Zahhak's men seized Faranak's husband, Abtin, and killed him. She was left with a baby the king was already searching for.

She took the boy to a meadow and left him with its keeper, to be raised on the milk of Barmayeh, a cow whose coat shone with every colour. When word of the cow reached Zahhak, she fled with her son again, this time to the Alborz mountains, and left him in the care of a hermit. The men who came to the meadow killed the cow and found no one.

Years later the news reached her that Fereydun was on the throne. For a week she gave to the poor, and then she sent the rest of what she owned to her son.