ON THE CUT HEAD MOTIFS LEGENDS IN ANATOLIA

Literature's written and oral products are nearly as old as human history. The reason might derive from humans' need to tell and share about their lives and experiences. We can see this even in the ages of humans in the paintings of the wall of the caves, drawings on rocks and in hieroglyphs. It is possible to come across these cultural shards and motifs in Anatolia, the host of many different civilizations. After the victory of Malazgirt, Turks found a chance to step in Anatolian lands, and in following years they included these motifs in their literature. Turks, who used many elements of Anatolia and their culture in different versions of literature, utilised the image of severed head in their legend tales. This image which existed way before the arrival of Turks, started to appear in legend texts quite often after the Turkish influence following their arrival in these lands. The motif of severed head came to existence in written or oral legend tales in order to describe the hero’s struggle and fight against the enemy and to describe how his head gets chopped off the blow of the enemy and how he picks it up from the ground, keep it under his arm and continues to fight. Turks united the extraordinary situation of severed head with religious intentions. The reason behind it is to add some holiness to the lands Turks conquered under the flag of Jihad. Sometimes it is possible to witness the usage of severed head imagery as a simple description in texts. In our work, we analysed the motif of severed head which was widely used in literature with the arrival of Turks and the different usage of it in those texts