Simurgh in the Kurdish folk-tales (1)

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In the Kurdish folktales the eagle Simurgh helps the hero as in the Mesopotamian Lugalbanda epics and in the Etana myth.

Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird:
The hero has been sent, for one reason or an other, on a dangerous journey, and he has arrived at an uninhabited place. There he rests under a big tree and sees that a snake or a dragon is just about to eat the young of a big bird. The hero kills the snake and goes to sleep. The bird arrives and sees the hero sleeping. It thinks that this is the enemy who has eaten its young in several previous years, but the young tell the bird that the hero has, on the contrary, saved them. The bird is thankful and promises to do for the hero anything he wishes. The hero has an arduous task to accomplish and he has to get to a far-away place; the difficulties are so great that even the bird exclaims: “Would it be that my young had been devoured this time too, it would be more pleasant to me than helping you to get there!” But because of the solemn vow that the bird has given, it carries the hero to his destination and in some versions also gives him a feather that he has to burn at a critical juncture so that the bird can come to help him again.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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