Historical Fiction or Fantasy? Herodotus: the Father of Lies

Some of my books are hard to classify. The Fire Series are not entirely what one might call historical fiction, and not totally fantasy either. They are set in the world Herodotus, born c. 490 BCE, the Greek historian describes as Scythia and ancient Persia. He describes Scythia as a wild place dominated by equally wild horsemen. These tribes traveled in wagons and on horseback. They were impossible to conquer because they knew the wild lands and could hide, blending into the landscape. The Persians tried, with their huge armies, to subdue the people, but they never could.

The Paralatae tribe, to which the royal brothers Zohak and Atar belong, was described as being a “royal” Scythian tribe, the descendants of the great mythical king Colaxais. Herodotus describes the Scythians as very strange because men and women enjoy equality, something very rare in his day.

Some of their habits are quite interesting. For example, they made cups out of the skulls of their defeated enemies, coating them with gold. They also made nice cloaks out of the scalps of their enemies. A warrior was very proud of such a cloak, and it grew in size as he or she fought and defeated the enemies, which were many. Enemies could be anyone they happened to meet.

In the second part of my “Fire Series,” King Melik is murdered. The ritual I describe is derived from Herodotus’ account. When a king or family member with a high standing died, a herd animal was slaughtered and its raw flesh was mixed with that of the dead human. This was passed around in a pot, and each member of the tribe would eat some of the raw flesh. The object was to recycle the person’s power back into the remaining people of the tribe.

The Demon of Death

As I am a historian of ancient cultures, I know the intricacies of the belief systems too. In the Sorcerer’s Secret, which was set in ancient Persia, I found it difficult to convey the ordinariness of the belief in the Demon of Death. People believed that when a person died, a demon immediately possessed the body. The demon was stronger in relation to how good the person had been in life. In other words, the more virtuous a person, the stronger the demon. Why? The Avesta, the Zoroastrian scripture explains that the demons can’t attack a good person while he or she is alive. They want a person’s soul, but at the time of death, a good person is taken to Heaven. When the demons eagerly enter the body, they find it empty, and like an enemy army that lays siege to a city and then finds that the king has escaped, they rage about in anger. When the demons enter the body of a bad person, they find the soul, the “king,” and they are satisfied.

Dead bodies were thought to be teeming with evil spirits. The Demon of Death was so powerful that it could enter the body of a living person who approached or touched a dead body. The only way to stop it was by the use of specially trained dogs. Dogs had the power to dispel the demon by their vision. This was called “sag-did,” being seen by a dog. Persians believed that dogs had an extra set of eyes by which they could see demons and cast them out. I will write more about dogs later.

The body thus teeming with evil, could not be buried into the earth, or burned by fire, as these were holy elements. Instead, they were placed on the “Towers of Silence,” or daxmas, elevated platforms where hundreds of vultures waited to devour the flesh of the dead. This could be accomplished in a matter of minutes, depending on the number of birds. Being accustomed to feedings of human flesh, these birds waited expectantly. I have actually seen this sight and believe me, it was quite like I described it in my book. Again, truth can be stranger than fiction.