Aidahar

Origin and myth

Aidahar (Kazakh aydahar; related forms such as azhdaha and azhdarkha occur in neighbouring Turkic languages) is the great serpent-dragon of Kazakh and wider Turkic folklore. The word is a borrowing of Persian azhdaha, "dragon", which goes back through Middle Persian to Avestan Azhi Dahaka, the monstrous serpent-king of Iranian myth with three mouths, three heads and six eyes. In later Zoroastrian texts and in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh he is bound beneath Mount Damavand until the end of the world. In the steppe the borrowed name attached to native ideas of giant snakes, and the Kazakh aidahar became a creature of the lower world, associated with the roots of the world tree Baiterek.

In the Baiterek legend, popularised in modern Kazakhstan by the Astana monument, the sacred bird Samruk lays a golden egg in the crown of the tree every year, and the dragon Aidahar, lurking among the roots, swallows it. The egg is read as the sun, and the contest between bird and dragon as the turning of day and night and of the seasons. In a widespread hero-tale type of the region, a hero in the lower world kills a serpent that threatens the chicks of a giant bird, and the grateful bird carries him back to the surface. Bashkir and Tatar belief adds that an azhdaha that lives for centuries (500 to 1,000 years in Bashkir accounts) turns into a yuha, a shapeshifting demon that can appear as a beautiful girl.

Unlike the European dragon, the aidahar is rarely a hoarder of treasure. In many tales it is a blocker of water and a swallower: it lies across springs and rivers, demands sacrifices, and drinks up herds and people. Killing it restores water to the steppe, which made the story especially resonant in an arid land.

Appearance

The aidahar is a serpent before it is a dragon. The body is enormously long and thick, more python than lizard, with heavy overlapping scales. Some tales give it several heads - seven is a favourite number - on separate necks branching from a thick shoulder, while others keep a single huge head with a wide jaw, long fangs and a forked tongue. Legs are optional: some modern depictions show short, powerful forelegs with claws, most show none at all.

Wings, if an artist adds them, are bat-like and small relative to the body, as if vestigial. A common modern design gives a broad, flattened head with horn-like ridges above the eyes and a beard of fleshy barbels or spines under the jaw. Folklore says little about colour, so modern artists usually choose black or dark green with a yellowish underbelly and burning eyes. The overall impression should be weight and length: the creature is a mountain of coils.

In modern fantasy

Multi-headed serpent dragons are a staple of fantasy games, usually under the hydra or "great wyrm" categories in tabletop systems such as Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, and as boss encounters in action and role-playing video games. Under its own name the aidahar appears mainly in Kazakh and Central Asian retellings and fantasy that draws on nomadic culture, typically as the underworld antagonist of the hero's journey.

3D printing notes

A coiled serpent is one of the most print-friendly dragon forms. The coils stack on themselves, creating a self-supporting mass with few overhangs, so the aidahar is a rare dragon that works well on FDM even at 75 mm. Print the coiled body in one piece with the base, and add heads and necks as separate parts pegged into sockets.

For 28-32 mm tabletop use, resin gives the scale texture; keep the necks thick and the heads close to the body mass, and use a 50 mm round base.

At 150 mm and up, a centrepiece can wrap the serpent around a Baiterek trunk with Samruk in the crown, which turns the tree into the structural core. Hollow the coils to 3 mm walls on resin, 2 walls on FDM with 15 percent infill. Long necks over 80 mm should have a steel wire inserted in a channel to prevent sag and breakage. An articulated print-in-place serpent is a strong option here: a chain of ball-and-socket or barrel-hinge segments printed flat, with 0.4-0.5 mm clearances, that can be posed in coils after printing.

Painting and display

Dark schemes suit the underworld origin. Base coat black-green, drybrush with a mid olive or teal, and pick out the scale edges with a pale yellow-green for a sickly sheen. A yellow ochre belly with a brown wash breaks up the mass. Eyes in bright orange or red with a gloss varnish stand out against the dark body.

The base can be underground: bare roots, dark earth and a spring or pool made with clear resin. A red or amber LED inside the mouth of the main head, or beneath the pool, gives a smouldering effect.

Related creatures

The aidahar's eternal enemy is the bird Samruk, and its many-headed cousins include the Slavic Zmey Gorynych and the Greek Hydra. For the western template see the classic Dragon.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Zahhak (Avestan Azhi Dahaka, Middle Persian and Shahnameh tradition, etymology of azhdaha), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahhak
• Eurasia Travel, Flying theatre and museum "Altyn Samruk" (Samruk's yearly egg as the sun, swallowed by Aidahar), https://eurasia.travel/ru/kazakhstan/turkestan/altyn-samruk-theater/
• Wikipedia (Russian), Yuha (demon) (Bashkir and Tatar beliefs, citing V. N. Basilov in Myths of the Peoples of the World), https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Юха_(демон)

If you would like an aidahar model in any of these poses, ask Fantasy Lab 3D for a custom print.