Swarthmore Professor of Russian Sibelan Forrester says Slavic lore hosts two mythical birds, the traditional firebird (star of Stravinsky’s ballet) and Finist the Bright Falcon, whose name is derived from the Greek phoenix. These birds arose from their own localįolklore. Legendary birds around the world are often linked to the phoenix, including what Nigg calls “phoenix counterparts” such as the Persian Simurg, Chinese Feng Huang, and Russian firebird (Zhar-ptitsa). God granted the bird immortality for its obedience. The Talmud tells how the phoenix (Hol) was the only animal allowed to stay in the Garden of Eden, because it refused to eat the forbidden apple. Of rebirth and learning, you definitely have his time.”ĭespite its strong Christian associations, the phoenix also appears briefly in Jewish tradition. “Why not? With a word like ‘renaissance,’ a time “This is the greatest period for the phoenix,” according to Nigg. During the Renaissance, the phoenix was a popular emblem of royals like Elizabeth I and martyrs like Joan of Arc. Monks included phoenixes in the bestiaries of the Middle Ages, making no distinction between God’s wondrous creations-real or imaginary. Clement (96 AD) used the phoenix to prove Jesus’s resurrection. Its message of rebirth and eternal life fit Christian themes, and popes like St. “The phoenix represented Rome itself, the eternal nature of the empire, that it continues to return with each new emperor,” Nigg says.īut even as Rome began its decline, the phoenix flourished in early Christian Europe. Their coins showed the emperor’s head on one side and the phoenix on the other. “He makes fun of it,” Nigg says, and asks, “‘How can you rely on a cure that is available only every 500 years?’” Another Greek historian, Pliny the Elder, scoffed at doctors who promoted the use of phoenix ashes to heal wounds. Some tales claim the phoenix has magical healing powers. For instance, its long lifespan is sometimes 500 years, 540 years, or even 1,461 years (the Egyptian Sophic year in astronomy). Like all legends, details in tales of the phoenix vary. They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible.” This early Greek version of the phoenix has no fire. Indeed, it is a great rarity, even in Egypt. Herodotus visits Heliopolis and talks to the temple priests: “They have another sacred bird called the phoenix, which I have never seen, except in pictures. In his famous Histories (fifth century BCE), Herodotus tells of many new, fantastic beasts, including the crocodile, hippopotamus, and phoenix. Themes of time and longevity suggest the bird was already well known to those trying to solve the riddle.Īlthough he lived two centuries later, the Greek historian Herodotus is credited with introducing the legend of the phoenix into Western culture after his travels in Egypt. The phoenix-a Greek word meaning “reddish-purple”-turns up first in a riddle by Hesiod. The tale may have evolved from the Egyptian Benu, a sacred bird mentioned in the Book of the Dead that is associated with the sun god Ra and looks like a heron in hieroglyphics-or it may have been mistaken for a cousin by Egyptologists overeager to make a connection. The bird’s features have changed over the centuries, but most agree it’s an eagle-like bird with shining red, golden, and purple plumes. A new, young phoenix emerges from the ashes and wings back to Arabia to live another life cycle. The sun ignites the nest and the old phoenix dies in flames. The fabled bird is said to live 500 years or more, and when the old bird is tired, it flies from Arabia to land in Heliopolis, Egypt, the “City of the Sun.” There, it gathers cinnamon twigs and resin to build a nest of spices atop the Temple of the Sun. The Greeks rooted the tale of the phoenix in Western imagination more than 2,500 years ago, but its story be Nigg is writing a book about the phoenix and was just finishing chapter 19 of 20 when I called his home. He’s author of The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writing from Ancient Times to the Present-and is known as the Joseph Campbell of fantastical animals. One brief entry even said: “There is so much rich history about the phoenix, its story deserves a book of its own.”Įnter Joseph Nigg, perhaps the world’s sole phoenix scholar. The fabled bird is so thoroughly entwined in our culture that most people have heard of it, but no one seems to know much about it-“Oh, yeah, it’s that bird that burns up and rises from the ashes, like in the Harry Potter books.” Snazzy new Web sites and dusty library reference books don’t offer much more. Unraveling the legend of the phoenix is trickier than it might seem.
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