English
Armayel and Garmayel, and the Rescue of the Serpents' Victims
It was the rule that every night two young men, whether of humble birth or of a hero's line,
were brought by the cook to the king's court, to prepare the king's so-called cure.
They were killed and their brains scooped out, and made into food for those serpents.
Now there were two men of pure royal stock, two worthy and devout men,
one named Armayel of pure faith, the other named Garmayel, a man of foresight.
It happened that one day they were together, and talked of all sorts of things, great and small,
about the unjust king and his army, and those cruel customs of feeding the serpents.
One said, we should take up cooking and find our way into the king's service.
And after that, devise some scheme, turning every kind of plan over in our minds,
so that perhaps, of the two whose blood they spill, we might manage to save one and set him free.
They went and took up cooking, learning the dishes and their measures.
The two vigilant hearts secretly took charge of the kitchen of the king of the world.
When the time came to spill blood, to snatch away sweet lives,
the murderous guards dragged in two captured young men,
beating them, they rushed them before the cooks and flung them down to the ground.
The cooks' hearts filled with pain, their eyes with tears, their heads with rage.
This one looked at that, and that one at this, at the cruel deeds of the king of the earth.
Of the two, they killed only one, for they knew no other way.
They took the brain of a sheep and mixed it with the brain of that noble man.
The other they spared, and told him: take care to keep yourself hidden.
See that you never live in a settled town; your share of the world is the plain and the mountain.
In place of his head they used that worthless sheep's head as food for the serpents.
In this way, each month, thirty young men were granted their lives by those two.
When about two hundred men had gathered, so that no one could recognize who was who,
the cook gave them some goats and ewes, and sent them off to the open wilderness.
The Kurds descend from that stock, whose hearts hold no memory of settled towns.
The custom of Zahhak, that perverse-natured man, was such that whenever a whim seized him,
he would demand a fighting man and kill him, as if he had risen up against a demon.
Wherever there was a renowned, beautiful girl kept veiled at home, without a word of protest,
he made her a servant before him, following neither the ways of faith nor of any creed.