A “wild man” from the island of Soqotra: a new text in its comparative setting

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 2023. Vol. 86. No. 3. P. 561–580.

Belozerova A., Kharitonova A., al-Da‘arhi A. ‘.

The article presents an annotated edition of a newly recorded Soqotri text about a wild man.
The authors attempt to locate the story within a wide range of wild/feral men narratives. The protagonist
of the Soqotri story displays a set of features cross-culturally ascribed to wild men, and the
narrative pattern of the account demonstrates a sequence of plot elements and motifs characteristic
of this tale-type. The article includes a comparison of the Soqotri tale to the Enkidu narrative known
from the Akkadian Epic of Gilgameš. Although both focus on the contact between human society and
a wild outsider, the two stories develop the subject differently: while Enkidu loses his wild traits and
becomes “civilized”, the Soqotri hero dies unable either to join the human community or to preserve
his wild nature once people have interfered with his life

Keywords: сокотри, Enkidu, Миф об Энкиду, современные южноаравийские языки, Язык и фольклор о. Сокотра, Soqotri, folklore motifs, мотивы в фольклоре, Modern South Arabian, wild man, folklore of Soqotra