[3] The surviving manuscripts of the Memorial of Zarēr are part of (copies of) the MK Codex, the colophones of which date to 1322, but—like most other "Pahlavi" literature — represents a codification of earlier oral tradition.
[3][2] The story of Memorial of Zarēr plays in the time of the mythological Kayānid monarch Wištāsp (< Avestan Vištāspa), the patron of Zoroaster.
In preparation for battle, the army of the Iranians grows so large that the "noise of the caravan of the country of Iran went up to heavens and their clamors went down to hell."
Jāmāspa), whom the poem praises as infinitely wise and able to foretell the future, predicts that the Iranians will win the battle, but also that many will die in it, including many of Wištāsp's clan/family.
As predicted, many of the king's clansmen are killed in the fight, among them Wištāsp's brother Zarēr, who is slain by Wīdrafsh / Bīdrafsh, the sorcerer (the epithet is jādūg, implying a practitioner of wicked magic) of Arjāsp's court.
The 5th/6th-century Book of Kings, now lost, and partly perhaps a still living oral tradition in north-eastern Iran,[3] served as the basis for a 10th-century rhymed-verse version of the Memorial of Zarēr by Abū-Manṣūr Daqīqī.