Rostam's seven labours
At a Glance
- Central figures: Rostam, the pahlavan of Sistan; his horse Rakhsh; Kay Kavus, the foolish shah of Iran who marched into Mazandaran and was captured by the White Div.
- Setting: The road from Sistan to Mazandaran, the demon-haunted province at the edge of Iran, through desert, forest, and the fortress of the divs.
- The turn: Kay Kavus invades Mazandaran, is blinded and imprisoned by the White Div, and only Rostam can reach him - but the road holds seven trials that must be passed in sequence.
- The outcome: Rostam kills the White Div, recovers its blood to restore the sight of Kay Kavus and his warriors, and frees Iran’s army from captivity.
- The legacy: The seven labors became the defining proof of Rostam’s status as Iran’s supreme champion, the measure against which all later heroes - including Esfandiyar - would be weighed.
Kay Kavus had no business marching into Mazandaran. His musicians had sung to him of the province’s green valleys and its jeweled palaces, and the shah decided he wanted them. His counselors told him the place was thick with divs. Rostam, who was hunting in Sistan and heard the news late, sent word that the campaign was reckless. Kay Kavus went anyway, and by the time his army reached the forests of Mazandaran the White Div had called up a storm of darkness that blinded every man in the host. The shah sat captive in a pit, sightless, his army disarmed around him.
A messenger crawled out of Mazandaran and found Rostam. There was no army left to send. There was only the road, and Rostam, and Rakhsh.
The Lion in the Reeds
Rostam chose the short road - seven stages through country no one traveled. At the first halt he unsaddled Rakhsh in a thicket of reeds and slept. A lion came out of the reeds, enormous, drawn by the scent of the horse. Rakhsh struck it with both forefeet and seized its spine in his teeth and broke it before Rostam woke. Rostam found the carcass in the morning and looked at Rakhsh and said nothing. He saddled the horse and rode.
The Spring in the Desert
The second stage was waterless. Sun beat the sand flat and Rostam’s tongue cracked. Rakhsh staggered. When both were nearly finished, a ram appeared - fat, clean-fleeced, walking calmly through the waste. Rostam followed it and found a spring. He drank, watered Rakhsh, and understood that something - farr, luck, the turning of the world - was keeping him alive for the work ahead.
The Dragon on the Road
At the third halt Rostam slept again, and a dragon came - a thing so large that the ground shook under its coils. Rakhsh stamped and screamed. Rostam woke but saw nothing; the dragon had vanished into darkness. He cursed Rakhsh for waking him. The dragon returned. Rakhsh screamed again. Again it vanished before Rostam could see it. The third time, the dragon was slower, and Rostam caught it in the firelight. He drew his sword and fought it on foot in the dark while Rakhsh bit at its flanks. The blade went through the dragon’s skull. Rostam pulled it free, wiped the blade on sand, and rode on before dawn.
The Sorceress
At the fourth halt he found a laid table in the wilderness - roast meat, wine, bread, a lute playing by itself. He sat and ate, because he was Rostam, and when a beautiful woman appeared and sang to him he listened. But he spoke the name of God over the wine before he drank. At the holy name her face changed. Her skin darkened, her teeth lengthened, and what sat across from him was a peri twisted by sorcery - or a witch wearing a peri’s shape. Rostam seized her and cut her down before she could shift again.
The Warrior Olad
The fifth trial was a man, not a monster. Rostam rode into a country of permanent night, where no sun reached the valley floor. A local warrior named Olad challenged him. They fought, Rostam threw him, and instead of killing him pressed Olad’s face into the dirt and demanded the road to the White Div’s fortress. Olad, with Rostam’s knee on his spine, gave directions. Rostam bound him, set him on a horse, and brought him along as guide.
Arzhang and the Fortress of the Divs
At the sixth stage Rostam reached the outer fortress of the divs, commanded by the demon Arzhang. He came at them in daylight - what daylight the sunless valley allowed - because the divs were sluggish when the sun was highest. He struck the war-cry of Sistan, and Rakhsh charged the gate. Arzhang came out roaring. Rostam took the div’s head off with a single blow of his sword, and when the lesser divs saw their commander’s body hit the stone they scattered into the rocks.
The White Div
The seventh and final labor was the White Div itself, deep in a cave in the mountains above the fortress. Rostam left Rakhsh at the cave mouth and went in on foot. The cave stank. Bones cracked under his boots. The White Div lay sleeping - massive, white-furred, its breath fogging the stone ceiling. Rostam knew that if he waited for it to wake he would fight it at full strength, and that even he might not survive that. He did not wait.
He shouted. The div came up off the cave floor like a landslide. In the dark they grappled, and the fight tore the ground open beneath them. Rostam’s arms were slick with the div’s blood and his own. He got his dagger free and drove it into the div’s chest, then cut the liver out of the body while the thing still twitched.
He carried the liver and three drops of the div’s blood back to Kay Kavus. The blood, dropped into the blinded eyes of the shah and his warriors, restored their sight. Kay Kavus blinked in the Mazandaran sunlight as though he had never seen it, and perhaps he understood then what his vanity had cost - though knowing Kay Kavus, he forgot within the week.
Rostam cleaned his sword, fed Rakhsh, and waited for the next summons. It would come. It always did.