Where is the happy Ending of Shāhnāma?

The renowned proverb “Shāhnāma axarash xoš ast” has implicit question which its answer may change our understanding of the nature and function of Shāhnāma. The end of Shāhnāma contains numerous tragic events in Sassanid age. Also it does not seem to be normal if the Iranians have deemed the bitter adventure of the Shahs and Pahlavāns as a happy ending like what Firdausi narrates at the end of his Shāhnāma. This article tries to reply the main question using an illustration on the story platform and domains of two independent Iranian traditions namely the “formal” and the “informal” epic and championship narratives. The Interaction between oral tradition and influential authorities (political/religious) has led to a new generation of Iranian epic genre (Khwadāy-nāma) that was then underlying the emergence of variations of Shāhnāma in the early Islamic era. Inevitably the structure and the form of، “The Sistani cycle of epic” and “The Kurdish Shāhnāma” as two branches of the oral epic narratives which seemed to have been preserved from the influential discourse of “formal narrative” are argued. The conclusion is that this proverb is referring to the end of the story of Bahman and Faramarz based on the oral tradition version.