D'oh! Running late ...

[Dusk's note: I would have liked to have posted this on Yalda Night, but I was away from my laptop last weekend. This is a retelling I created in 2003 (complete with the notes that follow it; the story was intended as a picture book text). I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season.]

ANAHITA MOST STRONG
An Ancient Persian Tale

Retold by Dusk Peterson from a translation of the Avesta by James Darmesteter

Anahita leapt from a hundred times the height of a man and ran powerfully. Strong and bright, tall and beautiful of form, she sent down by day and by night a flow of motherly waters.

God had given her four white horses: the wind, the rain, the cloud, and the sleet. One day she drove down from her starry home in her chariot, holding the reins. As she went, she longed for humans and thought in her heart:

"Who will praise me? To whom shall I hold fast? Who holds fast to me, and thinks of me, and is of good will toward me?"

To Anahita did Azi Dahaka, the three-mouthed, offer up a sacrifice in the land of Bawri, with a hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand lambs.

He begged of her a favor, saying: "Grant me this favor, most generous Anahita! Grant that I may destroy all the people in the lands around me."

Anahita did not grant him that favor, although he had given gifts, sacrificing his beasts and begging that she would grant him that favor.

To Anahita did the sons of Vaesaka offer up a sacrifice in their castle that stood high on a mountain, with a hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand lambs.

They begged of her a favor, saying: "Grant us this, most generous Anahita! Grant that we may strike down the people we hate: hundreds of people and thousands of people and tens of thousands of people."

Anahita did not grant them that favor.

An old man, Vafra Navaza, loved Anahita. As Anahita watched, the old man's enemy flung him up in the air in the shape of a vulture.

He went on flying for three days and three nights, towards his own house, but he could not come down. At the end of the third night, when the dawn came dawning up, he prayed to Anahita, saying: "Anahita! Hasten to help me, for I have loved you."

The old man had not given her a sacrifice. He had not given a hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, or ten thousand lambs.

Anahita hastened to him in the shape of a young woman, fair of body, most strong, tall-formed, with a golden cloak and a golden crown made of a hundred stars.

She seized Vafra Navaza by the arm. It was quickly done, nor was it long till, speeding, he arrived at the earth made by God and at his own house, safe, unhurt, unwounded, just as he was before.

Then Vafra Navaza offered up wine and meat in her honor. And Anahita returned to her palace in the stars, which had a hundred windows and a thousand columns and ten thousand balconies and a bed where she could sleep.

( Notes )