To remain until the Day of Judgment

The relationship between creation myths and the Day of Judgment myths is often “more orderly” than we assume. A community establishes its origin using certain symbols, and it concludes with those same symbols. The figures that appear at the beginning of the narrative also appear in the final scene. Because even when mythology appears to be telling “something new,” it operates by transporting the core motifs of memory to different times or contexts. Therefore, whatever exists in the creation in myths, its trace is also present in the eschatological myths.

One of these core motifs in Turkic mythological cosmology is the “wolf.” Revered as a totem among Proto-Turkic communities, it became an integral part of the ancestral cult during the Huns and Göktürk periods; this figure, which saved the lineage from extinction, guided heroes in epics, and was associated with the sky, does not remain passive in narratives concerning the end of the world—that is, in eschatological accounts. This time, it is not the “initiator” but the “terminator,” not the “birther” but the “ender,” or more precisely, “a component of the mechanism that initiates the end.”

Waiting for the End with the Wolf (Generated by Artificial Intelligence)

Moreover, this is not merely a “fairy-tale” continuity. Even when one looks to the heavens, the language of myth conveys the same message. The Big Dipper is imagined as seven wolves, and the Little Dipper as two horses; their pursuit does not culminate in capture, and this is presented as a condition of cosmic order: If the wolves are caught, the cosmos descends into chaos and the end comes. Thus, the wolf is not merely a being that accompanies the beginning of a lineage on earth; it is also a guardian at the threshold that defines the boundary of cosmic order.

From Beginning to End: The Gray Wolf

In Turkic myths, legends, and epics, the wolf is a sacred it is an animal distinguished by various attributes. Its recognition as a totem among Proto-Turkic communities, its integration into the ancestral cult during the Hun and Göktürk eras, and its transformation into a sacred symbol immediately signal that this figure cannot be read as an ordinary animal. The existence of heroes born from In the Turkish origin myths from the gray wolf is well known. In the Oghuz Khagan Epic, the wolf appears as a sacred animal guiding the ruler. The recurrence of this motif in the Bashkir epics suggests that the wolf’s “guide” quality produced a shared narrative language across different Turkic communities.

Here is a critical detail: The wolf is not merely an “assistant”; in a sense, it is a figure that “understands the order of the world.” This explains why its association with the heavens in Turkic astrology is not surprising. Among the Yakut Turks, in their beliefs about lunar eclipses, the wolf (and the bear) takes center stage: It is believed that during a full moon, wolves and bears attack and devour the moon, and God then resurrects it. This narrative constructs a framework that contains the wolf’s destructive power within the sacred order: The moon is devoured but returns; the order is shaken but reestablished.

The wolf’s functions—procreation, saving the lineage from extinction, and guidance—indicate that it possesses divine power. The name “Bozkurt” is also interpreted as one of the indicators of this divinity; because among the ancient Turks, the colors “boz” (gray) and “gök” (blue) were used as markers of divinity. In this context, the sacred wolf is the “Gökkuşak” or “Bozkurt.”

From here, the narrative language gradually leads us to the scene of the end. Because once a figure is regarded as “the sign of the sacred,” it is not expected to remain confined to origin narratives; it is also summoned to the threshold of the end.

The Eschatology Behind a Proverb: Waiting for the End with the Wolf

The proverb “kurtla kıyamete kalmak” (“to wait for the end with the wolf”), still alive in Anatolia today, appears in everyday speech, especially in complaints by new brides toward their elderly mothers-in-law: “She didn’t die and leave—does she have to wait for the end with the wolf?”

This usage, while exaggerating the notion of old age as “unending,” also draws upon a much older mythic idea: Even if the end comes, something remains; and among those that remain, the wolf is there.

In the end-of-the-world narrative collected by Professor Dr. Öcal Oğuz from Pınarkaya village in Sarıkaya district of Yozgat, this idea becomes explicit: When the end comes, only a frail old woman remains; and even she is eaten by a wolf.

In the Azerbaijani narrative recounted by Oğuz, when the end comes, a powerful wind arises; it destroys all living beings, but the Bozkurt withstands the wind and remains standing until the very end of the apocalypse.

In accounts collected by Gülcan Kızılören from Halhal city in Iran, a similar construction appears: All beings created by God die, except for one old woman who survives; she wrestles with a wolf. If the old woman wins, the world is reborn and all return to life; if the wolf wins, nothing remains.

Now we must pause and ask: Why “old woman” and “wolf”?

Oğuz’s analysis provides an important clue: The mythic protagonists selected in these narratives are chosen from beings that have lost their reproductive and generative qualities. This emphasizes that the narrative is indeed an eschatological one. The world is likened to an old woman because she is no longer productive, fertile, or capable of generating “continuity.” The wolf, however, is the actor at the threshold where continuity is severed.

At this point, the proverb transcends its everyday function of “complaint” and carries a mythic vision of the end. The world grows old, humanity exhausts itself, vitality fades; the wolf either becomes the last being standing or the completer of the end.

Bozkurt and Complaint to the World in Kul Himmet

The expression “kurtla kıyamete kalmak” appears prominently in a poem attributed to Kul Himmet within the Alevi mythological tradition.

Ali mounted Dülül

The lover stands firm

Waiting for the end with the Bozkurt

Is not the world still yours?

The poem’s overall framework is built around the transience of the world, and each quatrain ends with expressions of complaint toward the world. Here, the Bozkurt’s mention as a being that “will remain until the end” simultaneously reveals the wolf’s eschatological role and the world’s impermanence. The world is not permanent, yet the image of “the world that remains with the Bozkurt until the end” creates an ironic inversion of permanence. The world is spoken of as if it has “seen and endured everything,” aged, exhausted—yet still endures until the end.

This poem is not a mythic narrative in itself, but it carries the imprint of mythic thought in poetic form. Here too, the wolf is a threshold figure: It accompanies the end of the world and settles at its boundary.

Eschatology in Kitab-ı Cabbar Kulu: Hair, Letter, Wolf

The most intensive treatment of the wolf and world motifs appears in the eschatological narrative drawn from the Alevi written tradition and transmitted by Eğri in Kitab-ı Cabbar Kulu. The narrative begins with a conversation between Prophet Muhammad and Ali about the end. Muhammad gives Ali two green chains and tells him to travel holding one end. When Ali returns, he describes having seen four things. Among them is a wooden board inscribed with “Elif be” and a white-haired woman seated upon the letter “Y”; the woman says she is “the world.”

As the narrative deepens, the symbolic dimension becomes clearer: Ali descends seven layers beneath the earth, passing through cosmic carriers such as a yellow ox, stone, wind, fish, and sea; he passes eleven veils below the stone. Then he sees a white wolf whose head alone is black. The wolf chews on a white hair, which extends beyond the reach of the millstone’s hole.

Prophet Muhammad explains these two symbols: The millstone is the foundation of the world; the hair is its root. When the wolf chews through and finishes the hair, the end will come.

The narrative does not end here; the true “logic of the end” is established from this point. Twenty-eight more hairs are created alongside the one the wolf chews; these twenty-eight hairs correspond to the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet. The hairs were originally created whole and given to the wolf as sustenance. When the wolf chews one hair, a drop of blood falls upon the world’s head; as the wolf begins chewing each hair representing a letter, the woman symbolizing the world begins to sit upon the dot of each letter. When the wolf chews the final letter, both the world’s and the wolf’s tasks will be complete.

In this narrative, traces of symbolic expression and Sufi thought are dominant. The world’s representation as an old woman is linked to the Sufi perspective that fertility has ceased and the world can no longer benefit humanity. The woman’s old age signifies that life will no longer reproduce. Moreover, here not only “the end” but also “the boundary of knowledge” is conveyed: The creation of twenty-eight hairs corresponding to the twenty-eight letters, and the existence of a twenty-ninth hair, emphasizes that knowledge of the end belongs solely to God and is absent from any written science.

The wolf’s chewing of the hair representing the world’s root and the letters representing knowledge illustrates that the end emerges only after all knowledge has been exhausted. Here, the wolf can be read as a “destroyer of knowledge,” yet the narrative’s primary emphasis is that no one can know the time of the end. The letters are consumed, knowledge is depleted, but the final judgment rests with divine power.

And note: Although this narrative is framed within a Sufi interpretive context, its mythic origins reveal themselves. Here, too, the wolf is “the sign of the sacred”; it is positioned as the being entrusted by God with bringing about the end.

Gönül Yonar’s work Eschatologies of the End (Waiting for the End with the Wolf) offers a comparative framework examining eschatologies across different traditions. In the section dedicated to “Turkic eschatology,” interpretations from Old Turkic inscriptions—such as “the sky collapsing” and “the nation’s destruction”—are evaluated within the context of eschatological thought. In Anatolian oral tradition, the end of the world is narrated not as the annihilation of all humanity but as the survival of a single wolf. Here, the wolf appears as a In Turkish creation mythology “object of procreation”; in eschatology, it is the surviving figure.

In Yonar’s framework, the disruption of order (the rise of evil, the loss of respect for the father, the collapse of worldly order) is interpreted as signs of the end. The end of the world is described as a battle between Ülgen and the forces of evil, with Ülgen ultimately victorious and goodness prevailing over the world. This framework shows that the “end” is not merely destruction but the final outcome of a conflict of values.

Conclusion

Let us return to the beginning. We said that whatever exists in the creation myth exists also in the eschatological myth. Turkish mythology weaves this “rule of continuity” almost visibly around the wolf. In narratives of origin—the salvation of the lineage from extinction, guidance in epics, cosmic association with the heavens, the manifestation of the sacred—all these elements are reorganized in eschatological accounts: This time, the wolf chews through the hair representing the world’s root; it devours the hairs symbolizing the letters; it wrestles with the aged world; it resists the wind of the end; it remains in the final scene.

And the proverb “kurtla kıyamete kalmak” has become a small but powerful phrase that has seeped into everyday life, carrying within it this entire mythic language. Sometimes it is a complaint, sometimes a joke, sometimes an expression of frustration—but behind it lies the same symbolic web stretching from creation to the end.

Thus, the wolf is not merely an animal to be feared or loved; it is a mechanism of mythic continuity. It reminds us of the beginning and announces the end. In the mythological lexicon of Turkish culture, the entry “wolf” gathers both birth and death in a single sentence: It is the one that initiates the lineage, and it is the one that initiates the end.

Enjoy the listening.