In his war on the demon’s brood, Húsheng was helped by wolf, tiger, lion, and even by the fowls of the air. All this while mankind had lived on fruit and the leaves of trees. Húsheng taught his people to bake bread. He was succeeded by his son Taliumen, in whose reign panthers, hawks, and falcons were tamed. The next king introduced weaving and the use of armour. His successor was remembered for having kept a herd of 1,000 cows whose milk he gave to the poor. Then came Zorák, who owned 10,000 horses. Zorák was seduced by Iblís, the evil spirit, who, in order to accomplish it, became his chief cook. Iblís was the real founder of the culinary art; till then, people lived still almost entirely on bread and fruit, but the king’s new _chef_ prepared the most savoury dishes, for which he used the flesh of all kinds of birds and beasts. Finally, he sent to table a partridge and a pheasant, after which Zorák promised the devil to grant him any request he might make. [Illustration: _Photo:_ _J. Dieulafoy._ KING FIGHTING GRIFFIN WITH SCORPION’S TAIL. Palace of Darius. (_By permission of M. Marcel Dieulafoy._)] Here there are fugitive reminiscences of parallel legends in the _Bundehesh_, a Parsi religious book belonging to post-Avestic times. The first human couple served God faithfully till, for some unexplained reason, they were induced to ascribe creation and supreme power to the daevas. This was the “unforgivable sin,” the ascription of the miraculous power of God to the devil. Ahriman rejoiced at their treason, though it is not said that he was the cause of it: man could choose between good and evil. After their defection, the man and the woman clothed themselves in leaves and took to hunting. Ahriman put it into their heads to kill a goat and then to light a fire by rubbing two sticks: they blew on the fire to fan the flame and roasted a piece of the goat. One bit they threw in the air as a sacrifice to the Nature spirits, saying, “This for the Yazatas!” A kite flew past and carried off the sacrifice. Afterwards, the man and woman dressed in skins and told innumerable lies. Going from bad to worse, they engendered a large family whence sprang the twenty-five races of mankind. How this story got into the _Bundehesh_ I do not know, but I am sure that Zoroaster would have disowned it. He knew of no collective “fall of man,” whether in connexion with partridges, pheasants, or goat-flesh. The Avesta, in its sober cosmogony, is content to speak of the proto-man, Gayo Marathan (mortal life), and the proto-good-animal, Geus Urva, from whom all human beings and all animals of the good creation are derived. Nevertheless, Ahura Mazda is described frequently as _creating_ each animal; the proto-creature was only the _modus operandi_ of the divine power. As in biology, divided sex was a secondary development. From the bull, Geus Urva, proceeded first his own species, and then sheep, camels, horses, asses, birds, water-animals.