Thread by @jurgenfug

THREAD ON PJERA

Pjera is one of my favourite Finno-Ugric heroes of all time. He's an all-encompassing hero and it's almost as if he has had multiple reincarnations that lived in different time periods through history. In this thread I'll share some stories about him.

Despite the varying stories and "reincarnations", Pjera is always depicted as a strongman doing great deeds, preceded by episodes of peaceful labor as a hunter or farmer. He is kind, humble, quick-tempered and easy-going, and cannot stand injustice or dishonour.

As one of his earlier incarnations he is born as the son of the taiga Parma in a time when the sun was always shining and there was no mankind. Pjera became the master of the forest and the land. One day he climbed to heaven, met the daughter of the sun Zaran and married her.

Pjera and Zaran moved together to live on the earth and made 7 sons and 7 daughters, founding the human race. When finding out about this, the sun Šondi, enraged, threatened to set the entire world ablaze. A great heat came over the world, rivers drying up and the earth cracking.

Pjera climbed up on a mountain with his 7 sons and shot an arrow at Šondi. A piece of the sun fell off, which became the fire of mankind, lit by humans around the world. Pjera then made Šondi cycle around the world, and that's how night and winter came to be.

In another incarnation, Pjera is born to the Inven clan of priest-kings (Pama), son of the famous ruler Kudym-Osh and a Mansi princess Koste. Not much is known about this reincarnation, but as a Pama he probably ruled over Great Perm and the Kudymkar tribe.

In yet another incarnation he appears as the younger brother of heroes Antipa and Mizja, the former moving to the concurrent capital of Perm Komma and becoming a warrior and the latter becoming a farmer. Pjera becomes a simple hunter, as is common in stories about him.

One day, a steppe horde invades Perm, with them they have a fiery metal wheel that destroys everything it passes. The king of Perm asks Antipa to come to his aid, Antipa doesn't know how to defeat the wheel and instead calls for Pjera living in the forests.

Pjera shows up, at the command of the king, defeats and destroys the iron wheel and the steppe army. The king wants to reward him with riches, land and power, but Pjera declines, saying that he has everything he needs in the forest and only asks for the right to hunt freely.

Yet Pjera is not the only one who wishes to hunt freely in the taiga, as that is also the wish of the forest-demon Vörsa, who Pjera fights with in many stories. The two often exchange bouts of strength and wits to determine who is superior, until Pjera finally defeats him.

Later incarnations of Pjera include stories of him fighting for Russian czars, defending Komi lands from the Stroganovs, helping Komi people, defeating various evil demons and even picking a fight with God himself.

There are many versions of Pjera's death story. In one of them he, along with his father Kudym-Osh, retreats into the Ural mountains after a long fulfilling life and turns into stone, leaving his work to his descendants who apparently still roam the Permian taiga.