Small Sām-nāmeh:an old poem about the gallant feats of Sām, son of Narimān

Sām, Zāl’s father and Rustam’ s grandfather, is of the most renowned champions in Iran’s heroic texts. Due to Sām’s personality distinguished from Garshāsb’s mythical image, and because he has gradually come to be regarded as Rustam’s grandfather, he has long been counted as one of the most popular champions in Iranian epic literature so much so that numerous stories about his heroic attainments have reached us. Sām-nāmeh (the large) is one of the most famous versified heroic accounts of Sām’s achievements and his courageous spectacular deeds in meeting his beloved Paridokht. Apart from this poem, there are other versified stories of sām’s valiant feats in the West (Maghrib) lands and Mazandaran, which are less known. Contrary to the well-known (large) Sām-nāmeh, the small Sām-nāmeh, of an anonymous writer, appears to be uninfluenced by verbal accounts, but considering the textual indications, its accounts are deep- rooted in ancient stories.In this article, first we introduce this poem, which we call the “Small Sām-nāmeh; then we determine the probable approximate time of its composition, and briefly make references to its contents.