Ancient Griffins

A 12^th-century Spanish Jewish traveler named Benjamin of Tudela crisscrossed Europe, Asia and Africa and wrote a book about his travels. The book was translated from Hebrew to Latin and it offered Europeans vivid descriptions of western Asia about a century before Marco Polo.

Benjamin of Tudela had something to say about the mythological bird known as the griffin or gryphon, well known in Arab imaginative literature as the rukh.

Of course, in western legend (dating back to the ancient Greeks and perhaps earlier), the griffin was a more complex creature than a simple giant bird, having the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

Classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor has suggested that this type of griffin may have been an ancient “misconception” caused when the ancients first saw the fossilized remains of the Protoceratops dinosaur in gold mines in the Altai mountains of Scythia, in what is now southeastern Kazakhstan. Protoceratops had an impressive "beak," like an eagle, and of course four legs like a lion.

Regardless, Benjamin of Tudela knew the griffin as a gigantic bird, and here is what he says:

Thence to cross over to the land of Zin (China) is a voyage of forty days. Zin is in the uttermost East, and some say that there is the Sea of Nikpa (Ning-po?),where the star Orion predominates and stormy winds prevail (1).At times the helmsman cannot govern his ship, as a fierce wind drives her into this Sea of Nikpa, where she cannot move from her place ; and the crew have to remain where they are till their stores of food are exhausted and then they die. In this way many a ship has been lost, but men eventually discovered a device by which to escape from this evil place. The crew provide themselves with hides of oxen.

And when this evil wind blows which drives them into the Sea of Nikpa, they wrap themselves up in the skins, which they make waterproof, and, armed with knives, plunge into the sea. A great bird called the griffin spies them out, and in the belief that the sailor is an animal, the griffin seizes hold of him, brings him to dry land, and puts him down on a mountain or in a hollow in order to devour him. The man then quickly thrusts at the bird with a knife and slays him. Then the man issues forth from the skin and walks till he comes to an inhabited place. And in this manner many a man escapes (2).

NOTES:

(1) Benjamin's statements as to India and China are of course very vague, but we must remember he was the first European who as much as mentions China. Having regard to the full descriptions of other countries of the old World by Arabic writers of the Middle Ages, and to the fact that the trade route then was principally by sea on the route indicated by Benjamin, it is surprising that we have comparatively little information about India and China from Arabic sources. In none of their records is the Sea of Nikpa named, and it is not improbable that Benjamin coined this name himself from the root . . . which occurs in the Bible four times; in the Song of Moses . . . (Exod. xv. 8): "The depths were curdled in the heart of the sea" (not "congealed" as the Version has it), Job x. 10: . . . "curdled me like cheese"; and in Zeph. i.12 and Zech. xiv. 6. The term "the curdling sea" would be very expressive of the tempestuous nature of the China Sea and of some of its straits at certain seasons of the year.

(2) Marco Polo has much to say about the bird "gryphon" when speaking of the sea-currents which drive ships from Malabar to Madagascar. He says, vol. II, book III, chap. 33: "It is for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size. 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 gryphon swoops down on him and eats him at leisure. The people of those isles call the bird "Rukh." Yule has an interesting note (vol. II, p. 348) showing how old and widespread the fable of the Rukh was, and is of opinion that the reason that the legend was localized in the direction of Madagascar was perhaps that some remains of the great fossil Aepyornis and its colossal eggs were found in that island. Professor Sayce states that the Rukh figures much--not only in Chinese folk-lore--but also in the old Babylonian literature. The bird is of course familiar to readers of The Arabian Nights.

[Source: Adler, Marcus Nathan, ed. and trans. The Itinerary of Benjamin Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages. London: Philipp Feldheim, 1907, pp. 94-95.]