The narrative construction of the witch figure in Kyrgyz folktales

The fairy tale is one of the genres of oral literature that conveys the position of human communities in relation to the world, along with their fears, desires, and lived experiences, onto a symbolic plane of narration. Although this genre presents a plot independent of empirical reality, it constitutes a powerful narrative domain that processes the images and cultural codes sustaining the collective unconscious of societies. Within this narrative domain, the fairy-tale tradition produces distinctive modes of representation across different geographies, thereby clearly reflecting traces of cultural diversity. These representational forms gain meaning through mythical beings that embody fundamental conceptions such as fear, uncertainty, nature, and the human–nature relationship. As a result, the fairy tale emerges as a literary form capable of expressing universal emotional patterns while simultaneously revealing the unique aesthetic and symbolic worlds of cultures. In this respect, fairy tales should also be regarded as narrative forms that transmit collective memory and reproduce cultural values. This study examines the position and function of the witch—characterized by fear, wisdom, and a testing power—within Kyrgyz fairy tales. During the analysis, reference is also made, where relevant, to the witch figure in European fairy tales, and the ways in which two distinct narrative traditions conceptualize this figure are explored. The findings demonstrate that the representational capacity of the witch varies according to the emotional and moral structures of the narratives and that, despite drawing on shared themes of fear, each tradition constructs its own distinctive symbolic order.