Simurgh

An animal, ingested on the same ground as the sole-created ox and against the same rule that rejected five named horses in earlier lanes: she has a name, a will, a moral decision, a household and a continuing role, which a horse identified by a name and an owner does not. Sex is recorded as female because the sources consulted consistently do. The later material — the feather Zal burns to call her, her instruction of Rostam in how to kill Esfandiyar — is not written here, because Esfandiyar is a BLOCKED row in this census and a record should not narrate an episode whose other party the registry does not hold.

Domains

• fosterage and protection

Relations

• foster parent of: ZalNon-symmetric, so nothing is written onto the pre-existing Zal record. Between this edge and Sam's two, the corpus's Zal — who had an empty parentIds array and two companion edges — now has the father who left him, the act of leaving, and the bird that kept him alive, all reachable from his record.Reference treatment: the Simurgh found Zal, brought him to her nest and raised the boy with her own children, caring for him until Sam returned. (secondary)

Sources

• The Simurgh is the great bird of Iranian legend who finds the abandoned Zal in the Alborz, chooses not to feed him to her chicks, and raises him until his father returns.: Reference treatments of the Simurgh, of Zal and of the Shahnameh. (secondary)