The article addresses general epic schemes of the three Armenian epics: ethnogonic, pagan, and medieval-Christian, as well as the Ossetian “Nart” epic. These folklore monuments received their final forms in different historical eras. The formation of the ethnogonic epic “Haikian” (Haikids) was completed in the 9th–8th centuries BC, the pagan epic “Ergk Vipasanats” (“Vipasank”) was composed from the 2nd century BC – 1st century AD, while the medieval epic “Sasna Tserer” was finally formed mainly in the 9th–10th centuries.

A comparative analysis of the Armenian “Three eggs” and Italian “Three oranges” fairy tales corresponding to number 408 of the international clas¬sifi-cation of “Types of folk tales” by the German philologist Hans-Jorg Utter, shows that the transition from one age group to another had different manifestations and symbolic codes in the folklore of different peoples, but they all considered the rite of passage into premarital maturity to be the most important, since not everyone managed to overcome it.

The Turkic epic “Dede Korkut” was formed in Central Asia, but as a result of the advance of the Oghuz Turkic tribes to Asia Minor, the geographical environment of the epic was transferred to the Armenian Highlands, where its final formation took place. An important circumstance is the presence of the figure of Tagavor, the Christian ruler of Trebizond and Bayberd, the opponent of the Oghuz Turks, in Chapter VI of the epic.

The image of the Armenian ruler (king) as an opponent of the Turks has been repeatedly recorded in the Turkic epic tradition. One such example is the image of Tekfur or Tekfur Khan, i.e. the king of Cilician Armenia, in the work “Oghuz-nameh” by the Iranian author Rashid al-Din Fadlullah of the XIII–XIV centuries. The article presents references to Tekfur found in that work and an examination of the original forms. The fact that the historical prototype of the image of Tekfur in the “Oghuz-nameh” is the king of Cilician Armenia is confirmed by more detailed references to Tekfur in another work of the historian – “Tārīkh-i Afranj” (“History of the Franks”), as well as in the works of other Muslim authors.