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ROC

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 425 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ROC , or more correctly Ruxa, a fabulous See also:

bird of enormous See also:size which carries off elephants to feed its See also:young. The See also:legend of the roc, See also:familiar to every one from the Arabian Nights, was widely spread in the See also:East; and in later times the See also:home of the, See also:monster was sought in the direction of See also:Madagascar, whence gigantic fronds of the Raphia See also:palm very like a See also:quill in See also:form appear to have been brought under the name of roc's feathers (see, See also:Yule's Marco See also:Polo, bk. iii. ch. 33, and See also:Academy, 1884, No. 62o). Such a See also:feather was brought to the See also:Great See also:Khan, and we read also of a gigantic stump of a roc's quill being' brought to See also:Spain by a See also:merchant from the See also:China seas (See also:Abu IJamid of Spain, in See also:Damiri, s.v.). The roc is hardly different from the Arabian `anka (see See also:PHOENIX); it is also identified with the See also:Persian simurgh, the bird which figures in Firdausi's epic as the See also:foster-See also:father of the See also:hero Zal, father of Rustam. When we go farther back into Persian antiquity we find an immortal bird, amru, or (in the Minoi-khiradh) sinamris, which shakes the ripe See also:fruit from the mythical See also:tree that bears the See also:seed of all useful things. Sinamru and simurgh seem to be the same word. In See also:Indian legend the garutla on which See also:Vishnu rides is the See also:king of birds (See also:Benfey, Pantschatantra, 98). In the See also:Pahlavi See also:translation of the Indian See also:story as represented by the Syrian Kalilag and Damnag (ed. Bickell, 1876), the simurgh takes the See also:place of the garucla, while See also:Ibn al-Mokaffa' (Calila et Dimna, ed. De Sacy, p.

126) speaks instead of the `anka. The later See also:

Syriac, curiously enough, has behmoth, apparently the See also:behemoth of See also:Job transformed into a bird. For a collection of legends about the roc, see See also:Lane's Arabian Nights, See also:chap. xx. notes 22, 62, and Yule, ut supra. Also see See also:Bochart, Hieroz, bk. vi. ch. xiv. ; Damiri, i. 414, ii. 177 seq. ; Kazwini, i. AI9 seq. ; Ibn Batuta, iv. 305 seq. ; Spiegel, Eran.

Altertumsk. ii. I18.

End of Article: ROC

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