Zahhak is told that a child now born will end him, and sends for every newborn he can find. Franak's son is the one. She does not hide him at home and hope. She takes him out, hands him to a herdsman in the mountains to raise with the cattle, and moves him again when that is no longer safe.

The boy is Fereydoun, and he does exactly what the prophecy said. The poem is clear that the whole of it rests on his mother keeping her nerve.