A newly- found report on Rustam’s wed with the Kianid House

One of the interesting topics in studying the life-story of Rustam, son of Zāl, is his multi-marriages in Iran or in foreign lands. An important account regarding his marriage is his matrimonial relation with a girl from a royal Kianid house, briefly mentioned in certain historical sources. Of this marriage, two separate versions have been reported in Iran’s epic literature. One is the story of Rustam marrying Kay Qubād’s sister extensively depicted in some of the narrational scrolls of the Shahnameh. The other version, receiving little attention, is the hero’s marriage with Kāvus’s sister. The latter account has been versified by an anonymous poet in an unspecified period and scribed in one of the manuscripts of the Shahnameh. In the present article, we first recount the versified report of how the marriage of Rustam with Kay Kāvus’s sister took place, and then we examine it.