The next stage in Scythian cosmogony is the struggle waged by Targitaos against various chthonic monsters. Then, according to Scythian mythology, Tar-gitaos marries his mother (the motif of initial incest, typical of Iranian mythology) and produces an offspring – three sons: Kolaxais, Arpoxais and Lipoxais, incarnations of the three zones of the material world – the sun (sky), the depth of water (earth) and the mountain as an equivalent of the world tree. This fact is reflected in their names. The birth of these brothers completes the process of the formation of the well-organised Cosmos. In this myth is reflected the model of the world typical of Scythian mythology, which is realised in the various spheres of the social and political organisation of Scythian society. The division of the Scythians into three estates (castes): the paralats (military aristocracy, including the kings) who were put by the will of God at the head of society, the auchats (priests), and the catiars and traspies (plain land tillers and cattle-breeders), originating from the three sons of Targitaos, should be regarded as related to the idea of a three-tier structure of the Universe. Other realisations of this model are the institution of triregnum and a ternary organisation of the corporation of fortunetellers.
Two parallel trends can be traced in Scythian mythology, which are very close to each other in their cosmological parts, but different in those which are connected with the subject of social stratification. The distinction is manifested in the use of two systems of social terminology (one was preserved by Herodotus, the other by Diodorus) and in a description of the sacral trial which the three brothers had to pass and which was to decide who of them deserved to rule the Scythians. The author connects one of these traditions with the nomadic tribes of the so-called Royal Scythians, who came from the East, beyond the Volga, while the second is related to the tribes that lived in the areas north of the Black Sea and were the remnants of the pre-Scythian Cimmerian tribes conquered by the Royal Scythians. These mythological traditions were close to each other, which means that both these groups were ethnically close too, and corroborates the opinion of a number of scholars that the Cimmerians belonged to the Iranian-language group. In the author’s view, the Scythians known to the ancient world in historical time should be regarded as a uniform ethnos that took shape as a result of the merging of these two components.
The book devotes much attention to an analysis of the cult of Tabiti who, according to Herodotus (IV, 59), was the supreme goddess of the Scythians. The author says she was the goddess of the fire in all its manifestations, and not only the goddess of the hearth. Fire in Scythian mythology, in accordance with an Indo-Iranian tradition, was identical with each part of the Universe, separately and together. An incarnation of Goddes Tabiti as this triunity was three golden inflammable objects that had fallen from the skies, according to a Scythian myth, and got into the hands of Kolaxais. The fact that the Scythian king Idanthyrsus, in a message to Darius, called Tabiti «the Queen of the Scythians» (Herod., IV, 127) testifies, in the author’s view, to the existence in Scythia of the «wedding» of the king to that goddess.
This ritual was widely depicted on different Scythian objects and is interpreted as the initiation of the king to the supreme god of the Scythians. It was this ritual that was the main part of an annual Scythian religious festival (Herod., IV, 7). The festival was connected with the solar nature of the Scythian king which originated from the mythical first king of the Scythians – Kolaxais (cosmologi-cally, it was the personification of the Sun) and with calendar rituals. Certain customs connected with that festival and the data supplied by Valerius Flaccus (Arg., VI, 638) make it possible to assume that among the subjects of Scythian mythology there was one of the assassination of Targitaos’ younger son by his two brothers, which was depicted on Scythian artifacts. The venue of the Scythian annual festival was, most probably, Exampaios, the cult centre for all Scythians (Herod., IV, 52, and 81), regarded also as the centre of the Universe, a place having a maximum of sacral features.