Rostam, Rakhsh and the seven labours

Rostam is the towering hero of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh: son of Zal, grandson of Sam, lord of Zabolestan and Sistan in the south-east. He fights for kings across several reigns and outlives most of them. He wears a tiger-skin war coat, carries a heavy ox-headed mace, an echo of Fereydun's, and rides Rakhsh, a horse chosen from a herd because only he could bear Rostam's weight. The name is usually glossed as "lightning" or "radiance". The adventure begins with folly. A div disguised as a minstrel sings to King Kay Kavus of the beauty of Mazandaran, a land of demons. Against all advice Kavus invades. He and his army are captured and struck blind by the White Div. Word reaches Zal, and Rostam sets out. There are two roads: a long, safe one and a short one through seven perils. He takes the short one.

Each stage is called a khan, and Persian has a phrase for any ordeal in sequence: haft khan, the seven stages. In the first, Rostam sleeps in a reed bed and a lion attacks; Rakhsh kills it. In the second, crossing a burning desert, he is close to dying of thirst until a ram leads him to water. In the third, a dragon approaches in the dark; twice Rakhsh wakes him and twice the dragon vanishes, until Rostam, angry with his horse, finally sees it and they kill it together. In the fourth, a beautiful woman offers him wine by a stream; when he speaks the name of God she turns into a hideous witch, and he cuts her down.

In the fifth he captures a warrior, Olad, who agrees to guide him. In the sixth he kills the div Arzhang. In the seventh he enters the cave of the White Div, fights him in the dark, and kills him. Drops of the demon's blood, from his liver, restore the sight of Kavus and his men.

Why it still matters

Where Ferdowsi's Mazandaran lay is debated; it may not be the modern province of that name. But Rostam's home is real enough, and the Sistan region on the border of Iran and Afghanistan still claims him. The seven labours fill coffee-house paintings, the recitations of the naqqal, the traditional storyteller, and the ceilings of teahouses across Iran. Rakhsh has his own fans: a hero who wins because his horse is loyal is a very Iranian idea of strength.