Asena

Asena is the name of a she-wolf associated with the Gokturk foundation myth.^[1] The ancestress of the Göktürks is a she-wolf, mentioned yet unnamed in two different "Wolf Tales".^[2] The legend of Asena tells of a young boy who survived a battle; a female wolf finds the injured child and nurses him back to health. The she-wolf, impregnated by the boy, escapes her enemies by crossing the Western Sea to a cave near the Qocho mountains and a city of the Tocharians, giving birth to ten half-wolf, half-human boys. Of these, Yizhi Nishidu^[3] becomes their leader and establishes the Ashina clan, which ruled over the Göktürk and other Turkic nomadic empires.^[4][5]

In certain cultural narratives and mythological accounts, the character of Asena, with its symbolic association to a she-wolf, is denoted by the name "Bozkurt" (meaning Gray Wolf in Turkish), embodying a significant archetype with multifaceted connotations.^[6]