Boboi Khizr, the deathless 'Green One', is the guardian of springs, running water and the traveller in Pamiri belief. Having drunk from the fountain of life, he wanders the earth forever, appearing without warning in the guise of a poor old stranger to guide the lost, relieve the destitute and reward the generous. He is bound to water and verdure: greenness is said to quicken beneath his feet, and sacred springs and green places are counted among his haunts. His figure, drawn from the wider Islamic and Iranian world, absorbs in the high valleys the older reverence for life-giving water on which mountain agriculture depends.