distinct personage from
Thraetona--and brother of Urvakh-shaya the Just and was bred up in the
arid country of Veh-keret (Khorassan). The "glory" which had rested upon
Yima so many years became his in his day. He was the mightiest among
the mighty, and was guarded from all danger by the fairy (pairika)
Enathaiti, who followed him whithersoever he went. He slew Qravara, the
queen and venomous serpent, who swallowed up men and horses. He killed
Gandarewa with the golden heel, and also Cnavidhaka, who had boasted
that, when he grew up, he would make the earth his wheel and heaven
his chariot, that he would carry off Ahura-mazda from heaven and
Angro-mainyus from hell, and yoke them both as horses to his car.
Keresaspa appears as Gershasp in the modern Persian legends, where,
however, but little is said of his exploits. In the Hindoo books he
appears as Krigagva, the son of Samyama, and is called king of Vaigali,
or Bengal!

From these specimens the general character of the early Iranic legends
appears sufficiently. Without affording any very close resemblances in
particular cases, they present certain general features which are common
to the legendary lore of all the Western Arians. They are romantic
tales, not allegories; they relate with exaggerations the deeds of men,
not the processes of nature. Combining some beauty with a good deal
that is bizarre and grotesque, they are lively and graphic, but somewhat
childish, having in no case any deep meaning, and rarely teaching a
moral lesson. In their earliest shape they appear, so far as we can
judge, to have been brief, disconnected, and fragmentary. They owe the
full and closely interconnected form which they assume in the Shahna-meh
and other modern Persian writings, partly to a gradual accretion during
the course of centuries, partly to the inventive genius of Firdausi, who
wove the various and often isolated legends into a pseudo-history,
and amplified them at his own pleasure. How much of the substance of
Firdausi's poems belongs to really primitive myth is uncertain. We
find in the Zend texts the names of Gayo-marathan, who corresponds to
Kaiomars; of Haoshyanha, or Hosheng; of Yima-shaeta, or Jemshid; of
Ajisdahaka, or Zohak; of Athwya, or Abtin; of Thraetona, or Feridun; of
Keresaspa, or Gershasp; of Kava Uq, or Kai Kavus; of Kava Hucrava, or
Kai Khosroo; and of Kava Vistaspa, or Gushtasp. But we have no mention
of Tahomars; of Gava (or Gau) the blacksmith; of Ferid