Fereydun and his three sons

Fereydun's childhood in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh is a fugitive one. His father is killed to feed Zahhak's serpents, and his mother Faranak hides the baby, first with a herdsman whose wondrous cow, Barmayeh, nourishes him, then on a mountain. When Zahhak learns of it he kills the cow. Fereydun grows up with a debt to settle. Joined by Kaveh's uprising, he rides on Zahhak's palace carrying a mace with a head shaped like an ox, made for him by smiths to his own design. He overthrows the tyrant and, as the angel Sorush instructs, chains him in Mount Damavand. A just reign follows.

Fereydun has three sons, and before he names them he tests them. He takes the form of a dragon and meets each on the road. The eldest flees, saying no wise man fights a dragon. The second draws his sword and wants to fight. The youngest stands his ground and speaks: he names his lineage and orders the beast out of the way. Fereydun names them for what he saw: Salm, Tur and Iraj. He then gives each a third of the earth. Salm receives Rum and the West; Tur receives Turan and China; Iraj, the youngest and the favourite, receives Iran itself. The elder brothers burn with resentment. Iraj goes to them unarmed, offering to give up his crown for peace. They kill him anyway, and send his head to their father.

Fereydun's grief is one of the great laments of the poem. Vengeance comes a generation later from Iraj's grandson Manuchehr, who defeats and kills both uncles. But the damage is done. From here on, the Shahnameh's heroic age is shaped by war between Iran and Turan, the lands of Iraj's line and Tur's.

Why it still matters

Ferdowsi's Turan is a poetic realm, not a modern nation, and the story is a fable about brothers, not ethnicities. Yet "Iran and Turan" became a lasting way of naming the world on either side of the Oxus. Fereydun, Iraj and Manuchehr are all living names. The festival of Mehregan, in autumn, is linked by the scholar al-Biruni, among others, with Fereydun's victory over Zahhak.