Asena is the name of a she-wolf associated with the Oghuz Turkic foundation myth. The ancestress of the Göktürks is also a she-wolf, mentioned yet unnamed in two different "Wolf Tales" recorded by Chinese chroniclers. 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.
