Hushang, who found fire, had a son named Tahmuras. When Hushang was gone, Tahmuras became the third king of the world. There was fire now, and iron, and fields, but still no books and no writing. Everything people knew lived only in their memory.
Tahmuras had a minister named Shahrasp, a quiet man who said little and thought much. Day and night he prayed, and he never raised his voice. Whenever the king was in two minds, Shahrasp showed him the right way, and his way was always the way of goodness.
People still wore animal skins. Tahmuras took the sheep's wool in his hands and taught them to spin it into thread and weave the thread into cloth. The first clothes in the world were woven there, and people no longer shivered in the cold.
Then he turned to the animals. He learned to keep hens and roosters, to make a friend of the dog and to sit a falcon on his hand. The dog guarded the flock and the falcon joined the hunt. He taught people to gather fodder for winter, and no animal went hungry again.
But in the darkness there were divs, and the divs did not like people learning. At night they came and spoiled everything, tearing the threads and leaving the stable door open. People were afraid and stayed indoors, and nobody lit a lamp at night any more.
Tahmuras went to Shahrasp. "What shall I do?" Shahrasp was quiet a little. "Don't be afraid. They draw their strength from the dark, not from themselves. You go. I am behind you." Tahmuras stood up.
He took his mace, mounted his horse and rode out against the divs. They were big, but he was not afraid. He fought until morning; dust rose and his mace rang across the plain. In the end he captured many of the divs and bound them. The rest fled and never came back.
From that day they called him Tahmuras the Div-Binder. The captured divs sat in their bonds with heads down and horns dusty. They no longer roared or shouted. They knew they had lost.
One div lifted his head. "Let us go, and in return we will teach you something no human has ever known, something worth more than gold and treasure." Tahmuras stood and listened.
He could have asked for gold, or treasure, or a palace, or a bigger crown. He thought a little, then raised his head. "Gold runs out. Treasure can be stolen. But what I learn is my own. Teach me."
The divs taught him to draw marks in the dust with a stick, and that each mark is a sound; that sounds set side by side become words, and words set side by side begin to speak. The name of this was writing.
They taught him thirty kinds of script: Arabic and Persian, Sogdian and Chinese, Pahlavi and Roman. Tahmuras learned them all and taught the people. From then on, people could write something that would outlast them. Stories no longer lived only in memory. Names stayed. The way to plant stayed.
Tahmuras reigned thirty years. In that time people learned to dress and to write, the cities grew, and at night the lamps were lit again. When he was gone, the crown passed to his son Jamshid. But that is another story.