Asfandiyár, finding that his father still is disinclined to abdi­cate, makes a formal application to him to do so. Gushtásp, having ascertained his son's destiny from the astrologers, sends him to bring Rustam in chains to court. Asfandiyár sets forth very unwillingly. Long negotiations with Rustam follow.

At length the two engage in single combat, and in the end Rustam, by the help of the Símurgh, is victorious. He brings up Asfandiyár's son, Bahman, at his own home. Gushtásp sends for Bahman, and appoints him to succeed to the throne.

“A man there is,” said Muhammad in the Kurán, “who buyeth an idle tale, that in his lack of knowledge he may mislead others from the way of God, and turn it to scorn:—For such is prepared a shameful punishment!”*

The reference is to a certain merchant, Nadr the son of Hárith by name, who had brought back from the banks of the Euphrates the story of Rustam and Asfandiyár, and recited it to the inhabi­tants of Mecca, where it became for a time much more popular than Muhammad's own deliverances. The Prophet never forgave Nadr, who was one of the two prisoners put to death by him after the battle of Badr, A.D. 623. It is evident, therefore, that the story contained in this part was well established at the beginning of the seventh century of our era. Reference already has been made*

to the compromise arrived at in Íránian legend between the con­flicting claims of Rustam and Asfandiyár, and the reader will find it fully set out in the following pages.

§ 22. The Alwá slain by Núsh Ázar is identical probably with the Alwá previously recorded to have been slain by Kámús.*

They are both warriors and natives of Zábulistán, and the function of both is the same—to give the enemy a temporary triumph which is counteracted by the intervention of a stronger champion. Alwá reappears as we are dealing with a different legend.