Roc (mythology): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:14, 20 January 2007

Revision as of 00:37, 21 January 2007

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It is possible that the origin of the [[Mythology|myth]] of the Roc lies in extrapolations of the witnessed power of the eagle that could carry away a newborn lamb; references to the roc are found as early as the [[8th century]] from Middle-Eastern authors, but in 1863 Bianconi suggested the roc was a raptor (Hawkins and Goodman, 2003: 1031). Much later, a giant [[subfossil]] eagle was actually implicated (Goodman, 1994).

It is also possible that the myth originated from exaggerated accounts of another subfossil, the enormous ''[[Aepyornis]]'' or elephant bird of Madagascar, an extinct three-meter tall [[flightless bird]]. One theory is that the existence of rocs was postulated from the sight of an [[ostrich]], which because of its flightlessness and unusual appearance, was mistaken for the chick of a presumably much larger species. There are reported sightings of the ''[[Aepyornis]]'' at least in folklore memory as [[Étienne de Flacourt]] wrote in 1658 and its egg, live or subfossilised, was known as early as 1420 ([[Fra Mauro map]]); we have [[Marco Polo]]'s account of the ''rukh'' in 1298; whilst Chou Ch'ű-fei 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]] may have brought to the [[Great Khan]] under the guise of roc's feathers <ref>[[Sir Henry Yule|Yule]]'s ''[[Marco Polo]]'', bk. iii. ch. 33, and ''Academy'', 1884, No. 620.</ref>; 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{{Fact|date=January 2007}}).

A more fanciful theory{{Fact|date=January 2007}} suggests that the roc was inspired by a bird-like form seen within the sun's corona during some total solar eclipses. Eclipsologists Elmer G. Suhr and Robin Edgar have identified this gigantic coronal "Bird of the Sun" as the source of inspiration for the mythical [[phoenix (mythology)|phoenix]] bird and most if not all other mythical birds that are closely associated with the sun. This total solar eclipse theory is supported by the fact that the roc is described as being white (the color of the sun's corona) and is described in the 'Arabian Nights' as, "A bird of enormous size, bulky body [possibly the darkened moon] and wide wings [possibly the corona's equatorial streamers], flying in the air; and it was this that concealed the body of the sun and veiled it from the sun [a total solar eclipse]"