Îrân

"This may be seen clearly in the case of the old Persian myth, mentioned briefly above (pp. 15, 16), where I showed that all that it told of the contests and mutual relations of the Sun and Night was, at the stage of the rising national consciousness, converted into contests between Îrân and Tûrân—the heroes of mythology became national heroes, the victorious Sun became a victorious helper and saviour of the nation, and the malicious intriguing Darkness the cunning hero of the hostile people.[…]The preservation of old national memories was promoted partly by the intellectual movement excited in Îrân by the ‘King’s Book’ (Shâh-nâmeh), partly by national historians of a remarkable type, who were at the same time proficient in Arabic philology and interested in the preservation of old memories of their own nation."