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[Dusk's note: I would have liked to have posted this on Yalda Night, but I was away from my laptop last weekend. This is a retelling I created in 2003 (complete with the notes that follow it; the story was intended as a picture book text). I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season.]

ANAHITA MOST STRONG
An Ancient Persian Tale

Retold by Dusk Peterson from a translation of the Avesta by James Darmesteter

Anahita leapt from a hundred times the height of a man and ran powerfully. Strong and bright, tall and beautiful of form, she sent down by day and by night a flow of motherly waters.

God had given her four white horses: the wind, the rain, the cloud, and the sleet. One day she drove down from her starry home in her chariot, holding the reins. As she went, she longed for humans and thought in her heart:

"Who will praise me? To whom shall I hold fast? Who holds fast to me, and thinks of me, and is of good will toward me?"

To Anahita did Azi Dahaka, the three-mouthed, offer up a sacrifice in the land of Bawri, with a hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand lambs.

He begged of her a favor, saying: "Grant me this favor, most generous Anahita! Grant that I may destroy all the people in the lands around me."

Anahita did not grant him that favor, although he had given gifts, sacrificing his beasts and begging that she would grant him that favor.

To Anahita did the sons of Vaesaka offer up a sacrifice in their castle that stood high on a mountain, with a hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand lambs.

They begged of her a favor, saying: "Grant us this, most generous Anahita! Grant that we may strike down the people we hate: hundreds of people and thousands of people and tens of thousands of people."

Anahita did not grant them that favor.

An old man, Vafra Navaza, loved Anahita. As Anahita watched, the old man's enemy flung him up in the air in the shape of a vulture.

He went on flying for three days and three nights, towards his own house, but he could not come down. At the end of the third night, when the dawn came dawning up, he prayed to Anahita, saying: "Anahita! Hasten to help me, for I have loved you."

The old man had not given her a sacrifice. He had not given a hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, or ten thousand lambs.

Anahita hastened to him in the shape of a young woman, fair of body, most strong, tall-formed, with a golden cloak and a golden crown made of a hundred stars.

She seized Vafra Navaza by the arm. It was quickly done, nor was it long till, speeding, he arrived at the earth made by God and at his own house, safe, unhurt, unwounded, just as he was before.

Then Vafra Navaza offered up wine and meat in her honor. And Anahita returned to her palace in the stars, which had a hundred windows and a thousand columns and ten thousand balconies and a bed where she could sleep.

About the story

"Anahita Most Strong" is a tale of the Zoroastrian (Zarathushti) faith. Zoroastrianism was founded by the prophet Zarathushtra, who lived in Ancient Persia (which is now Iran). No one is sure when Zarathushtra was born. He might have lived in the seventh century B.C.E., when the Greeks were first beginning to discover philosophy, or he might have lived as far back as the eighteenth century B.C.E., around the time of Moses.

In Zarathushtra's time, Persians believed that the world was ruled by gods and goddesses. Zarathushtra himself was a priest who served the gods and goddesses, but in his thirtieth year he received a spiritual vision. Through this vision, he came to believe that the world was ruled by a single God, whom he called Ahura Mazda, "the Wise Lord." Zarathushtra wrote a number of hymns about the conversations he held with Ahura Mazda; these became the oldest part of the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta.

After Zarathushtra's death, his followers were faced with a problem: What should they do about the gods and goddesses they had been worshipping? Should they ignore these beings? Or denounce them?

Zarathushtra's followers must have decided there was good in the beings they had worshipped, for they declared that the old gods and goddesses were actually spiritual beings whom Ahura Mazda had created and who were worthy of honor.

In this way, Ardvi Sura Anahita, who had been a river goddess, became the spiritual being who personified water.

About the retelling

I've taken Anahita's tale from a hymn in the Avesta (Yasht 5, the Aban Yasht) that tells who prayed to receive a favor from her, and whose prayers she answered.

When I first read the hymn, I was struck by how differently Anahita acted toward Vafra Navaza than toward any of her other petitioners. I decided to create a story about Anahita, borrowing bits and pieces from different parts of the hymn, but sticking as closely to the original text as possible.

The translation I have adapted is by James Darmesteter, a non-Zoroastrian scholar who produced an edition of the Avesta in the 1890s. Other translations have been done since his time, but few translators have been able to match the beauty of Darmesteter's language.