Oral stories have created an important role in Iranian folk culture.
Iranians are interested in oral culture and are therefore the source of
oral stories which have never been written, including, the fairy tales
that have votive tablecloths along with the Dari Behdini language
whose custodians are the Zoroastrian women.
The origin of these stories with their Persian counterparts is the
common homeland (Iran), but the characteristics of Dari Behdini's
magical stories, in comparison with Persian stories, are based on
feminine qualities, aspirations and interests, and men do not play an
effective or positive role. However, in Persian examples, men and a
male society are preferred. The major difference in the oral stories of
Zoroastrian women is the importance of magical elements. Magic
exists in all the stories (100%) and the only extraterrestrial being in
these stories is the "fairytale". But magic in Persian oral stories has a
share of less than one third (32.5%), while the text of Persian stories is
full of a variety of magical creatures such as demons, giants, ghosts
and so on.
The use of Dari Behdini language by Zoroastrian women is another
aspect of this research, because the Zoroastrian community of Iran is
on the verge of extinction and their special language has been
introduced as a language in danger of extinction. That is why the
Zoroastrian women, who are eloquent speakers and have no lexical
and linguistic connection with the non-Zoroastrian community outside
their home, the Dari Behdini language is used in its pure form. In this
regard, they are a good statistical community for recording languages
and the magical stories of women.
In addition, the votive tables set up by women in Iran have a magical
structure and specific rules. For example, if a wish or intention is
fulfilled and the votive table is not spread, an unexpected frightening
event will surely await the wishful one. The traditions of Dari
Behdini's tales also refer to the concepts, that if a wish is fulfilled by
a fairy and then the vow is not fulfilled, an unpleasant event will surely
occur, which is the cause of the unhappiness of the fairy tale.