Salm () or Sarm (

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

) is a character in the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

. He is the oldest son of legendary hero and king

Fereydun Fereydun (, ; New Persian: , ''Fereydūn/Farīdūn'') is an Iranian mythical king and hero from the Pishdadian dynasty. He is known as an emblem of victory, justice, and generosity in Persian literature. According to Abolala Soudavar, Fereydun ...

. It is believed that his name was given to him by his father, after Salm chooses to seek safety and run instead of fighting the

dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

that had attacked him and his brothers (the dragon was Fereydun himself who had disguised himself to test his sons). When Fereydun decides to divide his kingdom among his sons, he gives Salm

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

and West. Salm and his brother Tur become jealous of their younger brother

Iraj Iraj (; Pahlavi: ērič; from Avestan: , literally "Aryan") is the seventh Shah of the Pishdadian dynasty, depicted in the ''Shahnameh''. Based on Iranian mythology, he is the youngest son of Fereydun. He was killed by his brothers Salm and ...

. They combine their forces against him and eventually murder the young prince. Years later Iraj’s grandson

Manuchehr Manūchehr mænuː'tʃer">Help:IPA/English">mænuː'tʃer (, older Persian Manōčihr, Avestan 𐬨𐬀𐬥𐬎𐬱𐬗𐬌𐬚𐬭𐬀 Manuščiθra), is the eighth Shah of the Pishdadian dynasty of Persia according to ''Shahnameh''. He is ...

avenges his grandfather’s death by killing both Salm and Tur.

Name

English scholar

Harold Walter Bailey Sir Harold Walter Bailey, (16 December 1899 – 11 January 1996), who published as H. W. Bailey, was an English scholar of Khotanese, Sanskrit, and the comparative study of Iranian languages. Life Bailey was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, and ...

(1899–1996) derived the base word from

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

''sar-'' (to move suddenly) from ''tsar-'' in Old Iranian (''tsarati, tsaru-'', hunter), which also gave its name to the western Avestan region of ''Sairima'' (''*salm'', ''– *Saⁱrmi''), and also connected it to the 10–11th century AD Persian epic ''

''s character "Salm".

Family Tree

References

External links

A king's book of kings: the Shah-nameh of Shah Tahmasp
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Salm Pishdadian dynasty Mythological princes {{Shahnameh-stub

Name

Family Tree

See also

References

External links