Editing Roc (mythology) (section)

== Western expansion ==
[[File:Earth after the Fall of Man.jpg|thumb|1690 painting by Franz Rösel von Rosenhof showing two roc-like birds carrying a deer and an elephant; a third grapples with a lion.]] 
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 [[griffin]]s carry them off as if they were cattle.<ref>M. Komroff, ''Contemporaries of Marco Polo'' 1928:311f.</ref>

In the 13th century, [[Marco Polo]] (as quoted in [[David Attenborough|Attenborough]] (1961: 32)) stated <blockquote>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.</blockquote>

Polo claimed that the roc flew to [[Sultanate of Mogadishu|Mogadishu]]<ref>
“The island now known as Madagascar was named by no less a personage than Marco Polo, the famous Venetian explorer. Passing through Arabia on his way home from China in 1294, he wrote a description of "Madeigaskar" based on stories he heard from other travelers. The only problem was that he had confused the great island off the east coast of Africa with the bustling port of Mogadishu on the African coast, so none of the things he described were true of the real Madagascar. Besides getting the name wrong, he wrote of lions, giraffes, camels and huge flying birds on his mythical island that lifted elephants off the ground and dropped them to their deaths from a great height. The island was a source of indescribable wealth in his telling, full of gold, ivory and jewels.” - The Tragedy of Madagascar
An Island Nation Confronts the 21st Century
By Nathaniel Adams · 2022</ref> "from the southern regions", and that the [[Great Khan]] sent messengers to the island who returned with a feather (likely a ''[[Raffia palm|Raphia]]'' frond).<ref name="ley196608">{{Cite magazine
 |last=Ley
 |first=Willy
 |date=August 1966
 |title=Scherazade's Island
 |department=For Your Information
 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v24n06_1966-08#page/n45/mode/2up
 |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction
 |pages=45–55
}}</ref> 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.{{r|ley196608}} 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<ref>Or the Italian version in [[Giovanni Battista Ramusio|Ramusio's]] ''Delle navigationi et viaggi'', mentioned in [[Rudolf Wittkower]], "'Roc': An Eastern Prodigy in a Dutch Engraving" ''Journal of the Warburg Institute'' '''1'''.3 (January 1938:255–257) p 255</ref> the home grounds of the roc were the seas of [[China]]. Such descriptions captured the imaginations of later illustrators, such as [[Stradanus]] {{circa}} 1590<ref>An engraving after Stradanus is reproduced in Wittkower 1938:fig 33c.</ref> or [[Theodor de Bry]] in 1594 who showed an elephant being carried off in the roc's talons,<ref>De Bry's engraving is reproduced in Attenborough (1961: 35)</ref> 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#Fifth Voyage|Sinbad the Sailor]]. [[Ulisse Aldrovandi]]'s ''Ornithologia'' (1599) included a woodcut of a roc with a somewhat pig-like elephant in its talons,<ref>Illustrated in Wittkower 1938:33, fig. b.</ref> but in the rational world of the 17th century, the roc was regarded more critically. In the modern era, the roc, like many other mythological and folkloric creatures, has entered the bestiaries of some [[fantasy]] [[role-playing game]]s such as ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''.