Introduction

My chosen monster is King Zahhak. I will be looking at lines 1-20 under “The Reign of King Zahhak” in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. This passage begins by describing how Zahhak's tyranny is throughly evil and has brought great disorder to Persian society. Zahhak, who had two human-brain eating serpents inside each of his shoulders, kills two men every night to feed these serpents. The passage ends with two righteous subjects planning to end this evil practice. 

This study's primary object is an incantanation bowl that reveals a more nuanced understanding of the historical relation between humans and demons. As King Zahhak struggles to control the serpents on his shoulders, people have used the incantanation bowl to capture demons to harm other humans. In their attempts, lines are blurred between being human and being a monstrous being.