The earth kept trembling, the birds and the forest animals fled, and the lake churned as great, towering waves crashed against the hills. The Iran-ban shouted for everyone to reach the hilltops and lift their children upward. When the people of Sialk gathered atop the hill, they were so terrified […]

On the day Zab mounted the horse in that city and rode from one side to the other, the mouths of Giyan’s people fell open in astonishment; for until that day they had not seen a creature whose upper part resembled a human yet had four long limbs and could […]

From the day the crowing of the rooster was first heard in Sialk, when Rud was seen beneath the olive trees on the slope of the hill by the lake, two great changes took place in the life of her people. The first was that they began to use a […]

After several years of Rud’s reign had passed, she gave birth to a daughter — her second child — and was overjoyed, knowing that after her death the girl would succeed her, just as she herself had succeeded her mother-in-law. At the very time of Rud’s childbirth, sad news came […]

Iran-ban was ill for fifteen days, and on the fifteenth day she bade farewell to life. At the very hour that the woman passed away, the people of the city of Sialk, by unanimous consent, declared her daughter-in-law Rud to be their new Iran-ban (ruler). Iran-ban died at sunset. The […]