the presence of former goddesses in shāhnāmeh

the word parī (fairy) is the remaining of the avestan word pairīkā that derived from the indo- european root *per- 'to bear, to create', then it can be defined as 'fertile, creative'. pairīkā, in the ancient time were the admirable, beautiful and always young goddesses of birth and fertility that they were denoting to mankind fertility, birth and life with their presence. after zarathuštra made the changes in iranian's beliefs, pairīkā were converted into negative creatures in the ahreman army that they played an active role against ahuramazda and his followers by deceit of champions. although the word pairīkā is not in the gathas, but in the other parts of avesta pairīkā has been accompanied by three names which are completely demonic characters: pairīkā xnaϑaiti, mūš.pairīkā and pairīkā.dužiiāriia. in the avesta, the parīs are always the magician female demons with the rejected and hated characters, but in east iran they still have worshippers that hero zoroastrians as garšāsp fighting them. all three pairīkās in avesta that the sign of their physical presence is the meteors, became pairīkās of lack of water and drought without any sign of birth and fertility. pairīkās in avesta are related with magic, deceit, dream, shape shifting and water, these are the features that have entered to shāhnāmeh. although there isn't pre-zoroastrian positive character of parī in avesta, it has still kept the inner layers of the aryan thought about believing in goddesses of fertility and birth, as we can easily see two different faces of the parī in shāhnāmeh: a positive pre- zoroastrian face, and a negative post-zoroastrian face that both has used; sometimes, explicitly with the word 'parī', like 'parī' in haft khan (seven ordeals) of rostam, and sometimes, implicitly and without the word 'parī' with the fairy-like characters in the story, such as siyavash mother or manijeh. in this research, by examining some couplets in shāhnāmeh, it has been studied the pre- zoroastrian, post-zoroastrian, hidden and obvious face of parī, it has been revealed the characters such as rūdābeh, manijeh, and siyavash mother are the symbols of the goddesses of fertility; beautiful and young with romance and fertility characteristics, while the magician women of haft khans are the devil women with the characteristics of magic, charms, shape shifting, sleep and dream.