I sometimes wonder whether these distinct peoples, leading such contrasting lifestyles, had anything else in common other than language.

Did the Scythians and the Persians, for example, share any common beliefs, social structure, art, and norms of conduct. Did they feel any certain degree of kinship between them?

 

could the relation be compared to that of the Iranians today with other Iranian-speakers such as Kurds, Ossetians, and Tajiks?

 

 

It is important to know a region in the eastern Iran and souhern Afghanistan is known as Sakestan/Sistan (the land of Scythians) from the ancient times too and the people of this region are called Saksi/Sagzi, the famous red-haired national hero of Iran, Rostam-e-Sagzi is said to be from this region, however it is very hard to believe that the desert region of Sistan could be woodland, as described in Shahnameh, so we have to say the origin of these stories was from another land.

 

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/f/abolqasem-ferdowsi/tragedy-of-sohrab-and-rostam.htm - http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/f/abolqasem-ferdowsi/tragedy-of-sohrab-and-rostam.htm

 

 

For example this famous tragedy of Rostam and his son Sohrab can be seen to be almost the same the Lay of Hildebrand in Germanic: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c4/c20188.jpg - http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c4/c20188.jpg

 

Also of course there is the modern-day myth of the Mars family, where the father and son quarrelled and the father split off the tiny British part of his kingdom and gave it to the son to rule. And the young Mars greatly increased his kingdom until the day when he returned and conquered his father's kingdom, at last reuniting the two.

 

But you still can't buy British Mars bars in the US or American Milky Way bars in Britain.

 

I don't think myths (or true stories) of fathers battling sons are restricted to ancient Indo-Europeans. Didn't David have a bit of a problem with Absalom?

 

I agree with you. For Lay of Hildebrand, there are only some fragments left; since you asked what the similarities between them were, I picked the only one that I can found.

 

And I heard that native Americans also had some myths about antagonism between father and son.

This has more to do with Cyrus's theories about Germans being Iranian people or rather having a Scythian origin than anything else.

1. father and son, the leaders of two armies
2. after 30 years
3. invasion to the motherland

5. two armies meet each other on the frontier
4. a face-to-face battle between the father and son
5. listing the family tree
6. arm-ring
7. deceiving
8. killing the son

1 - yes given that the 'armies' are modern organisations. Myths conform to their environments in detail

2 - a bit less than 30 years

3 - same

5 (!) - the frontier is in the courts

4 - the father dies before the son returns

5 (!) - the family tree is clear

6 - no arm ring

7 - no deception

8 - it's the father who dies

 

 

 

The similarities can't indicate that Germanic peoples have Iranian origin. They indicate at most that Germans and Iranians may have common origin. While according to mythology, some mythic topics are shared by most nations of human. Since non-Indo-European peoples also have such topic as father-son struggle in their myths, the similarities between Rostam and Hildebrand even can't confirm that Germanic and Iranian peoples have the same root.....

Cyrus, you just outlined a good deal of Arthurian Legend, as well as a whole bunch of other non-Indo-European mythology.  Similarities in plot don't show relationship, as I have said to you multiple times.

 

It is very inaccurate to say that Germanic and Iranian peoples have a common origin called 'Irano-Germanic'. That's impossible. When their ancestors separated from proto-Indo-European peoles,  there was no 'Germanic' or 'Iranian' race groups. At that time, proto-Indian-Iranians were not divided; and Germanic peoples might be still in a greater human group composed of ancestors of Germanic, Slavic and Celtic. So there was no 'Germanic' or 'Iranian' concept then.

It all depends how far back in time these stories go. There was heavy rainfall in Egypt in 4th -3rd millennium.

There is a theory about rain erosion of Sphinx and debate over date it was build. This means that climate few thousand years ago, in that region, was probably different that it is now. Of course a different climate in Egypt does not mean region you mention had a different one too. 

 

Rostam and Daeva (Demon)

Another thought I have is how far back oral tradition can go. We know many accounts of floods of catastrophic proportions. Now we know that in the Black Sea region that happened about 7,000 years ago. Maybe oral accounts of events can travel through more millennia than we think.

Maybe these stories have origin in the Ice Age. Of course this is just a speculation and guys making up these stories, while smoking some powerful stuff, maybe another one.