--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <george.st@...> wrote:
> > Independent borrowing from Iranian is of couse a
> > possibility, but a less likely one, since the word
> > is not directly attested in Iranian, while it's found
> > everywhere in Slavic.
>
> BTW, is there a similar word in Ossetian?
There is actually a 'magic hill' of sorts mentioned
in the Nartic tales, though differently based than
this 'mãgurã'. I don't know if this tends to discount
that idea or not. It is 'kuvan k'upp'. In "The Culture
of the Sakas in Ancient Iranian Khotan" the following
mention of it is made.
"But the Khotan Saka word for magician stems
from a very remote past. This word is kauva:le (for
the Bud. Skt. sa:dhaka-) in which can be at once seen
the base kaub- 'to offer sacrifice, to get power by
supplication'. The word is thus from kauba- and
va:laa-, like the -va:laa- in ma:tr-va:laa- 'worker
with man0ra-spells'. Hence here there is the dialect
vard- 'to work' beside varz- 'to work', as there is
pad.e 'axes' from *paratu- beside Old Indian parasu-.
The base kaub- 'to use magic' is best preserved in
North Iranian Ossetic, verbal Digoron kovun, kuft,
Iron ku:vyn, kuft with further derivatives. Of this
the only other trace can be seen in the Rigveda RV
5.52.12 kubhanyávah, an epithet of the Marútah. This
had been well recognized by E. Benveniste.³º In the
Nartä tales Satana ascends the ku:vän k'upp 'the hill
of the sacrifice' certain of the granting of her desire
(NK 46.206). In the tale of Bolat-Xamic (Pam. 1.41)
the women go out to the hill (tuppurmä ra:ua:dänc)
and make offering (ma: iskuftoncä). There is the
Närton kuvd and the istur kuvditä 'great offering'."
David