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In real life, snakes are… honestly 
fine. Lil slithery, kinda hard to read,

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but broadly inoffensive. But there’s something 
about ‘em that just tickles the imagination,

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you know? You can’t walk five feet these 
days without tripping over a mythological

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snake with crazy anomalous properties. Maybe 
they’re the feathery forefather of humanity,

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or a many-colored harbinger of rain, or an 
eldritch abomination aiming to devour the sun,

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or any number of other slithery bois wending their 
coils through human mythohistory. Something about

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their sleek design just speaks to us, you know?
But while mythical snakes span the whole moral

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spectrum, if there’s one title that just 
screams “evil” it’s “serpent king.” Nobody

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good has ever held the title serpent king, 
and if you want proof, let’s go back about a

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thousand years to the opening chapter of the 
famous Persian epic The Shahnameh. Written

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by the poet Ferdowsi between 977 and 1010 CE, 
the Shahnameh, literally “the epic of kings,”

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is the national epic of Greater Iran and a 
very, very important piece of literature.

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It’s also long as balls, but conveniently 
subdivides into a lot of smaller stories

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for easier consumption. Here’s one of them!
So the story begins with a quick rundown on

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some ancient mythical kings and all the cool stuff 
they did, mostly important civilization-things

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like inventing clothes and fire and irrigation 
- you know, basic stuff like that. This line

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of kings does pretty well for itself until it 
produces Jamshid (جمشید), who does really well

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for himself - so well, in fact, that he decides 
he’s basically god and starts having people

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worship him. This is generally considered to be 
unwise, and has some unintended consequences.

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See, in Zoroastrianism, to put it very simply, the 
earth is basically a constant battleground between

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the forces of good and evil. Specifically, it’s a 
proxy war between the beings Ahura Mazda, creator

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deity and ultimate good guy, and Angra Mainyu, 
later called Ahriman, the source of all evil and

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creator of various evil spirits called Daevas - 
not to be confused with the Devas in Hinduism,

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very different concept. In this model it’s the 
duty of humanity to do good and bring happiness

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because it bolsters the forces of good and helps 
in the cosmic battle against Ahriman. In contrast,

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doing bad stuff tips the scales the other way, and 
empowers Ahriman to do more bad stuff. Now by the

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time the Shahnameh was written at the turn of the 
11th century, the dominant religion in Persia was

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Islam, which had locally overtaken Zoroastrianism 
a few centuries earlier. So the poet Ferdowsi

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was writing from an interesting position: the 
ancestral Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism

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was no longer widely practiced and some of that 
culture was in danger of being erased. So similar

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to how the Prose Edda frames the Norse gods as 
something old and distant, the Shahnameh is framed

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mythologically while still actively preserving 
these ancient and culturally significant stories.

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But anyway, long story short, Jamshid does a big 
no-no and in the process tips the local cosmic

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balance towards evil. Ahriman gets a nice little 
power boost and starts sniffin’ around to cause

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some mischief. So he zips out into the desert 
to the kingdom of Thasis, ruled by the wise

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and just king Mirtas. Now Mirtas has a beloved 
son, Zahak (ضحّاک), and Ahriman rolls up to the

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palace disguised as a nobleman and tells Zahak he 
should enter a covenant with him, and if he does,

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he’ll raise his head above the sun. Now Zahak 
is a nice boy, maybe a little bit gullible,

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so he thinks, willickers, mister, that sounds 
pretty nifty! and agrees! Step one? Kill your

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dad. Zahak doesn’t really wanna do that, but, eh, 
a deal’s a deal, so he and Ahriman set a trap for

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Mirtas and kill him. Now Zahak is the king of 
Thasis! Nice! Ahriman teaches him some nifty

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magic and encourages him to be evil, but Zahak’s 
not all bad. He’s not a great king, but, you know,

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he’s trying his best. So Ahriman changes tactics 
and zips round the back to change out his groucho

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glasses and enters the palace in a different 
disguise - this time a young man who offers to

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be a cook. Zahak doesn’t see the harm in it and 
agrees, and Ahriman wastes no time in whipping up

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a meal fit for a king - specifically, he changes 
the formerly vegetarian menu to include meat,

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and Zahak is so impressed by this dietary shift 
that he has the cook summoned before him so he

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can grant him a boon, and Ahriman asks only that 
he be allowed to kiss the king’s shoulders. Well,

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we don’t kinkshame in this palace! Zahak 
agrees, and he probably shouldn’t have,

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because after the deed is done, Ahriman is 
swallowed up by the earth and two venomous

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snakes sprout from Zahak’s shoulders. Fun times!
Well Zahak obviously wants these snakeshoulders

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out of his life, but they can’t find any way to 
get rid of them. Enter Ahriman Version Three,

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this time disguised as a learned scholar, 
who tells Zahak that the only way to tame

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a case of the ol’ snakeshoulders is 
to feed those bad boys human brains.

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Now obviously having a king with snakeshoulders 
who eats human brains is not so good for the

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kingdom. Word begins to spread about 
this absolutely terrifying snake king,

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which is actually good news for the people back 
in Persia who’ve been dealing with their own evil

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king for a good few centuries now. Rebel forces 
congregate in Thasis and declare Zahak the new

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Shah, and an army musters to march against 
Jamshid, who sees the writing on the wall

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and books it. He manages to evade capture for a 
good hundred years or so before they eventually

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catch him and saw him in half. Tough break, buddy.
So now Zahak the Serpent-King, or as I’ve taken

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to calling him, Johnny Snakeshoulders, is the 
Shah of Persia, which is great if the goal is

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making the world an exponentially sh*ttier place 
to live. Eventually things get so bad that Ahura

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Mazda sits up and takes notice, and sets a plan in 
motion to get things back on track. Jamshid’s got

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a few surviving descendants rattling around, 
and thanks to a little divine intervention,

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one of them has a son named Feridoun. Not so 
coincidentally, that night Zahak has a terrible

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nightmare where a young man kills him with a 
mace shaped like a cow head. He wakes up and

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demands an explanation from his advisers, 
who reluctantly inform him that it sounds

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like there’s a prophecy that he’s going to be 
overthrown and destroyed by a man named Feridoun.

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Well, you know how these evil king types get 
about prophecies. Zahak immediately starts

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scouring the land for Feridoun. Feridoun’s mother 
catches wind of this and hides him in a forest,

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where he’s raised by a magic cow called Purmaieh. 
Unfortunately after a few years the forest isn’t

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safe anymore, so she comes back to collect him 
him and heads off to an isolated mountain peak

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where a hermit can take care of him instead - and 
just in time, too, since Zahak finds the forest,

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learns that Feridoun is gone, and gets so angry 
that he kills Purmaieh and everything else in

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the forest, turning it into a barren desert.
Zahak continues to strengthen his army and

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search for Feridoun, but that doesn’t do 
his confidence any favors, and he starts to

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worry he might be a bad king. Nooooo. Whaaaat? 
Nooooo. SO naturally he demands his citizens

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reassure him that he’s actually a good king 
doing a really good job. Obviously they do

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what he says, because snakeshoulders, 
but dissent is beginning to spread.

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This comes to a head one day when a blacksmith 
named Kavah marches straight into the palace and

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demands an audience. Kavah’s had seventeen sons, 
see, but sixteen of them have been sacrificed to

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the king’s snakeshoulder situation, and now his 
last son has been chosen to die too. He demands

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that Zahak spare his last son, and Zahak actually 
agrees! Then he asks Kavah if he'll sign this

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official paperwork stating that Zahak is a good 
king actually, to which Kavah responds by ripping

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the paperwork into confetti and striding out of 
the palace while everyone is too stunned to stop

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him. He heads straight for the city square, tears 
off his blacksmith apron, uses it as a banner to

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rally the people in rebellion and leads an army 
out of the city to go find the prophecied hero

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who’ll deliver them from the serpent king. 
Give me this movie, hollywood! You cowards!

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Meanwhile, Feridoun has grown into a responsible 
and wise young man, returned home to his mother

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and learned of his royal lineage and 
his destiny to destroy the Serpent King.

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He’s ready to fulfill his destiny and is, 
frankly, getting kind of impatient waiting,

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cuz he wants to kill the evil king now but his mom 
says it’s not safe to go alone so he’s gonna have

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to wait. This is around the time the massive army 
of rebels rolls up on their front lawn to ask if

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Feridoun can come out and play. Now that they’ve 
got the manpower and the prophecy on their side,

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Feridoun gears up in some kingly armor and 
has the rebels forge him a mace - and in

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honor of his old nursemaid, the business 
end of the mace is shaped like a cow head.

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Oh yeah. It's all coming together.
So they march to the city,

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finding it… actually mostly undefended, 
since coincidentally Zahak is out with

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his army looking for Feridoun. The people rally 
behind them and they invade the palace, defeating

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the daevas Zahak left to guard the place and 
setting Feridoun on the throne as the new Shah.

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Now Zahak is none too pleased about this when 
he returns. He and his army besiege the city

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and there’s a very dramatic battle - which 
our heroes win! Feridoun whacks Zahak with

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his mace and is just about to kill him when he’s 
stopped by Sraosha, a servant of Ahura Mazda,

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who tells him to imprison Zahak on Mount 
Damavand instead. Feridoun follows his

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advice and binds Zahak under the mountain for all 
time. And so thanks to a prophecied true king,

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a charismatic rebel leader and a battle scene so 
ridiculous I literally can’t believe they haven’t

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made this trope goldmine a movie yet, so ends 
the tumultuous tale of Johnny Snakeshoulders!

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[You're Gonna Go Far, Kid - The Offspring]