In The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars (see the Prologue and first
ten chapters here),
I made Capt. Robbin Nikalishin a birder. What better qualification for the man
who will head up the mission that encountered the first intelligent lifeform
known to humanity -- and who happened to be big birds? During the mission out,
there was a lot of boring downtime and one way the crew entertained itself was
by telling bird myths, each crewmember telling tales from his or her own
culture. Now, this section will be cut or drastically emended if I ever get that
monster ready for publication, but I did too much research and had too much fun
writing it to let it all disappear, so what better place to display it than on a blog devoted to myth in literature?
The following passage continued Prf. Linna Katsopolos's narration. She had just asked the crew, "Have any of you people ever heard of Sinbad?" Some knew the tales, but many had not. (Parenthetically, I saw a trailer last evening on the SyFy channel advertising an upcoming series called "Sinbad," so this post turns out to be quite pertinent!)
None of those who knew the tales
objected to hearing them again and so Linna launched into her narrative. “Back in the days of ancient Arbia, there was
a young man named Sinbad, who was a merchant by trade and lived in the fabulous
city of Bagda. Bagda was actually a real
city that existed for millennia, until it was wiped off the map during the 24th
century depredations. Sinbad is one of
those resourceful trickster characters who are so common in folktales; he was
always going on trade voyages to distant lands and getting into trouble. So, during his second voyage it happened the
ship put in at a deserted island for a while and Sinbad fell asleep under a
palm tree. When he woke up, there he
was, alone! The ship had sailed off
without him! He fell into despair, for
he had no food or other provisions and he felt he would surely die there.
“Presently, however, he began to
explore his surroundings and he climbed a tree to get a better look. And off in the distance he saw a great white
dome. Heartened by what he thought was a
human habitation, he made his way toward it, only to be disappointed and
perplexed. It turned out to be a full
fifty paces in diameter but completely smooth and lacking any evidence of
windows or doors.
“At that moment the sky went dark,
even though it was a cloudless day.
Looking up, Sinbad was horrified to see an enormous bird flying down
toward him, big enough to block the sun with its wings … yes, sounds familiar,
doesn’t it? Suddenly Sinbad remembered
tales he had heard of the rukh and how it kills elephants to feed its young,
and it dawned on him that this white dome was actually a rukh’s egg! And indeed the giant bird settled down upon
the dome-egg and began to brood it. It had
not even noticed Sinbad, who must have appeared to it as insignificant as an
ant to an eagle.
“Presently night came on and the
rukh went to sleep. Sinbad got an idea,
so he took off his turban – that long piece of cloth that people from that part
of the world sometimes wind around their heads – and used it to tie himself to
the leg of the rukh … right, Avi, just like the hero did in your tale! In the morning the bird rose up and flew away. It carried Sinbad to the top of a pinnacle,
where he untied himself and dropped off.
The bird then seized a giant snake as prey and flew away. Shades of Garuda!
“Sinbad immediately began to look
around and he discovered that he was boxed in by impassable mountains. He began to wish he had stayed on the island,
where at least a ship might have come by. A deep valley spread out below him and, when
he descended to it, he found the ground paved with diamonds! And then all of a sudden the skinned carcass
of a sheep fell to the ground near him from the heights above, and he
recollected a story he had heard – how in the Mountains of the Diamonds, the
jewels are inaccessible, and so the people throw down the flesh of slaughtered
animals, to which some of the diamonds adhere.
Then they wait for vultures to come and seize the carrion in their
talons and carry it back to the heights above, where the people drive off the
birds and collect the gems.”
Robbie interrupted. “Now, no good natural historian came up with
this tale, because unlike eagles vultures have very weak feet and couldn’t possibly
pick up something as large as a sheep carcass.
They would simply have eaten it on the spot.”
“Now, Robbie,” scolded Linna, “don’t
lose the spirit and go all scientific on us!”
“Sorry,” said Robbie
cheerfully. “I’ll just regard the bird
as some imaginary raptor! Please do go
on, Professor.”
Linna cleared her throat. “So Sinbad filled his pockets with diamonds
and then bound himself beneath one of the carcasses, and sure enough a … yes, I’m
going to say ‘vulture’! … came along and carried the meat and the man up to the
top of the cliff! There, people were
waiting to harvest the gems and you can imagine how astonished they were to see
a man crawl out from under the carrion!
Of course, Sinbad went on to sell the diamonds and become rich, whereupon
he returned to Bagda and lived a comfortable life.
“That wasn’t the last of his
voyages, however, or of his encounters with the rukh. During his fifth voyage, his ship stopped at
a different island. While the crew disembarked
to draw water and explore, Sinbad remained on board. Presently, someone ran to him in great
excitement, calling him to come and see what they had found. ‘We thought it was a dome, but it seems to be
an egg! The men are breaking it even now! We can have a feast!’
 |
| The merchants break the egg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sinbad_the_Sailor_(5th_Voyage).jpg (Public domain) |
“Well, Sinbad knew exactly what
they had found and he knew they were making a disastrous mistake. He rushed out, but he was too late. The fluid had already poured out, revealing a
immature rukh, which the men were about to butcher. And at that moment the sun was once again
darkened as the parent circled above them.
Naturally, it was highly incensed at the destruction of its egg. It shrieked to call its mate, and soon there
were two giant birds bearing down upon the hapless sailors.
“The men rushed madly for the ship
and put off from the island while the infuriated birds pursued them. But then the rukhs disappeared and the ship, beating
rapidly out into the open ocean, appeared to be safe. But not so – the birds had only gone away to pick
up big boulders in their claws. The male
rukh’s stone missed the dodging ship, but the female’s stone landed on the
stern and broke the rudder, and the ship sank to the depths of the sea.
“However, like all the Sinbad
tales, this one has a happy ending – our hero was able to swim to land, and
ultimately he garnered even more riches for himself and returned home to live contentedly
until his next adventure. And so comes
the end of my narration … Don’t you all make those disappointed noises –
our purpose is to tell bird tales, and there are no more birds in Sinbad’s
story. If we complete every tale no
matter what, we’ll be here for the whole thousand and one nights!”
“All right, Professor, I’ll concede
that!” said Robbie. “So – now we know
all about the rukh, and it seems to be a lot like Lt. Oman’s Ziz bird. That just leaves us with Lt. Brokenbow’s
story. Have you got anything that can match
all these others, Howie?”
Coming next:
Native American Bird Myths
But first we'll learn something about the
Aboriginal Ammeriken Enclave
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