flees, and prays that his life be taken. In this branch both die, and are buried side by side.

The endings? Many. Alakom lists nine: the man turns into a bird and flies up the chimney; the two meet in paradise; the lady leaves everything to follow him, and they become brother and sister; in one written variant Zembîlfiroş becomes a mîr. It is as if the people asked one question nine times: what happens when virtue meets desire?

One thing is striking. The narrative does not condemn the Xatûn. Van Bruinessen underlines it: the woman's passion is told almost as a Sufi seeking, and in the grave it is the Xatûn, not the wife, who lies beside the man. There is a quarrel of place too: both the Silvan region and the Batufa region east of Zaho show his grave on their own soil. That two countries claim one epic is a measure of its power.

From Kerr û Kulik to Binevşa Narîn

What other epics live on? The list is long; let us keep to the sure ones.

Kerr û Kulik is the epic of the sons of Silêmanê Silîvî: two brothers, resistance against oppression, a stubbornness that costs dearly. The first great collectors set down more than one variant. Alakom notes that the stubbornness here is kin to Siyabend's, and that good sense again gathers in a woman, Werdek.

Binevşa Narîn is a love epic of the Hekkar region; its name is spoken with Cembelî. Cembelî is a mîr's son who gives his word to Binevş and follows that word through everything that steps between them. This epic too lives in different tellings; in detail the districts diverge, on the backbone they agree.

One more epic earns a single sentence: Dimdim Castle, defended against the Safavid army near Urmia in 1608, gave rise to a great epic of heroism that bears its own name. We tell its story in a separate article on this site.

What Are the Epics For?

A fine story, granted. But why memorize thousands of couplets over hundreds of years? For three jobs.

The first is geography. The epics are a map: Cizre and the Tigris in Memê Alan, Mount Süphan in Siyabend, Silvan in Zembîlfiroş, Urmia in Dimdim. In centuries without schools or maps, the child learned the borders of the homeland by listening. The name of the mountain stayed in mind through melody.

The second is morality. The epics do not lecture; they open a case. Qeretajdîn, burning his house for a guest, asks after the limit of generosity. Zembîlfiroş weighs the price of not bending to power. Siyabend's stubbornness shows the thin line between courage and folly. The listener passes his own verdict. Another form does this same work in a single sentence: the proverb. We gathered that treasure in a separate article.

The third is memory. When writing was forbidden or far away, the epic served as an archive. Who fought whom, how which mîr fell, when the famine came: it was buried in the word. Legend and event intertwine, of course; an epic is not a history book. But it recalls what the historian forgot to ask: what the people felt in that event.

From Voice to Text: The Labor of the Collectors

How were these voices set down? Through a long chain of labor.

The first great link is in the Caucasus. In 1936, in Yerevan, the first comprehensive Kurdish folklore collection was printed; Heciyê Cindî and Emînê Evdal prepared it, Casimê Celîl directed it. Inside were three variants of Mem û Zîn, several branches of Kerr û Kulik, and much more. That generation's children enlarged the work: the Zargotina Kurda collection of Ordîxanê Celîl and Celîlê Celîl, that is "The Kurdish Oral Tradition," set epic texts into writing volume by volume. The sound archive of the same circle was carried by Radio Yerevan; that story is told separately on the site.

Links were added in the West too. The German orientalist Oskar Mann published epic texts from the Mukri region in 1906. Roger Lescot made Memê Alan into a book. The American linguist Michael L. Chyet recorded the epics and their heroes as entries in his dictionary; if you can look up Dimdim or Xecê today and find them, that is why.

And today? The dengbêj is back on stage in cafés and festivals; the epics seep into albums, theater, the novel. The room has changed, the hearth has changed. The story stays where it is. So do the listeners who know the ending and stay anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Memê Alan and Mem û Zîn? Memê Alan is the anonymous folk epic the dengbêjs have sung for centuries. Mem û Zîn is the single-author literary work Ehmedê Xanî wrote from that story in 1694. The source is one; the form and the aim are different.

Where does the epic Siyabend û Xecê take place? Around Mount Süphan, north of Lake Van; by its name in the epic, Sîpanê Xelatê. The story of the two lovers who fled ends with a hunting accident on the slope of the mountain.

What is the story of Zembîlfiroş about? A prince who leaves the throne to live by selling baskets refuses the love offer of the lady of a town. The theme is virtue resisting worldly power and desire. The ending changes by variant, and two separate districts claim his grave.

Who collected the Kurdish epics? The first comprehensive collection was made in Yerevan in 1936. The Celîl brothers' Zargotina Kurda volumes, the publications of Oskar Mann and Roger Lescot, and Michael L. Chyet's dictionary records are the other links in the chain.

Do the epics have historical value? They do, but with care. An epic conveys less the event itself than how the people lived that event. Even in epics that rest on a historical event, like Dimdim, the share of legend is taken into account.

Sources and Further Reading

Primary sources (from the Bedel Boseli Collection):

Celîlê Celîl and Ordîxanê Celîl, Zargotina Kurda I. The texts of Memê Alan, Siyabend, Kerr û Kulik, and Zembîlfiroş, and the record of the 1936 Yerevan collection.
Michael L. Chyet, Kurdish-English Dictionary. The names of epics such as Dimdim, Memê Alan, and Xecê recorded as entries; excerpts from the Siyabend texts.
Martin van Bruinessen, From Adela Khanum to Leyla Zana. The summary of the Zembîlfiroş epic, the variant sources, and the record of the two graves.
Rohat Alakom, Folklor û Jinên Kurd. The list of epics, the nine endings of Zembîlfiroş, and the reading of Xecê and Werdek.
Dr. Mehrdad R. Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook (4th ed.). The literary context of Mem û Zîn and Dimdim and the record of the traveling singers.

Social Media Summaries

The following summaries are ready to share; copy and use them.

Everyone in the room knows Mem will die. Still no one stirs; in the dungeon passage a woman wipes her eye. Why is a story listened to when its ending is known? The Kurdish epics answer: bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-folk-epics
The fairies brought two young people together for one night, and in the morning strangers' rings were left on their fingers. Memê Alan set out; the road led to Cizre, a dungeon, and a thornbush. The chief epic's story: bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-folk-epics
Xecê read the dream right; Siyabend did not listen. The deer's antler found the stubbornness, and Mount Süphan took both loves at once. The epic of women who see but are not heard: bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-folk-epics
The palace offered wealth; the basket-selling prince said no. The people wrote nine endings for this story, and two districts could not share the grave. Zembîlfiroş, the epic of virtue: bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-folk-epics
No school, no map, no archive. The epic was all three at once: the child learned geography from melody, morality from story, history from lament. The catalogue of a library without writing: bedelboseli.com/en/kurdish-folk-epics