Tradition / Region: Algerian Mythology
Alternative Name: —
Category: Dwarf
The Myth
In Kabyle mythology, beneath the world of humans exists another hidden world beneath the earth. This underground realm is described as a dark and inverted version of the human world — a shadowy place where sterility reigns and where everything exists in opposition to normal life.
The subterranean world is inhabited by many strange beings, including spirits, giants, ogres, ogresses, and swarms of mysterious dwarves sometimes compared to ants because of their numbers and constant movement. Though the landscapes beneath the earth resemble mountains, forests, ravines, and pastures found in the human world, everything there is reversed or corrupted. Sheep are black, goats produce black milk, and productive human activities become twisted parodies.
Legends say that the first humans originally emerged from this underground world before coming to the surface and establishing the fertile world of humankind. Openings such as wells, caves, hidden doors, or iron slabs sometimes allow passage between the two realms. Heroes, serpents, spirits, and even the dead can travel between them.
The underground beings are especially feared at night, when the boundary between worlds weakens and creatures from below wander into human lands. Only the brave or the spiritually protected are believed capable of resisting the dangerous forces that emerge after dark.
One Kabyle myth explains the cycle of day and night through two brothers in the underworld who endlessly unwind two balls of yarn: one made of white thread that brings daylight, and one made of black thread that brings night.
Sources
Tadukli.free.fr. (2006, July 22). Éléments de mythologie kabyle. Retrieved May 10, 2026, from https://tadukli.free.fr/pages/culture/histoire_01_elements_de_mythologie_kabyle.htm