Zahhak and Kaveh the Blacksmith
A young Arab prince is talked by Ahriman into digging a pit for his own father, then flattered by the same visitor in the guise of a cook and kissed on both shoulders, and from the kisses grow two black serpents that must be fed human brains every day. He holds the throne for a thousand years while two young men are taken to the palace kitchens each night, until a blacksmith who has lost seventeen sons to the reckoning refuses to put his name to the tyrant's testimonial of just rule and raises his leather apron on a spear. Ferdowsi's shaping of the Avestan dragon Aži Dahāka, and the passage of the Shahnameh most often read as an argument about legitimacy.
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Lineage
- shares sources with ↑ Rostam and Sohrab
Attributes
Closest analogues
- 53% · 11 shared
- 51% · 9 shared
- 48% · 10 shared
- 48% · 9 shared
- 48% · 9 shared
- 48% · 9 shared