This was an
Arabian legendary
bird that was said to set
fire to itself and then rise from the
ashes every 500 years. It was supposed to be a bird of enormous size whose
tears were of
incense and its
blood of
balsam.
The
legends of how it died actually vary. Some said that when it grew old it constructed a
nest composed of
cinnamon and
thyme upon which it then rested and promptly expired. In
time a creature rose from its
bones and
marrow that was not unlike a
worm, which became a
fowl that flew off with its nest to the city of the
sun, where it placed the nest on an
altar.
Another ancient
narrator tells us that when the bird felt that its span of
life was drawing to a close it flew up in the
air to such a great height that the heat of the sun burnt its body to ashes.