The Cow That Fed Him

He is born carrying the royal Grace that Jamshid threw away, and the Shahnameh has a peacock-coloured cow called Birmayeh born in the same days. Zahhak's men find and kill his father. His mother takes the infant to the cow's herdsman, and for three years he is fed on her milk; then, as the cow becomes famous and dangerous with it, his mother carries him up Mount Alborz to a hermit, telling him plainly that this child will pull down the sorcerer. Zahhak comes to the meadow and kills Birmayeh and every other animal in it and burns the house. Both creatures who kept this child alive are destroyed for it, and the poem lets neither death pass unremarked.