The Simurgh: Faizah's Destiny by Marva Dasef



Simurgh, Sassanian Royal Symbol
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simurgh
(Public Domain)

       I recently reviewed Faizah’s Destiny by Marva Dasef, a Middle Grade book set in a fictional Middle East.  The book follows the adventures of four village children as they undergo a process of growing up and learning about themselves.  It draws on Persian and other Middle Eastern myths for its fantasy.   A main plot element is a quest to find the Simurgh, a mythical bird central to significant Persian tales.  In Dasef's story the Simurgh is a large, deathless bird that can speak and is said to know all things and to be a "great teacher and a guardian."  It has arms in addition to wings and the author gives it moving lips at the end of its beak   It resembles a peacock in appearance and proves to be quite benign, giving each child a look into their potential futures.  It is a non-frightening, benevolent creature.
        The Simurgh was mentioned briefly in my post Bird Myths Pt. 4: Greece and the Middle East.  Today I want to investigate the lore of the Simurgh, which is a good deal more complex than the version we see in Dasef's book.  Faizah's Destiny is a book for middle-graders and so some of the more grotesque or ferocious elements of the Simurgh have been adjusted.  This is not a problem in the context of this book; one of the things that makes myth so valuable as a foundation for fiction is the ability to be adapted to an author's purpose.

        The Simurgh occurs in several different Middle Eastern cultures and literatures.  The Wikipedia article is not well documented, but as usual it makes a good starting point for investigation.  The name is Persian in origin, deriving from a Sanskrit word meaning "eagle, bird of prey."  Like the Roc or the Ziz, it is described as large enough to carry off an elephant.  It has the head of a dog, the claws of a lion, and sometimes a human face, which gives it kinship with the Griffin (body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and an eagle's talons as its front feet) as one of the mythological hybrids. 
       However, if you search "Simurgh" in Google Images, you will see that most of the iconography is not of the Griffin variety but depicts this creature as a true bird.  Above is a striking example (http://atheistictemple.blogspot.com/2011/03/benefits-of-animals-medieval-persian.html  - no copyright information given that I can see.)
 
       Wikipedia cites an online reference that gives an comprehensive overview of the Simurgh:  http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/simorg.  Many myths in many cultures surround this fabulous "bird."  I'll recount just two of them.
 
       The Simurgh is associated with the Tree of Life, which is said to stand in the middle of the primal sea.  The Simurgh nests in this tree, which produces the seeds of all plants.  When the Simurgh takes flight, it causes the branches to shake and the seeds to fall. They are then distributed all over the world by wind and rain or by other birds, producing all the plants that we know.  The Simurgh is generally associated with rain, although one source says that sometimes the weight of the bird breaks the branches of the Tree, causing it to wither, thus associating it with the burning sun. 
       The Simurgh can also have an alter-ego, a dark counterpart (quoting from the Encyclopaedia Iranica article cited above): "the exact opposite of those of the Sēnmurw: When Kamak appeared he spread his wings over the whole world, all the rain fell on his wings and back into the sea, drought struck the earth, men died, springs, rivers and wells dried up. Kamak devoured men and animals as a bird pecks grain. Karšāsp showers arrows on him day and night like rain till he succumbs. In killing men Kamak is the opposite of Camrōš, who pecks up the enemies of Iran like grain (Bundahišn 24.24)." ("Chamrosh" is yet another name for the Simurgh, or for a companion bird that sits beneath the Tree of Life and helps to scatter its seeds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamrosh ) 
 
      In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the national epic of the Persian world, Zal son of Saam was an albino and considered the spawn of the devil. He was abandoned on a mountain top, then, prompted by God, a Simurgh rescued him, raised him, and educated him (example of the epic element of an abandoned infant raised by a wild creature). When Zal returned to the world of men, the Simurgh gave him one of her feathers, which he was to burn if he ever needed assistance. Later, when it appeared Zal's wife would die in labor, he used the feather to summon the Simurgh, who taught him how to do a Caesurean section and so save the child. This child grew up to be Rostam, the great Persian hero, who in a later part of the epic was to be aided by the Simurgh again. 
       This benevolent version had its dark counterpart.  Also quoting the Encyclopaedia Iranica article: "The Simorḡ, protector of Zāl and Rostam, has an evil counterpart called by the same name. She lives on a mountain and looks like a mountain or a black cloud; she can carry off crocodiles, panthers and elephants. She has two young ones as big as herself. This Simorḡ is one of the adversaries Esfandiār kills in the course of his seven exploits on the way to the castle of Arjāsp. To overcome the huge monster Esfandiār constructs a large chariot spiked all over with swords which cut the bird to pieces (IV, p. 509f.). It is not impossible that both birds are originally identical and the Simorḡ is ambivalent. Her benevolent behavior towards Zāl was due to God’s intervention, and went against her nature as a raptor. In the contemptuous description of Zāl’s origin it is said that the Simorḡ spared the child because she could not stomach him (IV, p. 612)."
 
       Fascinating stuff, isn't it?

       I also want to add quotations from the Encyclopaedia Iranica article that deal with the relationship of the Simurgh to the other giant mythical birds of the region (some of which are benevolent and some malevolent).  I have indicated in bold interesting points that tie this post to some of my other discussions and demonstrate the universality of the Big Bird concept:
       "The Simorḡ’s equivalent in Arabic sources is the ʿAnqāʾ. The ambivalent nature of this bird is attested in the Hadith: the bird was created by God with all perfections, but became a plague, and a prophet put an end to the havoc it wrought by exterminating the species (Pellat, p. 509). In the Sumerian Lugalbanda Epic the mythical bird Anzu is a benevolent being. The hero frees the young of the bird, which in return blesses him. In the Sumerian Lugal-e and the Akkadian Anzu Epic the bird represents demonic powers and is vanquished by the god Ninurta. In the Akkadian Etana Epic the hero is carried by the eagle to the heaven of Anu. The correspondence of these motifs with the Simorḡ stories in the Šāhnāma and the Kurdish folktales is obvious, showing that they are of common Near Eastern heritage (Aro, p. 25ff.). In an illustration of a manuscript of the Thousand and One Nights the Simorḡ is identified with the monstrous bird Roḵ (cf. Casartellli, p. 82f.).
       "The Sēnmurw has many traits in common with the Indian Garuḍa, the steed of the god Viṣṇu (cf. Reuben, pp. 489ff., 495, 506f., 510, 515, 517). It is of particular interest that the comparison was made already in Sasanian times. In the first book of the Sanskrit Pañcatantra (the cognate of Kalila and Dimna) is a story of the birds of the shore who complain to their king Garuḍa. In Sogdian, synmrγ is used to translate garuḍa (see Utz, p. 14); and in the old Syriac translation of the Middle Persian original of Kalila and Dimna, Garuḍa is rendered by Simorḡ (cf. de Blois). Fauth (p. 125ff.) has argued that all the mythical giant birds—such as Simorḡ, Phoenix, Garuḍa, the Tibetan Khyuṅ, and also the Melek Ṭāʾus of the Yezidis—are offshoots of an archaic, primordial bird that created the world. Thus Simorḡ as God in Persian mysticism would, curiously, represent a return to the original meaning."

       I really find it more than a little cool to regard the Creator God as a giant bird!  And I can see enough material in the many Simurgh myths to inspire any number of great fantasy stories!

 

Bird Myths, Pt. 5: Sinbad and the Rukh

       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!)

 



The Rukh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roc8954.jpg
(Public domain in the USA)



 

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

Bird Myths, Pt. 4: Greece and the Middle East

Added on 5/6/13: I discovered a Young Adult book called Faizah's Destiny by Marva Dasef in which you can read about the Simurgh, which is one of the mythical birds mentioned below.  See it at Amazon.

*     *     *      

       The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars, (see the Prologue and first eight 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 partially to myth in literature?

 

       The following passage is narrated by the very attractive Griek Prf. Linna Katsopolos, a veteran of the original interstellar program who later became a temporal quantum physicist and helped to build the Ariana's engine.  She is taking part in the voyage as a Mission Specialist to run an assessment of the engine's functioning.  She also happens to be the Captain's current love interest.

  



The Bennu Bird
From http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/benu.htm
(source of image not given)

“Robbie, I wish you could have warned us before the voyage that you were planning something like this.  It seems like you take birding stuff with you even when there’s no chance of seeing a bird, but unfortunately I didn’t bring any of my own resources.  I took some classes in myth and ancient culture at university because I’d always been interested in the subject and it was a nice change of pace from physics, but I haven’t thought about it for a while and I had to dredge down pretty deep to come up with something to say.

“I can’t think of any big Garuda-like bird who ranks high among the Griek gods.  There is the tale of Ikarus, but it’s not about a real bird or even gods – it’s about a man who builds wings for himself out of wax and feathers.  He then proceeds to fly too close to the sun so that his wings melt and he falls into the sea and is drowned.  It’s viewed more as a parable of humanity overreaching itself.  It seems that the ancients’ imaginations were better than their technology!

“Griek bird-figures are mostly hybrid monsters.  The harpies, who chase and harass people, have the faces of hideous women and the bodies of birds.  Then the Sirens … they were supposed to live on some of the Griek islands and lure sailors to their deaths with their beautiful songs.  They are often depicted as birds but sometimes as beautiful women in their upper halves with bird bodies below. 

“But there are also the Stimfalian birds, which were probably modeled on real marsh birds.  The Sixth Labor of Herakles… oh, dear, probably some of you don’t know who Herakles was – let’s just say he was the consummate Griek mythical hero.  One of his twelve great feats consisted of confronting these enormous, man-eating birds who lived in the Stimfalian Marshes.  They were pets of the God of War, and they had brass claws and metallic feathers that they would pluck out and hurl like darts, and they would also squirt toxic excrement at their victims.  Obviously, they made pretty formidable adversaries.  Herakles could get no foothold in the marshy ground, so he defeated them by making a racket with bronze clappers and scaring them into flight.  Once they were in the air, he was able to shoot them down with his arrows.

“Then there are other birdlike hybrids that didn’t originate in Griece but came mostly from the Middle East, the area where Avi’s people used to live.  There’s the griffon, which was four-legged, with the body of a lion and head of an eagle; it could kill a cow and carry it away, just like Avi’s Ziz.  They were supposed to have claws the size of an ox’s horns and feathers strong enough to use for lances, like our Stimfalian friends.  You can see how these myths often merge.  There was also the hippogriff, which had the head, wings, and front legs of a griffon and the back parts of a horse.  And then Pegassus, which was a winged horse – more horse than bird – a really beautiful flying horse.

“And all these creatures get called by different names in different places.  In Parsia, the Ziz-like or griffon-like creature was called the Simurg or the Chamrosh; it was as big as thirty normal birds and usually considered benevolent.  It was said to be able to speak; in fact I remember something about how some of holy literature of that region is supposed to be uttered in the language of birds.  Isn’t that a lovely notion?  Really flash!”

“I know about something like that!” piped up Moosie Jaballa.  “There’s a story about God teaching King Solomon the language of birds!  And I remember reading somewhere that ancient Ejipt had a bird-god whose cry created the world.”

“We Jues believe that God created the world out of words – out of Hebru letters, that is,” said Avi, keeping his tone whimsical, “but I’ve never heard a bird speaking Hebru.”

Linna grinned and said, “Maybe they think in Hebru.  The verbs are strange enough to have come from another species.”

Avi made a wry face at her and said, “The Kristen scriptures have a saying, ‘In the beginning was the Word.’  Maybe it should have been ‘In the beginning was the Bird.’”

Amid titters, Linna said, “Anyway, Moosie, now I remember that Ejiptian myth you were talking about.  The bird was called the Bennu.  It’s the Ejiptian version of the Phenix.  As for the Phenix itself, some of you may have already researched it, but I’ll give you a capsule version of its story.  The Phenix was gorgeous, with gold and crimson plumage, and even though it resembled an eagle, it had a beautiful song.  It didn’t eat normal bird food but only aromatic gums like frankincense … ”

“Oh!” exclaimed Robbie.  The word rang a bell, but he couldn’t place it.

Linna cocked a questioning eyebrow at the Captain and he said again, “Oh!”  He had just remembered; frankincense was one of the gifts that the Wise Men of the kraytch brought to the newborn Haysus in Romisher beliefs.  He beamed on an uncomprehending Linna, pleased with himself for making the connection, and added, “Never mind me.  Go on.”

She blinked and continued.  “The Phenix was identified with the sun and with a sun-temple in ancient Egypt – there’s your Bennu-bird connection.  ”Only one of them could be alive at a time and it was extremely long-lived, with various stories giving it a lifespan of 500 all the way up to 13,000 years.  But inevitably the time would come for it to die, and then it would build itself a nest of spices and aromatic gums and set itself ablaze.  In three days a new bird would begin to regenerate from the ashes, destined to begin the cycle all over again.  So you can see that the Phenix is quite an apt metaphor for our interstellar program.” 

Lt.  Du spoke up.  “In Chiness culture we have a big bird called the Fung-Huang.  It’s said to have three legs and live in the sun, and sometimes it’s depicted as beautiful, but at other times it becomes one of those hybrid monsters, with a rooster’s beak, a snake’s neck, the  back end of a stag, and a fishtail.”

“Holy cry!” said Robbie.  “Astonishing what the human imagination can cook up!”

“And then finally there is the Rook, or Rukh, if you prefer,” said Linna, “which is closer to Avi’s Ziz than to the Phenix.  It was supposed to be big enough to carry away and eat elephants.  Some think it was inspired by the three-meter tall elephant bird that was native to the island of Magascar.  It went extinct about the middle of the 2nd millennium.”

“Yeah, Aepyornis,” said Robbie.  “But it was a ratite, like an ostrich.  It didn’t fly.” 

“Well, folk memories don’t exactly reflect scientific facts, you know,” said Linna.  And then she said, “Have any of you people ever heard of Sinbad?”

 

Coming next ...

Sinbad and the Rukh