As the night gave way to the first light of dawn, King Bahram Gur set out toward the hunting grounds with a grand army. Across paths and trackless wilderness the host traversed, remaining in the desert plain for a full month. Tents and pavilions were pitched, and the wild plain was cleared of game. Night after night, the camp burned bright with fires; no one slept as wine flowed, fresh meats roasted, and the sweet melodies of harps and lutes echoed across the sands. Townsfolk flocked to the desert to trade and seek their share of royal bounty, taking whole loads of game meat home to their children and guests.
When the month reached its close, Bahram felt the longing for rest and ordered his army to turn back. The dust raised by his mounted warriors obscured the roads until the azure face of day grew dark. As they neared a populous district, the King ordered his army and baggage train to move ahead, entering the town entirely alone to inspect the realm with his own eyes. There he came upon a ruined dwelling with a broken, gaping door. The owner of the house—an aged, miserable man—stepped forward and bowed before the monarch. Bahram asked why such a house stood ruined in the midst of a prosperous village. The old man, whose name was Farshidvard, lamented bitterly, cursing his evil fortune and claiming he possessed neither oxen, nor clothing, nor donkey, nor wisdom, nor strength. He showed the King a broken archway filled with sheep dung and rebuked him for entering a place devoid of bread, warning that such ruins served only as a lair for thieves and wild lions.
Bahram laughed at the old man's bitter outbursts and rode away. Outside the town, he came upon a thorn-gatherer swinging an axe in a patch of scrubland. Bahram asked the hardy woodsman who the chief of this realm was. The thorn-gatherer revealed a staggering secret: the miserable old man was Farshidvard, an ungrateful miser who owned over a hundred thousand sheep, vast herds of horses and mules, ten caravans of camels, and hollowed stores of silver, gold, and butter! Yet despite his unimaginable riches, the miser ate only coarse millet bread with dry cheese, wore ragged garments, and tormented his own soul with extreme avarice.
Astonished by the revelation, the King rewarded the woodcutter with gold, dubbed him 'Del-Afruz' (the Heart-Brightener), and provided him a swift steed. He dispatched a trusted commander named Bahram along with thirty chosen horsemen and a pious scribe to catalog the miser's hidden wealth. When they arrived at the mountains and plains, they found endless herds and boundless stores of treasures that defied enumeration. The scribe wrote to the King, declaring the vastness of the hoard.
When the letter was read to Bahram Gur, tears filled his royal eyes as he pondered the folly of greed and the fleeting nature of earthly kingdoms. He summoned his scribe and dictated a royal decree upon fine Chinese silk: 'This wealth was not gathered through theft or bloodshed, yet its owner was ungrateful to God. Kings such as Jamshid, Fereydun, Iraj, Salm, Tur, and Kavus have all departed this transient world, leaving everything behind. We shall not build our treasury upon the suffering of others.' Bahram then commanded that every single portion of Farshidvard's vast fortune be distributed among orphans, childless widows, impoverished elders, struggling merchants, and the destitute, ensuring that righteousness and royal benevolence illuminated the entire realm.