Abstract
Persian literature is among the world’s oldest, spanning more than 3500 years, even recorded in the oldest hymns of Zoroaster, the Gathas of ca. 1200 BCE. Persian poems are very strong everyday expressions and can be found in every classical and modern work in every home. They have become part of the inherited Iranian psyche. The local and national earthquake myths, folklore, legends, and religious seismicity provoked and prompted Epic Earthquakes in the Persian national epic literature where they are all intertwingled. In this chapter, we review the: (i) Shāhnāmeh (the epic of the kings) of Ferdowsi Tusi (1010); (ii) Fractured and shaking mountain; (iii) Daredevils of Sāssoun (Sāssountsi Tāvit); and (iv) Epic of Amir Hamza Sāheb Qarān. In reviewing the national epic literature of the people living on the Iranian Plateau, we see that the authors of the epics were fully aware of the power of earthquakes, possibly because they had experienced a major earthquake during their lifetime; especially likely if they were living in the earthquake prone regions close to active faults and most of the locations mentioned in the epic literature are earthquake prone regions.
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