Miscellaneous Myths: Zahak The Serpent King

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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