Samak-e Ayyar

SAMAK-E ʿAYYĀR (Persian: سمک عیار) is an old and long Iranian folklore story from pre-Islamic Iran that has been re-narrated generation after generation in a multitude of a communities throughout the Persian-speaking world, until it was written down in at least 12th century. The main story is about Khorshid shāh, son of Marzbān Shāh, the king of Aleppo. Khorshid shāh sees a beautiful girl in his dream and fell in love with her. Khorshid shāh soon finds that the girl is the daughter of feqfur (king) of Chine. Then he goes to Chine in order to marry him, where he becomes friend with Samak, the main protagonist of the story. The story, attributed to Farāmaz ibn Khodādād ibn Kātib Arrajāni, has been edited by Parviz Khanlari and was released in five volumes. One of the missing parts has been restored from a Turkish translation. The story is famous for containing lots of old Iranian names like, Khordasb Shido, Hormozkil, Shāhak, Gilsavār, Mehrooye, Zarand and many more. The story also contains lots of Turkish names, which may imply that it was not written down before Seljuq rule. The text while being very simple and close to spoken language, is of particular interest due to the large number of rare and archaic Persian words.