Rok, or Roc

Rok, Or Roc, in Persian mythology, was an immense bird, so large that it bore elephants to its young in the nest. An egg of this monster once fell from its nest on the Albordshi, and with its fluid overflowed thirty-six towns and villages. Legends resembling this fable are met with everywhere; but it is remarkable that the inhabitants of Greenland are said to make use of very powerful bows, each formed of two claws of some gigantic bird, which are often found in the ice. It would accordingly seem that not everything said with regard to the rok is fable. There have been mammalia and amphibia whose size far exceeded that of any similar animals of our era; and there may, in like manner, have been birds which could as readily bear away a camel as the condor can a young llama.