A 600-year-old warrior rides an invincible stallion, wears a suit of panther skin, and was born through a surgical procedure taught to his father by a magical bird. This episode explores Rostam, champion of champions in Iranian mythology, immortalized in Ferdowsi's 10th-century Shahnameh. We start with his parents: Zal, the white-haired ruler of Zabulistan raised by the Simurgh, and Rudaba, princess of Kabul, whose labor was so dangerous that the Simurgh instructed a cesarean delivery still remembered in Persian tradition as the Rostamzad.

From there we follow Rostam slaying a rampaging white elephant as a boy, taming the horse Rakhsh, donning the Babr-e Bayan armor that Bactrian records echo in a title meaning the man with the panther's skin, and enduring the Seven Labors to rescue the reckless King Kay Kavus from the divs of Mazandaran. W ...