Folktales

Storytelling has an important presence in Iranian culture.^[1] In classical Iran, minstrels performed for their audiences at royal courts^[1] and in public theaters.^[2] A minstrel was referred to by the Parthians as gōsān in Parthian, and by the Sasanians as huniyāgar in Middle Persian.^[2] Since the time of the Safavid dynasty, storytellers and poetry readers appeared at coffeehouses.^[3]

The following are a number of folktales known to the people of Iran:^[4]

• Kadu Qelqelezan ("Rolling Pumpkin")^[5]
• Māh-pišāni ("Moon-brow")^[6][7]
• Nāranj o Toranj ("Bitter Orange and Bergamot Orange")^[8]
• Sarmā ye Pirezan ("Old Woman's Cold"), a period in the month of Esfand, at the end of winter, during which an old woman's flock is not impregnated. She goes to Moses and asks for an extension of the cold winter days, so that her flock might copulate.^[9]
• Šangul o Mangul ("Shangul and Mangul")^[10]
• Xāle Suske ("Auntie Cockroach")^[11][12]

Below are a number of historical tale books that contain Iranian folktales.

• Amir Arsalān e Nāmdār ("Amir Arsalan the Famous"), a popular legend that was narrated to Naser-ed-Din Shah.
• Dārāb-nāme ("Book of Darab"), a 12th-century book by Abu Taher Tarsusi that recounts a fiction about Alexander the Great and Darius III.^[13][14]
• Eskandar-nāme, also known as "The Persian Alexander Romances", an Iranianized version of The Romance of Alexander.^[15] Not to be confused with the classic book of Nezami.
• One Thousand and One Nights, the frame-story of which derives from the now lost Middle Persian work Hazār Afsān ("Thousand Nights").
• Samak-e Ayyār, a folktale about an Iranian ayyār that was written down during the 12th century.^[16] Ayyār, at times synonymous with javānmard ("young man"), referred to a member of a class of warriors in Iran from the 9th to the 12th century.^[17]
• Šāhnāme ("Book of Kings"), the national epic of Iran, written by 10th-century Persian poet Ferdowsi, based on Xwadāynāmag, a Middle Persian compilation of the history of Iranian kings and heroes from mythical times down to the reign of Chosroes II.^[18]
• Vāmeq o Ozrā, a derivation from the Greek romance of Metiochus and Parthenope that was written down by Persian poet Onsori in the 11th century.^[19][20]

Heroes

The statue of Arash the Archer at Saadabad, Tehran.

Characters in jokes

• Molla Nasreddin
• Dakho

Creatures

A Šāhnāme miniature painting, depicting a demon (div) throwing Rostam into the sea.

Griffin-like column capital statuary, from about 500 BC Persepolis, Iran. In local popular interpretation, the figures on these columns are perceived as representations of the Huma bird

• Āl: a scrawny old woman with a clay nose and red face who attacks pregnant women when they are alone and interferes with childbirth. It is believed that she carries a basket in which she puts the liver or lung of the mother,^[25] although a variety of other descriptions exist as well.^[26]
• Night hag (baxtak): a ghost or an evil creature that causes sleep paralysis.^[27] It is believed that the creature knows about hidden treasures, and one would be told of one of them by grabbing the creature's nose. One can rescue themself from the creature by wiggling their fingers.
• Himantopodes (davālpā): an evil creature that uses its flexible, leather-like legs as tentacles to grip and capture human beings. The captives will be enslaved and forced to carry the creature until they die of fatigue.^[28]
• Huma: a Griffin-like mythical bird said to never come to rest, living its entire life flying invisibly high above the earth, and never alighting on the ground (in some legends it is said to have no legs)^[29]
• Demon (div; from Avestan daēva): an evil being, devil, ogre, or giant.^[30]
• Ghoul (ğul): a hideous monster with a feline head, forked tongue, hairy skin, and deformed legs that resemble the limp and skinny legs of a prematurely born infant.^[31]
• Genie (jenn): a supernatural creature, comparable to the elves and the goblins, that is believed to be created from smokeless fire and to be living invisibly alongside the visible world.^[32]
• Manticore (mardxâr: from Middle Persian martyaxwar), a man-eater with the head of a human and the body of a lion, similar to the Egyptian sphinx.
• Amen Bird (morğ-e āmin): a mythical bird in Persian literature that flies continuously and fulfills people's wishes.^[33][34]
• Pari: a type of exquisite, winged fairy-like spirit ranking between angels and evil spirits.
• Reera, Rayra or Raira: was a magical gorgeous woman that believed to have brought beauty to the Northern jungles of Iran.
• The Patient Stone (sang-e sabur): the most empathetic of listeners, that is believed to absorb the sorrows and pains of the person who confides in itself.^[35] It is said that when the stone can no longer contain the pain it harbors, it bursts into pieces.^[35] It is also a very famous folktale.^[36][37]
• Šāh-mārān ("Chief of the Snakes"): the intelligent queen of snakes who has human features above her waist and those of a serpent below.
• Simorğ (from Middle Persian Sēnmurw, Avestan mərəγō saēnō; "raptor"): a benevolent mythical bird.^[38]
• Takam: the king of goats, in the folklore of the Turkic-speaking people of Azerbaijan. Traditionally, the stories of takam are recited in public theaters by a minstrel called takamchi.
• Zār: an evil spirit in the folklore of Iran's southern coastal regions who possesses individuals and harms them.

Locations

• Mount Damavand
• Mount Qaf
• Paristan