Asena

Asena is the name of a she-wolf associated with the Göktürks' foundation myth. According to the myth, the ancestress of the Göktürks was a she-wolf, mentioned, yet unnamed in two different "Wolf Tales". 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 becomes their leader and establishes the Ashina clan, which ruled over the Göktürk and other Turkic nomadic empires.