Roc (mythology)
Grouping | Mythology |
---|---|
Similar entities | Garuda, simurgh, phoenix, thunderbird |
Folklore | Middle Eastern |
Other name(s) | Rukh |
Details | Air |
Part of a series on |
Arabic culture |
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The roc is an enormous legendary bird of prey in the popular mythology of the Middle East.
The roc appears in Arab geographies and natural history, popularized in Arabian fairy tales and sailors' folklore. Ibn Battuta tells of a mountain hovering in the air over the China Seas, which was the roc.[1] The story collection One Thousand and One Nights includes tales "Abd al-Rahman the Maghribi's Story of the Rukh" and "Sinbad the Sailor", both of which include the roc.
Etymology
The English form roc originates via
Eastern origins
According to art historian Rudolf Wittkower, the idea of the roc had its origins in the story of the fight between the Indian solar bird Garuda[3] and the chthonic serpent Nāga. The mytheme of Garuda carrying off an elephant that was battling a crocodile appears in two Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata (I.1353) and the Ramayana (III.39).
The Ath Kadha Lihini[4] (Warana) of Sri Lankan mythology, a large bird who hunted elephants and soared above casting a shadow as big as a cloud. Embekka Temple has wood carvings[5] depicting how it might have looked.
Western expansion
Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela reported a story reminiscent of the roc in which shipwrecked sailors escaped from a desert island by wrapping themselves in ox-hides and letting griffins carry them off as if they were cattle.[6]
In the 13th century, Marco Polo (as quoted in Attenborough (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.
Polo claimed that the roc flew to
He explicitly distinguishes the bird from a griffin.In
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
Another possible origin of the myth is accounts of eggs of another extinct Malagasy bird, the enormous
Another rationalizing theory is that the existence of rocs was postulated from the sight of the African ostrich, which, because of its flightlessness and unusual appearance, was mistaken for the chick of a presumably much larger species. 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).[citation needed]
In addition to Polo's account of the rukh in 1298, Chou Ch'ű-fei (周去非, Zhōu Qùfēi), in his 1178 book Lingwai Daida, told of a large island off Africa with birds large enough to use their quills as water reservoirs.[16] Fronds of the raffia palm may have been brought to Kublai Khan under the guise of roc's feathers.[17][18]
Some recent scholars[
Religious tradition
Michael Drayton
Through the 16th century the existence of the roc could be accepted by Europeans. In 1604, Michael Drayton envisaged the rocs being taken aboard the Ark:
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.[21]
Ethiopian
The rukh is also identified in the Ethiopian holy book
See also
- Eagle (Middle-earth), the giant birds of J. R. R. Tolkien's tales
- List of fictional birds of prey
- Mount Qaf, the only place in this world where the roc will land[22]
- Shahrokh
- Sinbad the Sailor
- Blackburn Roc, Second World War naval turret fighter
- Scaled Composites Stratolaunch carries the nickname Roc
- Vogel Rok, a Rollercoaster themed to the myth in the Efteling
- Rocs appear in the 2000 novel Baudolino by Umberto Eco
- The roc gets featured in the Season 8episode called Molt Down
Footnotes
- ^ Noted in Yule-Cordier, Cathay and the Way Thither IV (1916:146), noted by Wittkower 1938.
- ^ a b c roc /[phonetic transcription]/ n. Also (earlier) ✝roche, ✝rock, ✝ruc(k), ✝rukh. L16 [Sp. rocho, ruc f. Arab. ruḵḵ, f. Pers. ruḵ.] A mythical bird of Eastern legend, imagined as being of enormous size and strength (The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford, Volume 2 N-Z, 1993 edition, page 2614)
- ^ Wittkower noted the identification of the roc and Garuda made in Kalipadra Mitra, "The bird and serpent myth", The Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society (Bangalore) 16 1925–26:189.
- ^ "Traditional arts of Sri Lanka". Illustrations by Prasanna Weerakkody. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- ^ "Embekke Devalaya Arts". Traditional Arts of Sri Lanka. 5 June 2009.
- ^ M. Komroff, Contemporaries of Marco Polo 1928:311f.
- ^ a b c d Ley, Willy (August 1966). "Scherazade's Island". For Your Information. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 45–55.
- ^ Or the Italian version in Ramusio's Delle navigationi et viaggi, mentioned in Rudolf Wittkower, "'Roc': An Eastern Prodigy in a Dutch Engraving" Journal of the Warburg Institute 1.3 (January 1938:255–257) p 255
- ^ An engraving after Stradanus is reproduced in Wittkower 1938:fig 33c.
- ^ De Bry's engraving is reproduced in Attenborough (1961: 35)
- ^ Illustrated in Wittkower 1938:33, fig. b.
- ^ Goodman, 1994
- ISBN 9780380975778.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ISBN 9780521070607.
- ^ Major, Richard Henry (1868). The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal Surnamed the Navigator, and Its Results, Comprising the Discovery, Within One Century, of Half the World ... from Authentic Contemporary Documents. Biblioteca Nacional de Austria – Asher (Editor). p. 311.
- ISBN 0750929383.
- Yule's Marco Polo, bk. iii. ch. 33, and Academy, 1884, No. 620.
- ^ Attenborough, D. (1961). Zoo Quest to Madagascar. Lutterworth Press, London. p.32-33.
- ^ "New Zealand Birds". Retrieved 2010-07-09.
- ^ Miskelly (1987), Galbreath & Miskelly (1988)
- ^ Drayton, Michael (1961). The works of Michael Drayton. Vol. 3. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 338.
- ^ "Mount Qaf – Mythology Dictionary". Archived from the original on 2018-07-31. Retrieved 2017-01-06.
References
- For a collection of legends about the roc, see Edward Lane's Arabian Nights, chap; xx. notes 22, 62
- Bochart, Samuel, Hierozoicon, vi.14
- Damfri, I. 414, ii. 177 seq.
- Flacourt, E. de(1658). Histoire de la grande île de Madagascar. Paris. New edition 2007, with Allibert C. notes and presentation, Paris, Karthala ed. 712 pages
- Goodman, Steven M. (1994). "Description of a new species of subfossil eagle from Madagascar: Stephanoaetus (Aves: Falconiformes) from the deposits of Amphasambazimba," Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 107: 421–428.
- Galbreath, Ross & Miskelly, Colin M. (1988): The Hakawai. Notornis 35(3): 215–216. PDF fulltext Archived 2008-10-17 at the Wayback Machine
- Miskelly, Colin M. (1987): The identity of the hakawai. Notornis 34(2): 95–116. PDF fulltext
- Hawkins, A.F.A. & Goodman, S.M. (2003) in Goodman, S.M. & Benstead, J.P. (eds.): The Natural History of Madagascar: 1019–1044. University of Chicago Press.
- Ibn Batuta, iv. 305ff
- Kazwini, i. ~I9 seq.
- Pearson, Mike Parker & Godden, K. (2002). In search of the Red Slave: Shipwreck and Captivity in Madagascar. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
- Spiegel, Friedrich, Eranische Alterthumskunde, ii. 118.
- Yule, Heny[verification needed] as above.
- Allibert C., Le monde austronésien et la civilisation du bambou: une plume qui pèse lourd: l'oiseau Rokh des auteurs arabes, in Taloha 11, Antananarivo, Institut de Civilisations, Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie, 1992: 167–181
Further reading
- Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "A Linguistic and Literary Examination of the Rukh Bird in Arab Culture." Al-'Arabiyya 50 (2017): 105–17. www.jstor.org/stable/26451398.
External links
Media related to Roc at Wikimedia Commons