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MARI AND HER COURT Mari is considered the supreme goddess, and her consort Sugaar the supreme god. Mari is depicted in many different forms: sometimes as various women, as different red animals, as the black he-goat, etc. Sugaar, however, appears only as a man or a serpent/dragon. Mari is said to be served by the Sorginak , semi-mythical creatures impossible to differentiate from actual Witches or Pagan Priestess es. The nucleus of witches near Zugarramurdi met at the Akelarre field and were the target of a process in Logroño that was the major action of the Spanish Inquisition against witchcraft. As a result, ''akelarre'' in Basque and ''aquelarre'' in Spanish are still today the local names of the Sabbat . OTHER CREATURES AND CHARACTERS
Other minor characters appear only in isolated legends:
URTZI Urtzi , Ortz or '''Ost''' seems to have been the name by which Basque referred to the sky and the divinities (normally foreign) that embodied it. In the Middle Ages , the Codex Calixtinus by the French pilgrim Aymericus Picaudus mentions that "they call God ''Urcia''". While no legend has survived on the possible nature of this divinity, many composite Basque names (of weekdays or metereological events) seem to point to Ost, Ortz or Urtzi being the old name of the sky and its divine personifications. CHRISTIANITY After Christianization, the Basques kept producing and importing myths.
MODERN MYTHS Besides the religious beliefs of ancient Basques, we can understand Mythology to include other stories of emotional, cultural, moral or ethical value to a nation. Taken broadly, then, Basque mythology can include any narrative which has contributed to the shaping of Basque values and belief systems. Some modern myths were created in the 19th century, as Basque national consciousness arose. Spanish historians and apologists placed the Iberians and Basques in the Babel narrative as descendants of Tubal . Biscay ne apologists argued that unlike the rest of Spain, Basque blood had not been polluted by Miscegenation with Moors or Jews and, under the system of '' Limpieza De Sangre '', they were natural born Nobles , free of the Castilian taxes and authorities. In the 19th century, Souletin writer Augustin Chaho created Tubal's descendant Aitor to be the forefather of all Basques. Chaho also twisted the name of herensuge (dragon) to create Leherensuge a semi-divine creature that was present at the origins (''lehen'') and will be present also in the future or end (''heren'') of the Basque people. In this sense Leherensuge can somehow be associated with Sugaar. The Guernica Tree also became a symbol of the Basque freedoms. Another tree, the Malato Tree marked the limit of the Basque armies and was used as an argument to refuse Basque involvement in the Spanish military. EXTERNAL LINKS REFERENCES
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