Zahhak's court feeds the serpents on his shoulders with the brains of young men, and keeps a document on hand saying the king is just, which the notables sign. Kaveh, a blacksmith, has lost seventeen sons to it. He is called in to sign, and tears the paper up in front of the throne.

Then he goes out, puts his leather apron on a spear, and that becomes the banner the rising forms up behind. The Kaviani standard in every later battle in the poem is a working man's apron.