James Baquet

A well-known story in Turkish culture features the mythical creature Shahmaran. The story is so popular that it has just been made into an eight-episode television drama. The name is actually from the Persian language, and means “king” (Shah) of “snakes” (maran). Peculiarly, though the name means “king,” Shahmaran is a woman.

Here’s her story.

One day a young woodcutter named Jamasp, with a few of his friends, tries to get some honey from a well. When the honey is taken, the “friends” leave Jamasp behind, stuck in the well.

He finds a crack in the wall and, seeking a way out, digs at it with his knife. He discovers a passageway that leads into a large chamber filled with a beautiful garden. It contains thousands of off-white colored serpents who live together with the half-human, half-snake Shahmaran, who is as wise as she is beautiful.

Shahmaran and Jamasp fall in love, and the mystical woman teaches the man about medicines and herbs. But Jamasp misses his family and his former life above ground, so one day he decides to leave. However, Shahmaran makes him promise that he will never share the secret of her hideaway, and he agrees.

Many years pass.

Jamasp now lives in the nearby city of Tarsus, and when the king there falls ill, his vizier determines that the only cure will be to eat the flesh of Shahmaran.

But how to find her? The vizier says that when anyone who has been in contact with the creature gets wet, scales will appear on their skin. So all the citizens are taken to the public baths, and Jamasp’s connection is revealed. The king’s men then torture him into telling where Shahmaran can be found.

When captured, Shahmaran says her tail is full of wisdom. He who eats the middle portion of her body will live on, she says, but he who eats her head will die. Jamasp, wishing to die for shame, eats her head, and the greedy vizier eats her tail. But her wisdom caused her to lie: Jamasp gets wisdom from her head and becomes a wandering wise man, and the vizier who led to her death dies from the poisoned tail. The king is cured.

Since then, all snakes hate humans for what they did to Shahmaran.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. snakes

2. slightly tan-colored

3. a room, often a large one

4. strangely, oddly

5. place where one can live secretly

6. counselor to a king

7. not real, imaginary

8. part, section

9. tunnel, hall, corridor

10. spiritual