After describing the accession of Minúchihr, the poet proceeds to tell the story of Zál, the son of Sám, how, being born with white hair, he was in consequence exposed by his father on Mount Alburz, how he was found and brought up by the Símurgh, how in after years he and his father became reconciled, and how he rose to greatness. The poet also tells of the loves of Zál and Rúdába, the daughter of Mihráb, the idolatrous king of Kábul, the wrath of Minúchihr thereat, his ultimate consent to the union, and the birth of Rustam, with an account of whose first adven­tures, and of the death of Minúchihr, the reign concludes.

The story, which occupies the reign of Minúchihr, in whose name, which means “offspring of Manu,”* we can still trace a connection between Indian and Iránian mythology, between the Vedas and the Zandavasta, is perhaps the most charming in the whole poem; and here first the stream of epic, hitherto confined and cramped, breaks out into broad waters, and carries us to the heroic race who play such an important part throughout the first—the mythic —period of the poem. We have already seen how the titles bestowed on the great hero Keresáspa became separate personali­ties in later times,* and in this reign we have one of his most famous feats recorded as an exploit of Sám, the son of Narímán—the slaying of the dragon of the Kashaf. The legend appears to have become localised in the neighbourhood of the poet's own birth­place, Tús, by which the Kashaf flows, and the dragon may be typical of the periodical floods the prevention of which is said to have been an object which the poet had at heart.* The feature of Sám's mace is reproduced from the earlier legend, where Keresáspa is described as “bludgeon-bearing.”*

The gigantic mythical bird, the Símurgh, the Roc of the Arabian Nights, which plays such an important part in the legend of Zál and of his son Rustam, is described in the Bundahish as “the griffon of three natures.”* It appears to have been con­ceived of as a sort of gigantic bat.* The Bundahish, in its account of birds, says: “There are two of them which have milk in the teat and suckle their young, the griffon bird, and the bat which flies in the night; as they say that the bat is created of three races (sardak), the race (áyina) of the dog, the bird, and the musk animal; for it flies like a bird, has many teeth like a dog, and is dwelling in holes like a musk-rat.”* The Símurgh was the first bird created,* and its nest was on the tree of wild vegetable life which grew in the wide ocean near to the tree of immortality. Upon the former tree collect all the seeds which plants have produced during the year, and the office of the Símurgh was to shake the tree and scatter the seeds, which were then collected by another mythical bird, called Chamrosh, which had its nest on the summit of Mount Alburz and protected Írán from invasion. This bird mingled the seeds with the rains, which the good genius Tishtar (Sirius) had rescued from the demons, with a view of pouring them on the earth; the purport of the legend was to account for the rapid vegetation in hot climates.* The poet appears to have combined some of the characteristics of several mythical birds—the Chamrosh, the Karshipta, and also of the Varengana or raven in his account of the Símurgh. The magical or medicinal efficacy of the raven's feathers is recognised in the Zandavasta, where we read: “Zarathustra asked Ahura Mazda … ‘If I have a curse thrown upon me, a spell told upon me by many men who hate me, what is the remedy for it?’ Ahura Mazda answered: ‘Take thou a feather of that bird … the Varengana, O Spitama Zarathustra! With that feather thou shalt rub thy own body, with that feather thou shalt curse back thy enemies. If a man holds a bone of that strong bird, or a feather of that strong bird, no one can smite or turn to flight that fortunate man. The feather of that bird of birds brings him help; it brings unto him the homage of men, it maintains him in his glory.”*

With regard to the account of the employment of anæsthetics on the occasion of the Cæsarean birth of Rustam, we find another instance of their employment by Urmuzd himself in the account of the Creation in the Bundahish. When Ahriman broke into the creation of Urmuzd and attacked the Primeval Ox, we read that Urmuzd had previously ground up healing fruits in water for it, that its death might be the less painful.* Similarly we read in Genesis that the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.

The earliest reference to Rustam in literature appears to be an indirect one in the Kur'án.* He is also mentioned in the work that passes under the name of Moses of Chorene: “Age vero, si placet, vilia vanaque de eo mendacia declarabo, qualia Persae de Restomo Sazico memorant, quem CXX elephantis viribus fuisse superiorem tradunt. De hujus pariter robore & forti-tudinem ea celebrant, quae â similitudine veri longissimê absunt, quem sanê neque Samsoni, neque Herculi, nec Sazico fabulae istae conferunt. Canunt et enim quadrata eum saxa manibus prehendere potuisse, & ad arbitrium suum, magna aeqûe ac parva, divellere, unguibûsque abradere, &, velut in tabulâ, aquilarum figuras, aliaque ejus generis effingere atque unguibus inscribere: Qui cum apud magni maris Pontici litus hostiles quasdam naves offendisset, impetum in eas fecit, quas in altum octo aut decem circiter stadia provectas, ubi consequi non potuit, globosis eas lapidibus incessit, quorum conjectu aquae, ut aiunt, tantoperê diffindebantur, ut naves non paucae demersae fuerint, & fluctuum vis, aquarum fissura altiûs surgentium reliquas naves multos mille passus propulerit. Prôh ingens fabula, aut potiùs, fabularum fabula.”*

Malcolm identifies the castle on Mount Sipand taken by Rustam with a famous stronghold, known on account of its appearance as “the White Castle,” situated in the province of Párs, about seventy-six miles north-west of Shíráz, “on a high hill that is almost perpendicular on every side. It is of oblong form, and encloses a level space at the top of the mountain, which is covered with delightful verdure, and watered by numerous springs. The ascent is nearly three miles; for the last five or six hundred yards the summit is so difficult of approach that the slightest opposition, if well directed, must render it impregnable … In 1810 it was … in possession of the tribe of Mumasenni, one of the aboriginal tribes of Persia. Their means of defence were probably still the same as in the days of Roostum: a line of large stones ranged in regular order around the edges of the precipice. Each stone is wedged in by a smaller: when that is removed, the large stone, or rather rock, is hurled down, and sweeps every­thing before it.”*