Keywords: Ossetian mythology, Svanian legends, Gnostic doctrine, rabbinical Judaism, Sameli, Samaal, Samael

The article considers a little-studied character of Ossetian mythology named Sameli. The author concludes that the image of Sameli is the result of contamination of the Ossetian bound personage of the Promethean type and the main representer of Judaic demonology named Samael. A specific attention is given to the motive of zoomorphic transformation, contained in the myth.