One of the characteristic features of Galaktion Tabidze's poetry is mystery, obscurity and utterance of symbolic artistic images. These image-symbols are the fruits of the author's poetic inspiration. The part of them originates from the folk vocabulary. It is impossible to enter Galaktion Tabidze's "enchanted palace of poetry" without understanding them. However, perceiving Tabidze's poems and comprehending his creative world never make his poetry to lose its mystery. "It will remain as secret as it was" [Kiknadze, 2015: 208].

One of the keys to the study of Tabidze's extremely rich and multifaceted poetry is folklore. The poet was thoroughly familiar with the folk vocabulary and rituals. Sparsiashvili   -  a  researcher of the folklore motifs in Tabidze's poetry  -  notes that "Galaktion Tabidze is a creator, whose lyrics are nourished with the bread and butter of the national folk creativity" [Sparsiashvili, 1989: 5]. A number of folklore elements and symbols of different contents appear abundantly in the poet's lyrics. They are mainly presented in the poems in the forms of allusions and poetic reminiscences. Tabidze creates the poetic association with these vague references related to the folk tales and rituals and uses them to express the main message.

The four-stanza poem "To the First Heads" of Galaktion Tabidze is distinguished by the wealth of image-symbols, which once again confirms the connection of the poet’s work with the folk tradition. The poem consists of a significant number of lines containing the mythological symbolism: “the feast of the first heads”, decorating the balconies with the flowers, searching for the flower of consolation in the forest at night, searching for the treasure in the mountains, chasing the deer on horseback in the morning, etc. In the beginning of the poem, the poet creates the solemn and festive mood by depicting the balconies decorated with the roses:

"We are celebrating the first heads

By laying the miraculous roses,

The balconies will soon bloom with

Carpets and rugs from branches" [Tabidze 2014: 200].

The first stanza is a kind of an expository part of the poem, in which the alternation of the words "We are celebrating" and "miraculous" fills a reader with the expectation of a miracle and a solemn, elevated mood. It is clear that the poem with the mythologems depicts the sacred time, forgotten holiday and secret ritual. Tabidze wrote "To the First Heads" in winter, on 12 December1920, but the poem refers to the first flowering, the spring celebration of the revival of the forces of nature. The element of a group, which is a characteristic of the holiday, creates the important effect in this poetic work, because the groups of women and men participate in it. It is significant that "To the First Heads" represents only a part of the ritual procession   -   the procession of the night and dawn. Just as it characterizes the secret religious ritual, the roles of women and men are differentiated in the poem  -  on the night before the holiday, the women go to the forest to search for the flower of consolation:

"We, the women, went to the forest at night,

The lightning of springs bursts in our eyes,

The flower called the consolation

Was searched by us. We were glad" [Tabidze, 2014: 200].

With the metaphor presented in the stanza   -  "The lightning of springs bursts in our eyes" -   Tabidze points to the sanctity of the holiday as well as to the faith and innocence of its participants. Galaktion Tabidze creates the festive environment with his symbolic hints and artistic nuances and transfers a reader to the sacred realm. However, the author does not fully disclose and reveal the hidden meaning of the holiday, because the mystery was so secret that it would not be uncovered.

According to the poem, the young men, who participate in the spring festival, have their own role to play. If at night the group of women goes to the forest to search for the flower of consolation, the group of young men goes to the mountains to find the treasury i.e. the treasure:

"The young men were looking for the treasury in the mountains,

The butt of the guns brought tears to our eyes" [Tabidze, 2014: 200].

What is the flower of consolation, or what is meant by the treasury/treasure, which women and men looked for in the forest at night? Both the flower of consolation and the treasure are  artistic-mythological symbols. Akaki Tsereteli's "Suliko" also confirms that an invisible and unknown secret is understood in them. In Galaktion Tabidze's poem as well as in Akaki's "Suliko", there is the motive of searching for a "superrational substance". In Tabidze's poem we come across the search for the "flower of consolation", while in Akaki Tsereteli's "Suliko" the search for the lover's grave is presented. The symbol of a flower, namely a rose, is presented in both verses. The poem "To the First Heads"  mentions the miraculous roses, while "Suliko" mentions the rose grown in the thorn. Some researchers treat the latter as a symbol of finding a lost god [Bakradze, 2013: 244]. In Akaki Tsereteli's poem, the lyrical hero finds the lover in the rose, as well as in the nightingale and star. This gives him joy. In Tabidze's poem, the women participating in the mystery, are happy to search for the flower of consolation, which embodies the supernatural, heavenly, transcendent powers in Akaki’s and Galaktion’s verses.

The poem "To the First Heads" is imbued with the special sacralism by means of the motive of searching for the treasure, because the latter belongs to the highest category of holiness in mythology. According to the religious tradition of Eastern Georgia’s mountainous regions, people used to sacrifice treasure, namely, gold and silver objects, to a cross and a patron goddess. Treasure was used to serve a cross. It is known from the Pshav-Khevsurian proverbs that treasure is guarded by a cross. Moreover, according to Kiknadze’s viewpoint, treasure, as the highest manifestation of a solid matter, is also one of the signs of the Virgin, a patron saint, a heavenly being [Kiknadze A, 2016: 119]. Treasure was kept in hides, because it embodied a sacred reality and a heavenly being. It had to be hidden and inaccessible to the ordinary people. Hides, which, according to the stories, were guarded by a snake or another mythological creature, gave treasure a special mystery. A cleric and a treasurer displayed treasure in front of everyone only during important holidays. According to the tradition, only cleansed and fasted men could approach treasure as a sacred object during the festival. In Galaktion's poem, the young men participated in the feast in search of the treasure: "The young men were looking for the treasure in the mountains". The processional walk up the mountain to find the treasure and the flower of consolation symbolically indicates to the way to God and depicts the transition to the new level of holiness.

The mountain is clothed with sanctity in the folk mythological tradition. According to the traditions of the Caucasian peoples, the dwelling of  patron saints and heavenly beings is erected on tops of high mountains. A mountain embodies the connection between the sky and the earth and contains the content of the mythologem of the middle of the universe. The mountain, where "the young men were looking for the treasure", has the connotation of a cosmic mountain, because the treasure is kept there. In accordance to the folk mythic imagination, such a mountain has its base in the underworld. However, its top reaches the sky. In the myth, the path to the mountain (to the sacred space) is considered as a "difficult path", because it is a way to the gods. As Eliade notes, approaching a sacred center is equivalent to blessing and initiation [Eliade, 2017: 38].

The groups of women and young men search for the flower of consolation and the treasure in the forest at night. In ancient Greece, the Eleusinian festive processions were also held at night, which symbolized the search for Persephone kidnapped by Demeter in Hades. Watching at night and litanies on great holidays occupied an important position in the Christian religion. According to the poem, the groups of women and young men spent the night awake. According to the words of the lyrical hero:

"The butt of the guns brought tears to our eyes,

They did not let us rest, they did not let us sleep

And that is how it dawned" [Tabidze, 2014: 200].

The ceremony of firing of guns could be a part of the spring festival and could symbolize the annual exorcism of demons, different misfortunes, sicknesses and sins. According to Eliade, the exorcism of demons by means of noise, shouting and roaring was known in the traditions of many peoples [Eliade, 2017: 79]. In Tabidze's poem, shooting should also be considered as an echo of the ritual action.

The final stanza of the poem describes the process of chasing the deer. A deer is a sacred animal that represents a supernatural being in a myth. In the Ossetian epic, Atsyrukhs, the daughter of the sun, appears before Soslan in the form of the golden-furred deer and takes the young man to the secret cave [Yarns, 1988: 143]. Chasing a deer and finding treasure while chasing is a common story in the folklores of the peoples of the world. According to Leonti Mroveli, Pharnavaz  -  the nephew of the headmen of Mtskheta  -  was led by the deer to the cave, where the secret treasure was kept. The deer wounded by Pharnavaz fell down near the cave: "Pharnavaz chased the deer, shot the arrow and hit it. The deer walked a little and fell down on the rock" [The life of Kartli, 1955: 22]. The final stanza of the poem "To the First Heads" conveys the feeling stipulated by chasing the deer and moaning of the wounded deer:

"We broke up the clusters of bees in the mountain,

The young men chased the deer on horseback.

Suddenly... we heard the moaning of

The wounded fawn nearby and cried" [Tabidze, 2014: 200].

Obviously, the last stanza of this poetic work by Galaktion Tabidze can be perceived as a kind of the poetic reminiscence of Pharnavaz's hunting, especially, because the motif of searching the treasure is presented in the poem. "The pathbraker to the treasure  -  according to Kiknadze -  is not an ordinary animal" [Kiknadze, 2016: 22]. Since the deer symbolizes supernatural beings in the myth, I think that the moaning of the wounded deer (fawn), which makes the participants of the celebration cry, should be considered as a part of the secret ritual.

As the research showed, Tabidze's poem is based on the old Abkhazian folk holiday of the revival of the forces of nature and Easter, which was held in spring. The publication about this holiday is presented in the book "История войны и владичество русских на Кавказе, т. I, Очерк Кавказа и народов его населяющих, кн. II, Transcaucasia", which was published in St. Petersburg in 1871. The author of the book is Russian Academician, Lieutenant General of the King's Army Nikolai Dubrovin. According to his note, every spring the mountain Abkhazians celebrated the first flowering. On the night before the holiday, young women went to a forest to find five-eared flowers, while young men went to a forest to search for treasure (молодые люды дарят кладов). Young women were led to a forest by a choir of old women, who sang and praised God. Participants of the holiday spent that night in forest and in the morning, when the first rays of the sun lit up tops of a mountain, everyone returned to a flower-decorated village with praises to God. Participants were led by an elder with a crown of oak leaves on his head. He sat on a deer, followed by women and men. Each woman had to bring a flower or a branch of a tree and put it at a foot of an altar on which a deer had to be sacrificed. Sacrifice was followed by a horse-racing and a mounted archery contest and a person, who won, was given a flower, which was put near an altar [Дубровин, 1871: 19].

Dubrovin's note about the Abkhazian spring holiday of the first flowering  was translated and included in the first volume of "The History of the Georgian Nation" by Ivane Javakhishvili.  Javakhishvili connected the Abkhazian holiday of the first flowering with the cult of a tree [Javakhishvili, 1928: 87], because in the old mythologies as well as in the Christian tradition, a cosmic, ritual tree growing on a holy place expressed a connection between the heaven and the earth.

According to the Abkhazian folk-tale, a procession of the festival of the first flowering, which returned from a forest in the morning, was led by an elder riding a deer. We should think that the Abkhazian ritual reflects a sacred situation, when a deer was sacrificed to a patron saint.  According to Kiknadze’s viewpoint, "sacrifice of a deer never happened in reality. It happened once in the sacred history and a human being remembers this story with amazement" [Kiknadze, 2016: 208]. There is a whole cycle of texts in the Georgian folklore that tells us how the epochal turning point in the sacrificial ritual took place and a deer was replaced by a bull. Giudice of Milan  -  the Italian missionary of the 17th  century    -   knew the legend of sacrifice of a deer in the shrine of Ilori. He gave the different reason for replacing a deer with a bull in the shrine of St. George in Ilori: "It is said that initially the saint brought a deer, but since (in my opinion) it is difficult to catch a deer, it was replaced with a bull" [Don Giuseppe.., 1964: 97]. St. George of Ilori was called "Ilirnikha" (Ilori’s icon, shrine) by the Abkhazians. Similarly to Didripshnikha, it was considered as one of the most powerful shrines.

An elder   -   who participates in the Abkhazian first flowering ritual, rides a deer and wears a crown of oak leaves on his head   -   represents a heavenly being sending a deer to the shrine as a sacrificial animal for the holiday.

The Abkhazian spring holiday of the first flowering is connected with the ritual of renewing a year, which was held every spring in many peoples’ traditions, because, as Eliade points out, the world requires a periodic renewal, repair and reinforcement. "A renewal of the world is possible only by repeating what the immortals did, when they repeated genesis" [Eliade, 2009: 42]. Therefore, the mythical-ritual scenario of a renewal of the world is the basis of the Abkhazian festival of the first flowering, which was one of the most important religious ceremonies. Heavenly beings ritually participated in the spring festival. By being there, they symbolically blessed the world, which was to become stronger and renewed. Accordingly, the Abkhazian festival of the first flowering can be treated as a secret religious ritual (mystery) in which an act of worship becomes prominent and a deity or a saint is clearly visible as a character of a secret religious ritual. By means of a ritual, a person returns to present a story told in the myth. Community participating in a ritual is not in our historical chronological time, but in the time of supernatural beings, "in the time" when all the things were created firstly and all the events happened firstly. For this reason, this time is clothed with holiness. Through a ritual, human beings are "at present" together with supernatural beings and ancestors. This fact elevates them spiritually.

According to Dubrovin, the Abkhazian festival of the first flowering was called "Manich-chekan" (манычь-чеканъ) [Дубровин, 1871: 19]. The etymology of this word cannot be explained by the data of the Abkhazian and Kartvelian languages. This is not surprising, because the word borrowed as a name of the holiday is also presented in another tradition. For example, the etymology of the famous Babylonian spring festival "Akitu" is not explained by the data of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. Supposedly, its name should have entered the Sumerian-Akkadian tradition from a foreign language.

The Abkhazian celebration of renaissance of forces of nature contained the ancient elements of the folk drama. It seems that it had its own mythological scenario, which was gradually forgotten. The modern Abkhazians do not know this holiday.

It is not difficult to single out the following archetypes of the Abkhazian festival of the first flowering in Tabidze's poem "To the First Heads": 1. Both Tabidze's poem and the Abkhazian festival reflect the spring ritual of the first flowering, which is called the holiday of "the first heads" by Tabidze; 2. In both of them young women go to  the forest on the night of the holiday; 3. According to the Abkhazian holiday, the purpose of women going to the forest was  searching for the "five-eared flower", while according to Tabidze, the purpose was finding the "flower of consolation"; 4. One of the main elements of Tabidze's poem and the Abkhazian festival is searching for "treasure" by young men in the forest (in case of Galaktion’s poem - in the mountains) at night; 5. The morning scenes are differently presented in the Abkhazian ritual and Galaktion Tabidze's poem, but both are united by the motif of a sacred animal (deer), which embodies a heavenly being and a suprarational substance.

Accordingly, in Galaktion Tabidze's poem "To the First Heads" we find the representation of the old Abkhazian mystery. The poet with his extremely high artistic skillfulness preserved the mood of the holiday, deep mystery and sacred content.

Galaktion Tabidze was interested in the Abkhazian folklore and traditions from the early period of his poetic work. Through his mother's line, Tabidze was related to the princes of Abkhazia   -   the Shervashidzes. As he mentioned, the mother of his grandmother (whose surname was Beridze and who was from Guria) was the daughter of Shervashidze. "Tabidze wrote in his autobiography: In this way, I have three types of the Georgian blood - Abkhazian, Guruli and Imeretian". Galaktion Tabidze considered the Abkhazians as the people related to the Georgians. The Abkhazian motifs were popular in the great poet's verses. He dedicated the following poems to this topic: "Abkhazia, Abkhazia", "The City under Water", "Hello, Abkhazia", "I Love Abkhazia’s Rain" and others. As it turns out, Galaktion Tabidze's poem "To the First Heads" is based on the Abkhazian folk motifs. From the viewpoint of the centuries-old Abkhazian-Georgian relations, Tabidze's "To the First Heads" is an extremely important verse. The study of the Abkhazian folklore will probably shed light on many more important issues of the Georgian-Abkhazian relationships.