ロック鳥

ロック鳥（roc）は、中東の神話に登場する伝説の巨大な猛禽類である。

ロック鳥はアラブの地理学や博物学に登場し、アラブの童話や船乗りの民話として親しまれてきた。イブン・バットゥータは、中国海域の上空に山が浮かんでいることを伝え、それがロック鳥であったとしている。物語集である『千夜一夜物語』には、「アブド・アル・ラーマン」と「船乗りシンドバッド」でロック鳥が登場する。

語源

英語のロック（roc）は、アントワーヌ・ガラン（Antoine Galland）のフランス語を経て、アラビア語のruḵḵ（ Arabic: الرُخّ, ローマ字表記: ar-ruḫḫ）とペルシア語のruḵ（ペルシア語発音：[/rux/] ）に由来する。アラビア語、ペルシア語ともに、アラビア文字で「رخ」と表記される。一般的なローマ字表記は、アラビア語ではruḵḵ、ペルシア語ではruḵ, rokh または rukh である。似ているようで、逆に主張されることもあるが、英語のrookとは関係ない言葉である。

東洋起源

美術史家のルドルフ・ウィットカウアー（Rudolf Wittkower）によれば、ロック鳥の概念は、インドの太陽鳥ガルーダと神話の大蛇ナーガとの戦いの物語に起源を持つという。ガルーダがワニと戦っている象を倒すという神話は、『マハーバーラタ』（I.1353）と『ラーマーヤナ』（III.39）という二つのサンスクリット叙事詩に登場している。

伝説の起源は不明だが、8世紀初期にアラブ人が書いたものによると実在する鳥類がもとになった可能性があり、マルコ・ポーロの口述とされる『東方見聞録』にはマダガスカルにいたと記述されることから、同島に17世紀ごろまで生息していたゾウのように巨大な地上性の鳥であったエピオルニスを始め、近世までに絶滅してしまった大型の鳥類などが誇張されたとも考えられる。また、ユーラシア大陸南西部やアフリカ大陸北部の山地に生息するヒゲワシがそのモデルであるともされる。

ロック鳥の伝説は、イスラム世界やアジアでは広く伝わっていた。

のちの時代、マルコ・ポーロの『東方見聞録』のマダガスカルに関する記述の中に、現地人がルク（ruc）と呼ぶ大きな鳥が登場する。彼はこれをグリフォンであるとし、その羽は元のハーンに届けられたという。また巨大な羽のかけらが中国から来た商人によってスペインにも持ち込まれている。その住処をマダガスカルで探そうとしたところ、ロック鳥の羽としてもたらされたものに形が非常によく似たラフィアヤシ（Raffia palm|Raffia palm）の巨大な葉があったという。また、アラブの旅行家イブン=バットゥータの旅行記にもその記述がある。

一番新しいものでは、16世紀にインド洋を訪れたイギリス人旅行者が目撃したという報告もある。

ロック鳥は、アラブ人のいうフェニックスとほとんど同じものである。またペルシャの伝説に登場する巨鳥、シームルグとも近縁のものである。シームルグは、フェルドウスィーの叙事詩『王書』の中では英雄ザールの養父であり、彼の子のロスタムを援助したりしている。

古代イランまでさかのぼると、万物の種を生むという神話上の木から熟した果実を振り落としたという不死鳥、アムルゼス（amrzs）の伝説を見つけることができる。インドには、鳥の王であり、ヴィシュヌ神が乗るガルダの伝説がある。パーレビ王朝時代のこのインドの伝説の翻訳では、ガルダがシームルグに置き換えられている。

Western expansion

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.

In the 13th century, Marco Polo (as quoted in Attenborough (1961: 32)) stated

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. 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.

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). He explicitly distinguishes the bird from a griffin.

In The Arabian Nights the roc appears on a tropical island during Sinbad's second voyage. Because of Polo's account, others identified the island as Madagascar, which became the location for stories about other giant birds.テンプレート:R Doubtless, it was Polo's description that inspired Antonio Pigafetta, one of Ferdinand Magellan's companions, who wrote or had ghost-written an embroidered account of the circumglobal voyage: in Pigafetta's account the home grounds of the roc were the seas of China. Such descriptions captured the imaginations of later illustrators, such as Stradanus テンプレート:Circa 1590 or Theodor de Bry in 1594 who showed an elephant being carried off in the roc's talons, or showed the roc destroying entire ships in revenge for destruction of its giant egg, as recounted in the fifth voyage of Sinbad the Sailor. Ulisse Aldrovandi's Ornithologia (1599) included a woodcut of a roc with a somewhat pig-like elephant in its talons, but in the rational world of the 17th century, the roc was regarded more critically.

Rationalized accounts

The scientific culture of the 19th century introduced some "scientific" rationalizations for the myth's origins, by suggesting that the origin of the myth of the roc may lie in embellishments of the often-witnessed power of the eagle that could carry away a newborn lamb. In 1863, Bianconi suggested the roc was a raptor (Hawkins and Goodman, 2003: 1031). Recently a giant subfossil eagle, the Malagasy crowned eagle, identified from Madagascar was actually implicated as a top bird predator of the island, whose megafauna once included giant lemurs and pygmy hippopotamuses.

Another possible origin of the myth is accounts of eggs of another extinct Malagasy bird, the enormous Aepyornis elephant bird, hunted to extinction by the 16th century, that was three meters tall and flightless. There were reported elephant bird sightings at least in folklore memory as Étienne de Flacourt wrote in 1658.テンプレート:R Its egg, live or subfossilised, was known as early as 1420, when sailors to the Cape of Good Hope found eggs of the roc, according to a caption in the 1456 Fra Mauro map of the world, which says that the roc "carries away an elephant or any other great animal". Between 1830 and 1840 European travelers in Madagascar saw giant eggs and egg shells. English observers were more willing to believe their accounts because they knew of the moa in New Zealand. In 1851 the French Academy of Sciences received three eggs. They and later fossils seemingly confirmed to 19th-century Europeans that Aepyornis was the roc, but the real bird does not resemble an eagle as the roc is said to.テンプレート:R

ファイル:Print, Ferdinandes Magalanes Lusitanus, plate 4 from "Americae Retectio", 1580s (CH 18382163).jpg

Elephant Carried Away by a Roc after design by Stradanus, 1590

Another rationalizing theory is that the existence of rocs was postulated from the sight of the African ostrich, which, because of its flightlessness and unusual appearance, was mistaken for the chick of a presumably much larger species. There is, however, a claim that ostriches were known to Europeans in Biblical times due to a translation of the Old Testament.テンプレート:Vn On the other hand, a medieval Northern European or Indian traveller, if confronted with tales about ostriches, might very well not have recognized them for what they were (compare History of elephants in Europe).テンプレート:Citation needed

In addition to Polo's account of the rukh in 1298, Chou Ch'ű-fei (周去非, Zhōu Qùfēi), in his 1178 book Lingwai Daida, told of a large island off Africa with birds large enough to use their quills as water reservoirs. Fronds of the raffia palm may have been brought to Kublai Khan under the guise of roc's feathers.

Some recent scholarsテンプレート:Who have compared the legendary roc with the Haast's eagle, of New Zealand. テンプレート:Convert long with a テンプレート:Convert wingspan, it became extinct around the 15th century, but probably inspired the Māori legend of Te Hokioi or Te Hakawai. This was said to be a colorful huge bird which (in some versions of the legend) had occasionally descended to Earth to carry off humans to eat, but generally lived in the clouds unseen. Only its cry, after which it was named, could be heard. Indeed, the hokioi seems to be a composite mythical beast inspired by actual animals, just like the roc appears to have been. In the 1980s, it was found that male Coenocorypha snipes, tiny nocturnal waders, produce an unexpectedly loud roaring sound with their tails during mating flights. The supposed coloration of the hokioi is not matched by any known bird, and generally would be extremely unusual for a bird of prey. Thus, as it seems likely that the hokioi was the eerie "drumming" of the snipes, explained with the ancestor's tales about the giant eagles which they still knew from living memory.

Religious tradition

Michael Drayton

Through the 16th century the existence of the roc could be accepted by Europeans. In 1604, Michael Drayton envisaged the rocs being taken aboard the Ark:

<poem>All feathered things yet ever knowne to men,

From the huge Rucke, unto the little Wren; From Forrest, Fields, from Rivers and from Pons, All that have webs, or cloven-footed ones; To the Grand Arke, together friendly came,

Whose severall species were too long to name.</poem>

Ethiopian

The rukh is also identified in the Ethiopian holy book Kebra Negast as the agent responsible for delivering the blessed piece of wood to Solomon which enabled the great king to complete Solomon's Temple. This piece of wood also is said to have transformed the Queen of Sheba's foot from that of a goat to that of a human. The piece of wood that the rukh brought was therefore given an honored place in the Temple and decorated with silver rings. According to tradition, these silver rings were given to Judas Iscariot as payment for betraying Jesus; the piece of wood became Jesus's cross.

See also

• Eagle (Middle-earth), the giant birds of J. R. R. Tolkien's tales
• List of fictional birds of prey
• Mount Qaf, the only place in this world where the roc will land
• Roc (Dungeons & Dragons)
• Shahrokh
• Sinbad the Sailor
• Scaled Composites Stratolaunch, currently the largest airplane by wingspan, which carries the nickname Roc

参考文献

• Wikipedia：Roc (mythology)
• Wikipedia：ロック鳥

References

For a collection of legends about the roc, see Edward Lane's Arabian Nights, chap; xx. notes 22, 62

• Bochart, Samuel, Hierozoicon, vi.14
• Damfri, I. 414, ii. 177 seq.
• テンプレート:Aut (1658). Histoire de la grande île de Madagascar. Paris. New edition 2007, with Allibert C. notes and presentation, Paris, Karthala ed. 712 pages
• テンプレート:Aut (1994). "Description of a new species of subfossil eagle from Madagascar: Stephanoaetus (Aves: Falconiformes) from the deposits of Amphasambazimba," Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 107: 421–428.
• テンプレート:Aut (1988): The Hakawai. Notornis 35(3): 215–216. PDF fulltext
• テンプレート:Aut (1987): The identity of the hakawai. Notornis 34(2): 95–116. PDF fulltext
• テンプレート:Aut (2003) in テンプレート:Aut: The Natural History of Madagascar: 1019–1044. University of Chicago Press.
• Ibn Batuta, iv. 305ff
• Kazwini, i. ~I9 seq.
• テンプレート:Aut (2002). In search of the Red Slave: Shipwreck and Captivity in Madagascar. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
• Spiegel, Friedrich, Eranische Alterthumskunde, ii. 118.
• Yule, Henyテンプレート:Verify source as above.
• Allibert C., Le monde austronésien et la civilisation du bambou: une plume qui pèse lourd: l'oiseau Rokh des auteurs arabes, in Taloha 11, Antananarivo, Institut de Civilisations, Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie, 1992: 167–181

Further reading

• Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "A Linguistic and Literary Examination of the Rukh Bird in Arab Culture." Al-'Arabiyya 50 (2017): 105–17. www.jstor.org/stable/26451398.

External links

• Sir Richard F. Burton's notes on the Rukh