Hushang and the finding of fire

Hushang takes his grandfather's crown and rules for forty years, wise and just. 'I am king over the seven climes,' he declares from the throne, 'by the command of God.' He fills the world with justice and sets about making it a place to live. The poem gives him a run of firsts. He wins iron from the rock with fire, and once he knows the metal he becomes the first smith, making saws and adzes.

One day he rides towards the mountains with a few companions. In the distance something long and black comes racing towards them. Its eyes are like two pools of blood, and the smoke from its mouth darkens the world. Hushang, watchful and steady, picks up a stone and hurls it with all his royal strength. The world-burning serpent escapes. But the stone strikes a larger rock, both shatter, and a light leaps out of them. The heart of the stone glows the colour of fire.

The serpent escapes, but fire has come into the world. It was hidden in the stone all along. Hushang thanks the Creator for the gift of such a light and makes the fire a qebleh, the point people face in prayer. 'This is a divine light,' he says. 'If you are wise, you must worship it.' When night falls he builds a fire as high as a mountain, and he and his people gather round it. He holds a feast, drinks wine and names the feast Sadeh. Ferdowsi says that Sadeh remains as Hushang's memorial.

Hushang leads water from the seas into rivers and streams, so that more land can be grazed and farmed. People sow and reap, and each earns his own bread. With his farr, the divine glory of kings, he separates the ox, the ass and the sheep from wild beasts such as the onager and the deer, and puts the useful ones to work. He hunts the animals with the finest fur, the fox, the ermine, the squirrel and the sable, and dresses his people in their skins.

Then his time comes. He leaves the throne to his heir and takes nothing with him but a good name. Readers have long taken this passage as the story of how Sadeh began. Iranians, Zoroastrians above all, still light great Sadeh bonfires in midwinter, about fifty days before Nowruz, and the tale of Hushang and the serpent is often told beside them.