(who according to the legend were ancestors of the Kurds) were trained by Kaveh into an army that marched to Zahak's castle where Kaveh killed the king with a hammer. Kaveh is said to have then set fire to the hillsides to celebrate the victory and summon his supporters; spring returned to Kurdistan the next day. March 20 is traditionally marked as the day that Kaveh defeated Zahak. This legend is now used by the Kurds to remind themselves that they are a different, strong people, and the lighting of the fires has since become a symbol of freedom. It is a tradition to jump across a fire at Newroz. According to Evliya Çelebi, the district (sancak) of Merkawe in Shahrazur in the southeastern part of Iraqi Kurdistan is named after Kaveh. The 12th century geographer Yaqoot Hamawi mentions Zor (Zur), son of Zahhak (Aji Dahak), as founder of the famous city of Sharazor. In the 1930s, the Kurdish poet Taufik Abdullah, wanting to instill a new Kurdish cultural revival, used a previously known, modified version of the story of Kawa. He connected the myths where people felt oppressed with Newroz, thus reviving a dying holiday and making it a symbol of the Kurdish national struggle. Newroz customs and celebration Newroz is considered the most important festival in Kurdish culture, and is a time for entertainment such as games, dancing, family gathering, preparation of special foods and the reading of poetry. The celebration of Newroz has its local peculiarities in different regions of Kurdistan. On the eve of Newroz, in southern and eastern Kurdistan, bonfires are lit. These fires symbolize the passing of the dark season, winter, and the arrival of spring, the season of light. The 17th century Kurdish poet Ahmad Khani mentions in one of his poems how the people, youth and elderly, leave their houses and gather in countryside to celebrate Newroz. Armenian scholar Mardiros Ananikian emphasizes the identical nature of Newroz and the Armenian traditional New Year, Navasard, noting that it was only in the 11th century that Navasard came to be celebrated in late summer rather than in early spring. He states that the Newroz – Navasard “was an agricultural celebration connected with commemoration of the dead […] and aiming at the increase of the rain and the harvests.”1 The great center of Armenian Navasard, Ananikian points out, was Bagavan, the center of fire worship.