A third heroic personage known in the early times was Keresaspa, of the noble Sama family.  He was the son of Thrita—­a distinct personage from Thraetona—­and brother of Urvakh-shaya the Just and was bred up in the arid country of Veh-keret (Khorassan).  The “glory” which had rested upon Yima so many years became his in his day.  He was the mightiest among the mighty, and was guarded from all danger by the fairy (pairika) Enathaiti, who followed him whithersoever he went.  He slew Qravara, the queen and venomous serpent, who swallowed up men and horses.  He killed Gandarewa with the golden heel, and also Cnavidhaka, who had boasted that, when he grew up, he would make the earth his wheel and heaven his chariot, that he would carry off Ahura-mazda from heaven and Angro-mainyus from hell, and yoke them both as horses to his car.  Keresaspa appears as Gershasp in the modern Persian legends, where, however, but little is said of his exploits.  In the Hindoo books he appears as Krigagva, the son of Samyama, and is called king of Vaigali, or Bengal!

From these specimens the general character of the early Iranic legends appears sufficiently.  Without affording any very close resemblances in particular cases, they present certain general features which are common to the legendary lore of all the Western Arians.  They are romantic tales, not allegories; they relate with exaggerations the deeds of men, not the processes of nature.  Combining some beauty with a good deal that is bizarre and grotesque, they are lively and graphic, but somewhat childish, having in no case any deep meaning, and rarely teaching a moral lesson.  In their earliest shape they appear, so far as we can judge, to have been brief, disconnected, and fragmentary.  They owe the full and closely interconnected form which they assume in the Shahna-meh and other modern Persian writings, partly to a gradual accretion during the course of centuries, partly to the inventive genius of Firdausi, who wove the various and often isolated legends into a pseudo-history, and amplified them at his own pleasure.  How much of the substance of Firdausi’s poems belongs to really primitive myth is uncertain.  We find in the Zend texts the names of Gayo-marathan, who corresponds to Kaiomars; of Haoshyanha, or Hosheng; of Yima-shaeta, or Jemshid; of Ajisdahaka, or Zohak; of Athwya, or Abtin; of Thraetona, or Feridun; of Keresaspa, or Gershasp; of Kava Uq, or Kai Kavus; of Kava Hucrava, or Kai Khosroo; and of Kava Vistaspa, or Gushtasp.  But we have no mention of Tahomars; of Gava (or Gau) the blacksmith; of Feridua’s sons, Selm, Tur, and Irij; of Zal, or Mino’chihr, or Eustem; of Afrasiab, or Kai Kobad; of Sohrab, or Isfendiar.  And of the heroic names which actually occur in the Zendavesta, several, as Gayo-marathan, Haoshyariha, Kava Uc, and Kava Hugrava, are met with only in the later portions, which belong probably to about the fourth century before our era.  The only legends which we know to be primitive are those above related, which are found in portions of the Zendavesta, whereto the best critics ascribe a high antiquity.  The negative argument is not, however, conclusive; and it is quite possible that a very large proportion of Firdausi’s tale may consist of ancient legends dressed up in a garb comparatively modern.