He explicitly distinguishes the bird from a griffin. Polo claimed that the roc flew to Madagascar "from the southern regions", and that the Great Khan sent messengers to the island who returned with a feather (likely a Raphia frond). 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. 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. In the 13th century, Marco Polo (as quoted in Attenborough (1961: 32)) stated 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. The merchants break the roc's egg, Le Magasin pitoresque, Paris, 1865 Western expansion 1690 painting by Franz Rösel von Rosenhof showing two roc-like birds carrying a deer and an elephant a third grasps a lion. 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). Common romanizations are ruḵḵ for the Arabic form and ruḵ, rokh or rukh for the Persian form.Įastern origins Illustration by René BullĪccording 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 and the chthonic serpent Nāga. In both languages, Arabic and Persian, the word is written in the Arabic script as رخ. The English form roc originates via Antoine Galland's French from Arabic ruḵḵ ( Arabic: الرُخّ, romanized: ar-ruḫḫ) and that from Persian ruḵ ( Dari pronunciation: ). 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. Ibn Battuta tells of a mountain hovering in the air over the China Seas, which was the roc. The roc appears in Arab geographies and natural history, popularized in Arabian fairy tales and sailors' folklore. The roc is an enormous legendary bird of prey in the popular mythology of the Middle East.
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