Roc
Encyclopedia
Bird of prey
Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. They are defined as birds that primarily hunt vertebrates, including other birds. Their talons and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
, often said to be white.
Eastern origins
The roc had its origins, according to Rudolph Wittkower, in the fight between the Indian solar bird GarudaGaruda
The Garuda is a large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology.From an Indian perspective, Garuda is the Hindu name for the constellation Aquila and...
and the chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
serpent Nāga
Naga
Naga or NAGA may refer to:* Nāga, a group of serpent deities in Hindu and Buddhist mythology.-People:* Nayan / Nayar/Nair people of Kerala Society* Naga people, a diverse ethnic identity in Northeast India...
, a word that A. de Gubernatis asserted signified 'elephant' as well as 'snake'. The mytheme
Mytheme
In the study of mythology, a mytheme is the essential kernel of a myth—an irreducible, unchanging element, a minimal unit that is always found shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways—"bundled" was Claude Lévi-Strauss's image— or linked in more...
of Garuda carrying off an elephant that was battling a Crocodile appears in two Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
(I.1353) and the Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
(III.39). The roc appears in Arabic geographies and natural history, popularized in Arabian fairy tales and sailors' folklore. Ibn Battuta (iv. 305ff) tells of a mountain hovering in air over the China Seas, which was the roc.
Western expansion
Rabbi Benjamin of TudelaBenjamin of Tudela
Benjamin of Tudela was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 12th century. His vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years...
reported a story reminiscent of the roc in which shipwrecked sailors had themselves carried off desert islands by wrapping ox-hides round them and letting griffin
Griffin
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle...
s carry them off as if they were cattle. In the 13th century, Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
(as quoted in Attenborough
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...
(1961: 32) stated "It was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its quills were twelve paces long and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the bird swoops down on him and eats him at leisure". Marco Polo explicitly distinguishes the bird from a griffin. Doubtless it was Marco Polo's description that inspired Antonio Pigafetta
Antonio Pigafetta
Antonio Pigafetta was an Italian scholar and explorer from the Republic of Venice. He travelled with the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew on their voyage to the Indies. During the expedition, he served as Magellan's assistant and kept an accurate journal which later assisted him...
, one of Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....
's companions, who wrote or had ghost-written an embroidered account of the circumglobal voyage; in Pigafetta's account the home grounds of the roc were the China Sea
China Sea
The China Seas consist of the seas of the Western Pacific Ocean, around China:* Bohai Sea* Yellow Sea* East China Sea* South China SeaOther uses*China Seas , a 1935 American adventure film...
s. Such descriptions doubtless captured the imaginations of later illustrators, such as Johannes Stradanus ca 1590 or Theodor de Bry in 1594 who showed an elephant being carried off in the roc's talons, or showed the roc destroying entire ships in revenge for destruction of its giant egg, as recounted in the fifth voyage of Sinbad the Sailor. Tommaso Aldrovandini's Ornithologia (1599) included a woodcut of a roc with a somewhat pig-like elephant in its talons, but in the rational world of the 17th century, the roc was more critically looked upon.
Rationalized accounts
The scientific culture of the 19th century introduced some "scientific" rationalizations for the myth's origins, by suggesting that the origin of the mythMythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
of the roc may lie in embellishments of the often-witnessed power of the eagle that could carry away a newborn lamb. In 1863, Bianconi suggested the roc was a raptor
Bird of prey
Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. They are defined as birds that primarily hunt vertebrates, including other birds. Their talons and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
(Hawkins and Goodman, 2003: 1031). Recently a giant subfossil
Subfossil
Subfossil refers to remains whose fossilization process is not complete, either for lack of time or because the conditions in which they were buried were not optimal for fossilization....
eagle in the genus Stephanoaetus
Stephanoaetus
Stephanoaetus is a genus of very large birds of prey from Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. Only one of the two known species is extant.-Species:* Crowned Eagle or Crowned Hawk-eagle ....
identified from Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
was actually implicated as a top bird predator of the island, whose megafauna
Megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...
once included giant lemur
Lemur
Lemurs are a clade of strepsirrhine primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. They are named after the lemures of Roman mythology due to the ghostly vocalizations, reflective eyes, and the nocturnal habits of some species...
s and pygmy hippopotami (Goodman, 1994).
One such rationalizing theory is that the existence of rocs was postulated from the sight of the African ostrich
Ostrich
The Ostrich is one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio. Some analyses indicate that the Somali Ostrich may be better considered a full species apart from the Common Ostrich, but most taxonomists consider it to be a...
, which, because of its flightlessness and unusual appearance, was mistaken for the chick of a presumably much larger species. Ostriches, however, were already well known in Biblical times. But on the other hand, a Medieval Northern European or Indian traveller, if confronted with tales about ostriches, might very well not have recognized them for what they were (compare History of elephants in Europe
History of elephants in Europe
The history of elephants in Europe dates back to the ice ages, when mammoths roamed the northern parts of the Earth, from Europe to North America There was also the dwarf elephant of Cyprus , Sicily-Malta and mainland The history of elephants in Europe dates back to the ice ages, when mammoths...
).
Another possible origin of the myth originated from accounts of eggs of another Malagasy subfossil, the enormous Aepyornis
Aepyornis
Aepyornis is a genus of aepyornithid, one of two genera of ratite birds endemic to Madagascar known as elephant birds. This animal was the world's largest bird until its extinction, about 1000 years ago.-Description:...
elephant bird
Elephant bird
Elephant birds are an extinct family of flightless birds found only on the island of Madagascar and comprising the genera Aepyornis and Mullerornis.-Description:...
, hunted to extinction by the 16th century, that was three meters tall and flightless
Flightless bird
Flightless birds are birds which lack the ability to fly, relying instead on their ability to run or swim. They are thought to have evolved from flying ancestors. There are about forty species in existence today, the best known being the ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi, and penguin...
. There were reported elephant bird sightings at least in folklore memory as Étienne de Flacourt
Étienne de Flacourt
Étienne de Flacourt was a French governor of Madagascar, born at Orléans in 1607. He was named governor of Madagascar by the French East India Company in 1648....
wrote in 1658. Its egg, live or subfossilised, was known as early as 1420, when sailors to the Cape of Good Hope found eggs of the roc, according to a caption in the 1456 Fra Mauro map
Fra Mauro map
The Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià, is a map made around 1450 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro...
of the world, which says that the roc "carries away an elephant or any other great animal".
In addition to Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
's account of the rukh in 1298, Chou Ch'ű-fei (Zhōu Qùfēi ) in 1178 told of a large island off Africa with birds large enough to use their quills as water reservoirs (Pearson and Godden 2002: 121). Fronds of the raffia palm
Raffia palm
The Raffia palms are a genus of twenty species of palms native to tropical regions of Africa, especially Madagascar, with one species also occurring in Central and South America. They grow up to 16 m tall and are remarkable for their compound pinnate leaves, the longest in the plant kingdom;...
may have been brought to Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...
under the guise of roc's feathers; a stump of a roc's quill was said to have been brought to Spain by a merchant from the China seas (Abu Hamid of Spain, in Damiri, see below).
Considering the eggs, the "chicks", the "feathers", and any folklore recollection of the giant eagle of Madagascar (which was apparently encountered by the first humans to settle the island), it is easy to see how contemporary adventurers could get the idea that somewhere in the Indian Ocean region there lived an enormous bird.
In literary and religious tradition
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Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
in the travels of Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
and later in the 1001 Nights tales, of Abd al-Rahman and Sinbad the Sailor
Sinbad the Sailor
Sinbad the Sailor is a fictional sailor from Basrah, living during the Abbasid Caliphate – the hero of a story-cycle of Middle Eastern origin...
, was widespread in the East
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
.
Through the 16th century the existence of the roc was accepted by Europeans. In 1604 Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...
envisaged the rocs being taken aboard the Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
:
All feathered things yet ever knowne to men,
From the huge Rucke, unto the little Wren;
From Forrest, Fields, from Rivers and from Pons,
All that have webs, or cloven-footed ones;
To the Grand Arke, together friendly came,
Whose severall species were too long to name.
The rukh is also identified in the Ethiopian holy book Kebra Negast as the agent responsible for delivering the blessed piece of wood to King Solomon which enabled the great king to complete the Temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
. This piece of wood also is said to have transformed the Queen of Sheba's foot from that of a goat to that of a human. The piece of wood that the rukh brought was therefore given an honored place in the Temple and decorated with silver rings. According to tradition, these silver rings were given to Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...
as payment for betraying Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
; the piece of wood became Jesus's cross.
In more recent times, Terry Brooks
Terry Brooks
Terence Dean "Terry" Brooks is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two movie novelizations. He has written 23 New York Times bestsellers during his writing career, and has over 21 million copies of his books in print...
Shannara
Shannara
Shannara is an epic fantasy series of novels written by Terry Brooks, beginning with The Sword of Shannara in 1977 and continuing through Bearers of the Black Staff which was released on August 24, 2010, as well as a prequel, First King of Shannara...
series of epic fantasy features Elves who train and ride Rocs.
The Roc is also prominently featured in the Syfy Channel movie ROADKILL (2011).
Comparable mythic birds
The roc is hardly different from the Middle-Eastern `anqa "عنقاء" (see phoenixPhoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
); it is also identified with the Persian simurgh
Simurgh
Simurgh , also spelled simorgh, simurg, simoorg or simourv, also known as Angha , is the modern Persian name for a benevolent, mythical flying creature...
, the bird which figures in Firdausi's epic as the foster-father of the hero Zal, father of Rustam.
Going farther back into Persian antiquity, there is an immortal bird, amrzs, or (in the Minoi-khiradh) slnamurv, which shakes the ripe fruit from the mythical tree that bears the seed of all useful things. Sinmartt and simurgh seem to be the same word. In Indian legend the garuda
Garuda
The Garuda is a large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology.From an Indian perspective, Garuda is the Hindu name for the constellation Aquila and...
on which Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
rides is the king of birds (Benfey
Theodor Benfey
This is about the philologist. For the Theodor Benfey who developed a spiral periodic table of the elements in 1964 -- Otto Theodor Benfey -- see Alternative periodic tables....
, Panchatantra
Panchatantra
The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian inter-related collection of animal fables in verse and prose, in a frame story format. The original Sanskrit work, which some scholars believe was composed in the 3rd century BCE, is attributed to Vishnu Sharma...
, 98). In the Pahlavi translation of the Indian story as represented by the Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n Kalilag and Damnag (ed. Gustav Bickell
Gustav Bickell
Gustav Bickell was a German orientalist. He was born in Kassel, and died in Vienna.His father, Johann Wilhelm Bickell, was professor of canon law at the University of Marburg, and died as minister of justice of Hesse-Kassel...
, 1876), the simurgh takes the place of the garuda, while Ibn al-Molaffa (Calila et Dimna, ed. De Sacy
Silvestre de Sacy
Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy , was a French linguist and orientalist. His son, Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy, became a journalist.-Early life:...
, p. 126) speaks instead of the `anl~a. The later Syriac, curiously enough, has behemoth
Behemoth
Behemoth is a mythological beast mentioned in the Book of Job, 40:15-24. Metaphorically, the name has come to be used for any extremely large or powerful entity.-Plural as singular:...
—apparently the behemoth of Job—transformed into a bird. The Hungarian Turul
Turul
The Turul is the most important bird in the origin myth of the Magyars .It is a divine messenger, and perches on top of the tree of life along with the other spirits of unborn children in the form of birds...
, the Ziz
Ziz
The Ziz is a giant griffin-like bird in Jewish mythology, said to be large enough to be able to block out the sun with its wingspan. It is considered a giant animal/monster corresponding to archetypal creatures. Rabbis have said that the Ziz is comparable to the Persian Simurgh...
or Bar Juchne
Bar Juchne
Bar Juchne or Bar-Yuchnei is a colossal legendary bird from Jewish mythology which was believed to have a wingspan large enough to block out the sun....
of Jewish tradition, the Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
an kanivatu, Finnish kokko, the Chinese peng
Peng (mythology)
Peng or Dapeng is a giant bird that transforms from a Kun giant fish in Chinese mythology. In comparative mythology of giant creatures, Peng is likened to the Roc or Garuda and Kun to the Leviathan.-Names:...
and the Thunderbird
Thunderbird (mythology)
The Thunderbird is a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture. It is considered a "supernatural" bird of power and strength...
of Native American tradition are also giant birds.
Some recent scholars have compared the legendary Roc with the Haast's Eagle
Haast's Eagle
Haast's Eagle was a species of massive eagles that once lived on the South Island of New Zealand. The species was the largest eagle known to have existed. Its prey consisted mainly of gigantic flightless birds that were unable to defend themselves from the striking force and speed of these eagles,...
, of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. 1.4m long with a 3m wingspan, it became extinct around the 15th century, but probably inspired the Māori legend
Maori mythology
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are the two major categories into which the legends of the Māori of New Zealand may usefully be divided...
of Te Hokioi or Te Hakawai
Hakawai
Hakawai, also pronounced and spelt Hokioi in the North Island, with various similar, slightly variant spellings, was the name given by New Zealand Māori people to a mythological bird that was sometimes heard but not usually seen...
. This was said to be a colorful huge bird which (in some versions of the legend) in ancient times had occasionally descended to Earth to carry off humans to eat, but generally lived in the clouds unseen. Only its cry, after which it was named, could be heard. Indeed, the hokioi seems to be a composite mythical beast inspired by actual animals, just like the roc appears to have been. In the 1980s, it was found that male Coenocorypha
Coenocorypha
Coenocorypha is a genus of tiny birds in the sandpiper family, also known as the New Zealand snipes, which are now only found on New Zealand's outlying islands. There are currently six extinct species and three living species, with the Subantarctic Snipe having three subspecies, including the...
snipes, tiny nocturnal wader
Wader
Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups. The latter are the skuas , gulls , terns , skimmers , and auks...
s, produce an unexpectedly loud roaring sound
Drumming (snipe)
Drumming is a sound produced by snipe as part of their courtship display flights. The sound is produced mechanically by the vibration of the modified outer tail feathers, held out at a wide angle to the body, in the slipstream of a power dive. The display is usually crepuscular, or given...
with their tails during mating flights. The supposed coloration of the hokioi is not matched by any known bird, and generally would be extremely unusual for a bird of prey. Thus, as it seems the hokioi was the eerie "drumming" of the snipes, explained with the ancestor's tales about the giant eagles which they still knew from living memory.
See also
- Bird RokBird RokBird Rok is an Enclosed Roller Coaster in amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands.-History and details:The name of the ride, Bird Rok, refers to the adventure of Sinbad and the Bird Roc from the 1001 Arabian Nights; the extensive theming covers, beside the ride, the building and the queue line...
, an indoor rollercoaster - Blue CrowBlue CrowBlue Jay is a mythical giant bird from Southern Brazil that supposedly travels throughout the southern region of the country. The legend is very famous in the Brazilian state of Paraná.-See also:* Azure Jay...
, a mythical Brazilian bird - Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the SailorPopeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the SailorPopeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor is a two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Feature series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 27, 1936 by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed by Dave...
- Roc (Dungeons & Dragons)Roc (Dungeons & Dragons)In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the roc is a gargantuan, eagle-like animal, based on an earlier creature from myth and fantasy also named the Roc.-Dungeons & Dragons :...
- ShahrokhShahrokhShahrokh, Shahrukh, or Shah Rukh is the name of a mythological bird in Iranian literature. It is built of two parts: Shah meaning a king, and Rukh , who is the greatest bird on the earth as big as a cloud. In the One Thousand and One Nights stories, Rukh helps Sinbad escape from a dangerous island...
- Sinbad the SailorSinbad the SailorSinbad the Sailor is a fictional sailor from Basrah, living during the Abbasid Caliphate – the hero of a story-cycle of Middle Eastern origin...
- ThunderbirdThunderbird (mythology)The Thunderbird is a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture. It is considered a "supernatural" bird of power and strength...
External links
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