Faramarz · Chapter 5 of 5
The Trunk and the Branches
Trunk and branches · Two poems, one name · A splice in the manuscripts
He got a book of his own, and then it was filed under somebody else's.
A twelfth-century compiler described his own sources as the Shahnameh, which is the trunk, and the other books, which are its branches. The branches are later epics by other poets about the same family, and one of them is entirely about Faramarz. Everything he is popularly known for lives there: the voyage to India, the demon, the talking rhinoceros, the debate with a Brahman, the fairy king's daughter, a set of seven labours of his own. There are in fact two such poems under his name, and they do not agree. Late copyists spliced this material straight into manuscripts of the Shahnameh, which is how it ended up attributed to Ferdowsi.
- Trunk and branches
- Two poems
- A splice
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