The burly, handsome youth set out for Sialk, and after entering the city he went into Rud’s house; before he saw the copper, he caught sight of “Rud the Second,” the Iran-ban’s young daughter. Tam was so shaken by the sight of the girl that he forgot about the copper.
Rud asked him, “Who are you, and what do you want?” The youth said, “I am Tam, and I have come from Giyan.” Rud asked, “Who is your mother?” The youth said, “My mother is Mazun.” Rud said, “I have seen Mazun here and I know her. Why have you come here, and what do you want?” Tam pointed to Rud the Second and said, “I want her.” Rud said, “If my daughter wants you as well, your marriage will face no obstacle.”
Rud the Second desired Tam, and in order to show that youth her skill she spun some wool in his presence and turned it into thread. Tam marveled at the girl’s craft and asked her, “How were you able to spin thread from wool?” Rud the Second, laughing, told the young man, “I saw, in the northern regions, that squirrels living in the forest spin thread, and I learned spinning from them.”1 When Rud the Second had shown the young man that she was an artisan, she asked him, “Why have you come here from your city?” Tam said, “I have heard that there is a strange thing here which, when placed in fire, melts and begins to flow, and after the fire goes out returns to its original form. I came to see it.”
Rud the Second said, “That strange thing is with my grandfather; come, let us go so I can show you.” The two youths set out and went to the potter’s house; Rud the Second introduced Tam and said, “He has come from the city of Giyan and wants to see that strange thing you have.”
The potter pointed out a spot in his workshop to the youth, and Tam went over, picked up a heavy, dark-colored object, approached the potter, and asked, “Is this the thing which, when put in fire, moves like water, and after the fire goes out returns to its former state?” The potter said, “Yes.”
The strong young man gazed at the metal for a while, then took up a large stone and struck the metal hard to see whether he could break it or not. When Tam brought the big stone down upon that object, he had no purpose other than to play; his temperament at that moment was like that of a child.
When Tam struck the heavy stone against the metal and lifted the stone, he observed that the copper had spread somewhat. Until then, the potter had not known that if you hammer that metal with a stone it flattens; after that, he and Tam pounded the object with large stones, and the more they hammered, the flatter it became. When they stopped pounding, the metal had taken the form of a long, wide sheet—and, remarkably, its dark color had changed as well, taking on a light hue tinged with red. The edge of the sheet seemed sharp on all four sides, and when Tam ran his finger along the edge he said, “It’s as if I were drawing my finger along the edge of my stone knife.”
Like a little girl eager to bring her mother good news of a new game, Rud the Second ran to Rud and brought her so she could see that her father’s metal had been flattened and its edge had become sharp like a knife’s. Rud, the queen of Iran, ran her hand along the metal’s edge and said, “It is sharper than a stone blade; I will take it to cut the stalks of wheat.”
Cutting the wheat stalks after the grain had ripened had always been a very difficult and exhausting task for the people of Sialk. They were forced to cut the stalks with stone knives, and reaping wheat with stone blades was not only troublesome but time-consuming.
Once again, the queen of Iran’s native intelligence led humankind toward a useful invention. That very hour, Rud, Tam, Rud the Second, the potter, and several of Sialk’s townsfolk set out to see whether they could reap the ripened wheat with that sharp metal or not. When they reached the plain next to the city, Rud began cutting the wheat stalks with the sharp edge of that long, wide metal and exclaimed with delight, “Look how quickly it cuts!” But because the piece of metal was long and wide, it was awkward to handle, and she soon tired; after her, Tam took that “sickle” in hand and began to reap. Then Rud the Second, the potter, and the others present reaped the wheat with copper’s sharp edge. All expressed satisfaction and delight—complaining only that the tool was not yet comfortable to use.2
1 In this mythic account, Rud II is portrayed as the first spinner of thread in Iranian legend. The idea of learning crafts by observing animals is a recurring theme in ancient mythologies. In ancient Iran, spinning and weaving were among the principal domestic industries of women. The earliest spindle whorls have been unearthed at Tepe Sialk, Tepe Hissar (Damghan), and Susa, dating back over 6000 years.
See: E. Porada, The Art of Ancient Iran, New York, 1965 — on archaeological evidence of spinning and weaving in the Iranian Plateau.
2 This passage symbolically refers to the invention of the sickle and the dawn of the metal-tool age in Iran. Archaeologists have discovered copper and bronze sickles dating to the 4th millennium BCE at sites such as Tepe Sialk, Shahdad, and Hasanlu. The invention of the sickle marked one of the earliest steps toward the mechanization of agriculture and the transition from stone to metal tools.
See: T. Cuyler Young Jr., Ancient Iran: Coppersmiths and Early Metallurgy, Archaeology, Vol. 24, 1971.
