The serpent king
Before Zahhak took the throne of Iran, Ahriman had already drawn him into evil. Disguised as an adviser, he persuaded the young prince to betray his own father. Later he returned as a cook, preparing dishes so rich that Zahhak offered him a reward.
The cook asked only to kiss his shoulders.
Where his lips touched, two black serpents grew. Zahhak tried to cut them away, but they returned. Ahriman appeared again, this time as a physician, and prescribed a terrible food: the brains of young men.
When Zahhak gained the throne of Iran, that hunger became the country's burden. Each night two young men were taken for the serpents. Yet even within the palace there was resistance. Two compassionate cooks, Armayel and Garmayel, secretly spared one of each pair, making up the serpents' meal with a sheep's brain instead.
Their mercy could rescue some. It could not end the king's rule.
IIThe blacksmith
Kaveh was a blacksmith and the father of eighteen sons. By the time he entered Zahhak's court, seventeen had been lost to the king's cruelty. Only one remained.
He came to demand that son's life.
Zahhak had long been troubled by a dream of a warrior who would overthrow him. His interpreters had named the future enemy: Fereydun. Fear of that prophecy had followed him through the years.
Now the king sought a different kind of protection. He summoned the great men of his court and ordered them to endorse a declaration of his justice. It would say that his rule had brought only good.
As they gave their assent, Kaveh's cry reached the throne.
IIIThe declaration
Before the assembled court, Kaveh accused Zahhak of destroying his family. The king ordered the surviving son released. Then he expected the blacksmith to join the others and approve the declaration.
Kaveh heard what it said. He turned on the men who had agreed to it, condemning their submission to a ruler whose cruelty they knew. He tore the document and cast it beneath his feet.
Then he left with his son.
The courtiers asked why Zahhak had allowed him to go. The king could only describe the terror that had overcome him: when Kaveh approached, it had seemed that a mountain of iron stood between them.
For a moment, the ruler who had frightened a kingdom had been unable to face a grieving father.
IVThe apron
Outside the palace, Kaveh raised his leather work apron on a spear. He called on the people to turn away from Zahhak and seek Fereydun.
The apron had belonged to the forge. It had protected a working man from sparks and heat. Held above a gathering crowd, it became a sign that others could follow.
Kaveh led his supporters to the young prince. Fereydun received the raised apron and adorned it with rich cloth, jewels and coloured streamers. In the version followed here, they are red, yellow and violet.
The apron became the Derafsh Kaviani, the banner the story associates with Kaveh. It stood before Fereydun's followers as they prepared to confront the serpent king.
Before it glittered with jewels, it was an apron raised in defiance.
VThe fall of Zahhak
Fereydun advanced against Zahhak and entered his palace. When the tyrant returned, Fereydun struck him with his ox-headed mace, fulfilling the terror of the old dream.
But Zahhak was not to die there. Sorush, the divine messenger, intervened and told Fereydun that the appointed time had not come.
The defeated king was bound and taken to Mount Damavand. There, deep within the mountain, Fereydun left him chained.
The legend does not end with a grave. It leaves the tyrant imprisoned beneath the mountain, a menace overcome but not entirely gone.
VIThe banner that remained
Fereydun's victory and crowning are linked in Persian tradition with Mehregan, the autumn festival associated with Mehr, or Mithra. The story is one part of the festival's heritage, alongside its religious and calendrical traditions.
The poem also tells how later kings added their own jewels to the banner, until its splendour seemed to rival the sun. Here the legend reaches towards a historical memory: the great royal standard associated with the Sasanian kings.
The connection is powerful, although the tale of Kaveh is not a contemporary account of how the historical standard was made. The legend and the later banner belong to different kinds of evidence.
VIIWhat we carry from the story
For us, the decisive moment comes before the jewels and the royal procession. It is Kaveh in the court, refusing to give his name to a lie.
He has secured his son's release. He could leave quietly. Instead, he challenges the declaration and carries his protest into the street.
That is the part of the story we return to: the courage to speak when silence would be easier, and the possibility that an ordinary object can gather extraordinary meaning.
Our Derafsh pieces draw on modern representations of the banner. They carry that story into a contemporary design, with the blacksmith's act of defiance at its heart.
