Rostam and the White Demon
At a Glance
- Central figures: Rostam, Iran’s greatest pahlavan and champion of the throne; Kay Kavus, the reckless shah who invaded Mazandaran; the White Div, lord of the demons of Mazandaran.
- Setting: The demon-haunted province of Mazandaran in northern Iran, at the foot of the Alborz mountains, during the reign of Kay Kavus.
- The turn: Kay Kavus led his army into Mazandaran against all counsel, was blinded and captured by the divs, and sent word to Rostam in Sistan as the only man who could save them.
- The outcome: Rostam rode through seven trials on the road to Mazandaran, slew the White Div in his cave, and used the demon’s blood to restore Kay Kavus’s sight and free the army of Iran.
- The legacy: The seven labors of Rostam became the defining test of the champion’s strength in the Shahnameh, and the White Div’s defeat established Rostam as the protector whose name alone could hold the demons at bay.
Kay Kavus had been warned. Every counselor in his court told him not to march on Mazandaran - the province belonged to the divs, and no army of men had ever held it. But a musician from that country had come to the court and sung of Mazandaran’s green valleys, its rivers thick with fish, its gardens heavy with roses, and Kay Kavus wanted what he heard. He gathered the army of Iran and rode north.
The divs were waiting. The White Div, their lord, called down a darkness over the Iranian camp so absolute that no man could see his own hand. Then he fell on them. Kay Kavus was taken alive, blinded, and thrown into a pit. His generals were chained beside him. The army that had marched out of Iran with drums and banners was penned in darkness like cattle.
A single messenger got free and rode south to Sistan.
The Road Through Seven Trials
Rostam heard the message and did not wait for dawn. He saddled Rakhsh - the piebald stallion who had been his companion since youth, who could kill a lion with his hooves - and took the short road north, the road no sane man traveled, because the long road would cost weeks Kay Kavus did not have.
The road held seven trials. In the first, Rakhsh killed a lion while Rostam slept. Rostam woke to find the lion dead beside the fire and scolded the horse for not waking him, not knowing yet what had come. In the second, the desert nearly killed them both - no water, no shade, the sun a white disk that burned the color out of the ground. A ram appeared and led them to a spring. Rostam drank and let Rakhsh drink, and they went on.
In the third trial, a dragon came out of the dark. It was so large that when it moved the ground shook like water. Rakhsh stamped and screamed until Rostam woke. Twice the dragon vanished before Rostam could see it; the third time it held its shape, and Rostam cut its head from its neck with a single stroke.
The Sorceress and the Demon Aulad
The fourth trial was a sorceress. She came to him as a beautiful woman carrying wine and singing. When Rostam spoke the name of God over the cup, she changed - her face twisted, her skin went the color of ash. He bound her and killed her.
In the fifth, he found a spring guarded by a warrior-chief named Aulad, who served the divs. Rostam defeated him, pinned him to the ground, and offered him his life in exchange for the road to the White Div’s cave. Aulad, pressed under Rostam’s boot, agreed.
The sixth trial was a river swollen with black water, and on the far side a div called Arzhang, who commanded the outer garrison of Mazandaran. Rostam crossed the river waist-deep, Rakhsh swimming beside him, and fought Arzhang on the bank. He tore the div’s head from his shoulders and carried it into the camp of the blinded Iranians so they would know by touch that help had come.
The Cave of the White Div
Kay Kavus, sightless and starving in his chains, told Rostam what the captured Iranians had learned: the White Div’s blood, dropped into blinded eyes, would restore sight. The creature lived in a cave high in the mountains above Mazandaran, and he slept during the heat of the day. That was the only window.
Rostam climbed. Aulad, still bound, showed him the path. The cave mouth was cut into the rock face of a cliff, and from inside came a sound like a forge - the White Div breathing.
Rostam stepped into the dark. The cave stank of blood and old bone. As his eyes adjusted he saw the creature: enormous, white-skinned, shaggy as a bear, asleep on a shelf of stone. Rostam drew his sword and roared.
The White Div came up fast. He was stronger than anything Rostam had fought - stronger than the lion, the dragon, Arzhang. They grappled in the dark, crashing against the cave walls, and the rock cracked where they hit. Rostam felt his arms burning, his knees buckling. The div got a hand around his throat.
Rostam twisted free and drove his sword into the creature’s side. The White Div screamed - a sound that brought rocks down from the ceiling - and staggered. Rostam struck again. And again. He opened the div’s belly and tore out its liver, and the White Div fell.
The Blood and the Restoration
Rostam filled a vessel with the div’s blood and carried it down the mountain. In the pit where the Iranians were chained, he knelt beside Kay Kavus and let three drops fall into each blinded eye.
Kay Kavus blinked. The darkness peeled back. He saw Rostam’s face above him, streaked with the div’s blood, and he wept.
One by one, the Iranian warriors had their sight restored. Rostam broke their chains. The army of Iran walked out of Mazandaran into the sunlight, thinner than they had entered, shamed by their king’s recklessness but alive.
Kay Kavus rode back to his throne. He thanked Rostam with gifts and titles, as he always did, and within a season he had forgotten the counsel he had ignored, the darkness, the chains. Rostam rode Rakhsh south to Sistan and waited for the next time the shah would need saving.
He did not wait long.