Simorgh; An Ancient Persian Fairytale

Simorgh looks like a good friend to have.

Hello, dear reader. This week, our tale comes to us from Iran. Simorgh is a story about a too-trusting prince, and the women who help him.

I was a little surprised at the emphasis on God in this story, but once you get past that, this fairy tale is very similar to some others I've discussed. The brothers staying awake to find the thief in the night is just like The Firebird. We also have the jealous brothers who leave the youngest for dead. That's in too many fairy tales to count. However, there are many things that make this tale interesting, and I'll focus on those.

Jumping right in, this prince is noble, as all youngest princes in fairy tales are, but I was surprised that Prince Khorshid wouldn't kill the deav (a demon) in his sleep. It would have been the easy road, but it's not the way this prince wanted to go, and he defeated two other deavs because this woman he rescued wanted her sisters freed as well. There's one thing that bothers me about this woman, whom he instantly fell in love with, and her two sisters. These women are the same ones who were the pomegranates on the tree in the beginning, right? Let's go with that. Otherwise Price Khorshid failed at his quest and those three women/fruit are wasting away somewhere.

This woman who Khorshid loves is very wise. It makes me wonder why she wasn't able to rescue herself from the deav. Then again, if she is a pomegranate woman, she wouldn't have been there very long, so she might not have had time. In any case, she saves Khorshid's life several times over with her wisdom. Firstly, she doesn't trust his brothers, even though she's never met them. Secondly, she tells him what secrets she knows about how to get him out of that place and help him find her once he does. Thirdly, she uses what she told him to stall so she didn't have to marry some random guy, but could hold off on marrying anyone until he found her again. If only Khorshid hadn't jumped on the wrong bull.

Khorshid's indebtedness to women doesn't stop there. Once Khorshid does several Herculean tasks, he wins the friendship of Simorgh, the bird/perfect human being/etc. and she agrees to carry him back to his world and even gives him three chances to call on her again, should he need her.

Prince Khorshid is brave, strong, and good-hearted, but he wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the women in this tale. I suppose the moral is to be the best that you can be, but to make friends with those who make up for what you lack. Either that, or to get a better security system for your pomegranate tree that sometimes has women on it.