A waldrapp or hermit ibis (Dr Karl Shuker)
The famous Greek
legend featuring Heracles and the dreaded Stymphalian birds. A non-existent
forest raven native to the lofty peaks of the Swiss Alps. The epic biblical
story of Noah and the Great Flood. What conceivable connection could exist
between such ostensibly disparate subjects as these? The answer is a genuine rara
avis called Geronticus - a baffling bird encompassed by all manner
of myths and mysteries, drawn together from the dreams of the past.
A young waldrapp (on left) and an adult (Dr Karl Shuker)
One of the twelve great labours imposed
upon the mighty Greek hero Heracles by the cowardly King Eurystheus of Argolis
was to vanquish the Stymphalides - a flock of brass-winged, crane-sized,
ibis-like birds with crests and a craving for human flesh, which frequented the
Stymphalian marshes in Arcadia. With the aid of a loudly resonating pair of
brass rattles forged by the fire god Hephaestus and loaned to him by the war
goddess Athena, however, Heracles was able to scare the birds out of their
marshy domain and into flight. Once they were airborne, wheeling overhead in a
frenzy of fright engendered by the ear-splitting cacophony of the rattles, he
then proceeded to fire volley after volley of arrows into their soft,
unprotected bellies, killing some and sending the remainder flying far away
towards the Black Sea, never to return to Arcadia.
A beautiful depiction of the Stymphalian birds battling Heracles (Titta/Deviantart / inclusion here strictly on Fair Use/non-commercial basis only)
These fearful bird-monsters were
originally thought to constitute an imaginative personification of marsh fever,
but in 1987 Swiss ornithologist Michael Desfayes proposed that they may
actually have been based upon a real (albeit smaller, harmless) bird.
Beautiful colour engraving of a hermit ibis or waldrapp from 1897 (public domain)
Also called the hermit ibis, the waldrapp Geronticus eremita is a very rare relative of the more familiar sacred ibis of Egypt and South America's scarlet ibis, and sports a crest, a long red beak, and bronze-coloured wings. It is nowadays restricted to a scattering of sites in Morocco, Algeria, Syria, and one notable locality in Turkey; it has also been reintroduced into Spain and Austria. However, it was once much more widespread, known from as far west as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (see below). Moreover, after comparing its morphology with classic descriptions of the Stymphalides, Desfayes opined that they were one and the same species, and that Greece should thus be added to the waldrapp's former distribution range.
Albrecht Dürer's extraordinary semi-humanoid portrayal of the Stymphalides
Not everyone agrees with his opinion - one researcher suggested that the real identity of the Stymphalides was the sacred ibis Threskiornis aethiopicus, which did once exist in Greece. However, this identity was based upon the evidence of a single depiction of the Stymphalides as black and white birds, whereas there are many others depicting them in other forms, so this particular identification is by definition highly selective. Perhaps the strangest and most distinctive portrayal of the Stymphalides appears in a painting from c.1500 by Albrecht Dürer in which they are represented with the heads and upper torsos (including arms and breasts) of women, and long mermaid-like fishtails!
Conrad Gesner's depiction of the mysterious forest raven
Another longstanding mystery bird from
Europe was the Swiss forest raven, described
and portrayed by Zurich scholar Conrad Gesner in his Historiae
Animalium, published in 1555. Later writers dismissed this bird as
imaginary, because it seemed to resemble a crested ibis rather than a raven,
and there was no ibis-like bird known from Switzerland. Not until 1941 was the
mystery finally resolved, when geologically Recent remains of waldrapps were
excavated from the Glarus Alps and sites near Solothurn.
Early waldrapp depictions by German naturalist Johann Bechstein (left) and English naturalist/illustrator Eleazar Albin (right) (public domain)
This distinctive bird corresponds perfectly with Gesner's description and depiction of his perplexing 'forest raven', and it is now known that way back in 1504 the waldrapp (whose name translates from German as 'wood crow') was formally designated a protected species in the Alps by Archbishop Leonard of Salzburg. Tragically, however, his decree was largely ignored, and the waldrapp's nestlings were hunted mercilessly as prized culinary delicacies. Less than a century later it had become extinct here, swiftly fading from memory and ultimately transforming into an apparently mythical, non-existent bird known only from a medieval bestiary.
A waldrapp revealing its distinctive crest, as accurately portrayed by Gesner (Dr Karl Shuker)
It is likely that the
waldrapp would have become extinct in Turkey too, but here it has been saved
not only by modern conservationist zeal but also by traditional religious
belief. According to ancient Turkish lore, the waldrapp was one of the birds
released by Noah after the Great Flood, and symbolises fertility - giving the
people of Birecik, site of this species' only notable Turkish colony, an added
incentive for perpetuating its tenuous survival here.
The weird yet very wonderful waldrapp (Dr Karl Shuker)
Posts
Aren't the Stymphalian birds the ones Henriette Mertz identified with a South American species?
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard of this, but if so, how can a bird of ancient Greek mythology be identified with a South American species?
ReplyDeleteHenriette Mertz was a lawyer by profession and a very popular and creative diffusionist who wrote Pale Ink. I think what I am remembering from about twenty years ago was a book she wrote on the Odyssey. The wine dark sea: Homer's heroic epic of the North Atlantic by Henriette Mertz (1964). She spent some time describing her idea. As I recall it had as lot to do with the troublesome nature of the birds and she identified them with an unusual South American species.
ReplyDelete