So, first of all, thanks to Louanne's post in the "word association" thread (she posted "phoenix", which reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum, which set me thinking). Firstly, I'll assume that you have read the book, because I'm about to reveal a big spoiler. If you don't want to be spoiled, please look away. Don't say I didn't warn you! . . . . . . . So, a major element of the plot is thought to be an actual, literal phoenix, but it turns out to be a firebird. (Similar bird, different mythology). A phoenix is Greek mythology, a firebird is Russian and Slavic myth. A phoenix is immortal (well, lives for 500 years and then lays its egg and famously gets reborn). A firebird is basically a bird that flies in the midst of a flame that burns forever, and is therefore also (presumably) immortal. (In real life, a firebird is any little bird with red or orange plumage). So ... how can these be used in fantasy? Yes, the story of the pheonix is a lovely legend and so on, but I have to wonder: the phoenix, according to the legend, lays an egg. Presumably that makes it female. But if there is never more than one phoenix, who fertilizes the egg? But never mind that. How does a phoenix survive, anyway? As Granny Weatherwax points out in Carpe Jugulum, 'Everything has got lots of enemies'. So, suppose that a phoenix had enough enemies, same as any other bird ... and suppose some hunter, in the famous dawn-a-time, saw one of these fiery things flying about, let loose with an arrow, and got lucky -- *foom* -- no more phoenixes. Bit of a shame, isn't it? As for the firebird: I guess a hunter might see it flying across the sky and try to bring it down. There'd be many more obstacles in the way: for a start, it's so bright that he'd be dazzled (unless he was some kind of timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly Time Lord and remembered to wear shades, 'cos the past is so bright. =P But a Time Lord wouldn't use something as primitive as an arrow. Never mind). Besides, even if a hunter struck it lucky and actually managed to bring down an actual, authentic firebird ... so what? First, there are lots of them, and second, those things are bloody immortal -- so a mortal weapon like an arrow (or a bullet, etc.) wouldn't hurt them anyway. 'Tis but a scratch!! Yes, all right, fine. They're both metaphors. Have it your way. Way to ruin all my lovely speculations -- and possible ideas for a story! Fine ...
The way I see it, the Phoenix is symbolic of the death and rebirth myth, one of the most important ones. It reflects nature's cycles, but also all of us go through many deaths and rebirths in our life ("As within, so without"—the same patterns exist in nature and in human nature). The point is that you must die as who you've been before you can become a new version. You must let go of the habits or patterns of behavior that made you that person. Only then do you have any hope of reshaping yourself, transforming into your new form and rising from the ashes and ruin of your former life. So I think if you're going to use a Phoenix in a story—well, nevermind. There's no 'should.' I just want to say that if I were to use one, I'd examine the myth carefully, all versions I can find, read explorations of it, including (especially) the phsychological ramifications, and try to use it in a symbolic way, while hopfully bringing something fresh and exciting to it—bring it to life in a new way (isn't that appropriate?). But then that's pretty much what I try to do with all my stuff, ever since Passing Strange when I started to play around with mythological figures and monsters and the like.
Sure, that death-and-rebirth myth goes back to Isis and Osiris -- oh, and even further! Back to Gilgamesh, Tammuz and Enkidu. It might even have been told before the Epic of Gilgamesh, by people whose stories were never written because there was no language. All they had to do was observe the passing of the day into night, and the passing of the seasons, etc. I wasn't seriously thinking of using a phoenix (or firebird!) in a story ... yet. The above were simply idle thoughts. But now I think about it, what if a careless hunter does shoot down a phoenix (the symbol of the death-and-rebirth myth, as you say), and so brings mortality itself to an end? It becomes clear that everything would grow old, but never die. And so our dauntless hero/heroine sets off on a Quest to Reclaim Mortality from the Jealous and Wrathful Gods! Yes, I know this is only the germ of an idea and needs to be fleshed out, and it may have been done before (and probably many times) -- Prometheus bringing fire to mankind, the quest to reclaim Demeter from Hades -- but I can't recall a quest to reclaim mortality. Even if it's been done, I'm sure that I'd probably do it differently. To start with, what hunter would be so careless (or lucky) as to shoot down a (or the) phoenix? Why? Was he starving? Did he want to feed his family? What would happen when he/his family ate the phoenix -- would they themselves be imbued with immortality? Would they become semi-immortal (aka Hercules etc.) or even fully immortal like the gods? How would the gods react? How would the hunter react, when he/she finds himself to be immortal (or half-immortal)? Would he/she him/herself set out on the Quest? And would there be a ticking clock -- find and reclaim the secret of mortality before you become too old and decrepit to go any further? There we go, the beginning of a plot. (Huzzah!) Now all we need is a setting, a time, supporting characters, antagonists, etc... darn it! *L* No-one ever said that writing believable fantasy was easy.
Some nice creative thinking there! My initial thought was—if a hunter shoots down the Phoenix, well, it'll just re-spawn pretty soon, right? But maybe not in this anti-mythological world. Maybe all the mythological creatures have grown weak and mortal. Now I'm curious about what the Firebird represents, if anything? And why the affinity of certain animals (and people) for fire, so they can live in it?
Hmm, I wasn't thinking this in an anti-mythological way. I was only thinking, well -- even mythological creatures have to obey the laws of physics and causality. If you're a bird and you get shot, you die. (Think of Zeus when he became a swan to woo Leda; if Leda's tough-but-dim boyfriend came over and said, "'Ey up, what's all dis, den?" and got jealous and decided to wring the swan's neck and serve it up for dinner, would Zeus die and be eaten? And then Leda's boyfriend would eat Zeus and become the new Zeus!) I don't think the phoenix can re-spawn just like that. It's famous for being unique, one-of-a-kind. The only way we know of a phoenix popping into creation is when another (aging) phoenix builds a nest, puts his egg in it, and then summons its life energy to warm the egg in a fire that doesn't go out. The adult phoenix dies, and the fire cracks the egg, and the baby phoenix is born -- literally born in fire. As for firebirds ... in Russian folklore (according to encyclopedia.com), a firebird represents a treasure that is rare and difficult to possess. This is emphasized by descriptions of the bird, which often refer to its golden or glowing feathers and eyes that resemble jewels. The fact that just one of its feathers contains magic suggests the great power of the bird. Instances of animals and/or people living in fire are incredibly rare. In folklore, the most common such animals are salamanders, the chimera, fire giants (like the Norse Surtr), the Arabic djinn, and obviously dragons. But stories of people (as opposed to gods) who live in fire are almost non-existent. Fire gods are obviously plentiful: the Greek Hephaestus, the Buddhist Agni, the Persian Atar, the Egyptian Sekhmet. It's not surprising that many mythologies have fire gods, since having fire is so useful. I'm reading a history of Persia right now, and in ancient times (during the Achaemenid dynasty, which ended when Alexander the Great came on the scene), the major Persian god was Ahuramazda, and his son was Atar, the god of fire -- and there were many temples dedicated to holy fire. Persia (modern Iran), then as now, was rich in oil, and the ancient Persians noted how it burned without stopping, so fire worship in Persia must've seemed like the obvious next step.
I didn't know it in so much detail, I only knew when a Phoenix dies it's reborn from the ashes. I might start looking into this more now, it's getting interesting. A firebird sounds like a somewhat different formulation of a dragon, but they wear the treasure on their bodies. I looked up a list last night (one littered with misspellings and strange eggcorns) and it listed all the ones you did here plus some more‚ like fire nixies (related to water nymphs I think and tree sprites, or I might have the wording all mixed up). Fire is of course one of the major forces of nature, and one that can be helpful or harmful, and can shift from one to the other in a heartbeat (usually beginning as helpful or even necessary in cold climates, and then going out of control). In the Greek mythology it seems to be considered celestial, originating from the sun, the moon ,and stars, and of course it often comes to the earth in the form of lightning, so it's 'from the skies.' Many mythological figures, including gods, titans, frost giants, and various monsters, are built from forces of nature, and in the case of gods often associated with a human attribute or temperament that matches that force, such as Loki being a fire god and also a trickster who can be friendly and an ally one moment and then turn on you and become destructive. I've only seen this fire connection mentioned in Germanic tales of Loki, not so much in the Scandinavian ones. But it's said that sparks are his tears. A core tenet of mythology seems to be this 'personification' (or god-ification, or monster-ification) of those forces. The titans and frost giants (and doubtless other similar beings) are the forces in their rawest, most savage form, utterly destructive, and supremely dangerous, and the gods embody the same forces, but in smaller and more humanistic form, and they use them to protect humanity from those original destructive forces. And in the gods the forces are associated with matching human traits, for instance Thor is the storm and thunder/lightning and also courage, valor and strength. It's like a hierarchy, with the pure destructive forces of nature first taking gigantic monstrous form and going on destructive rampages all across the landscape, and then the gods stepping in to make the world less savage and more safe for us, so we can develop civilization. Then the offspring of the gods (demigods and heroes) are respectively closer to the human and have correspondingly lower levels of the forces of nature. Dragons seem to represent the fact that treasure (things of great value, referring more to inner treasure rather than gold and silver and jewels) are only obtained at great risk—the treasure is hoarded by a dragon and you must face it with all your courage and resourcefulness in order to defeat it and win the treasure. And dragons are also often associated with fire. Now I'm beginning to see a little deeper into it. Something like to obtain inner wealth (wisdom, courage, and doubtless a few more attributes) you must wrestle with something fierce and dangerous first. You may or may not survive it, or you may be seriously wounded by the encounter. There's always deep wisdom embedded in myths, in symbolic form. Later it would be developed into philosophy and psychology. But it's fascinating to figure out the meaning of these myths, embedded in the stories, like in dreams.
And I just realized—if you do face your fears and find new courage or wisdom as a result, despite the risk, that's definitely a form of 'dying as who you were and becoming reborn.' The fearful person you were is now replaced with a more courageous one who has 'walked through the fire' and emerged, maybe unharmed, maybe somewhat damaged, but stronger and wiser. It works both on a physical level and a psychological or inner one. This is the way the unconscious works, its fractal.* Dreams and mythology and other products of the unconscious tend to work at multiple levels. So the Phoenix is also closely associated with dragons. It just has that one additional spect added to it (that firebirds don't)—the death and rebirth concept. * Maybe fractal isn't the right term, but they work on an inner and outer level—as represented by the ancient hermetic phrase "As within so without, as above so below." The forces of nature have their corollaries inside of us as well—forces of inner or human nature. And the battles we see raging across the skyline or in a burning forest also have their inner corollaries. This is what the unconscious does, it finds connections between seemingly disparate things. it sees faces in clouds or rust stains, and makes other similar kinds of connections. The conscious mind isn't so good at that, it tends to separate things into discrete entities and see them as totally disconnected. Also the unconscious sees everything as alive, and the conscious sees things as dead or inert. a world of objects (the objective world) This is why myths and religions (especially the farther back you go, to when the conscious mind was in its infancy and hadn't been highly developed yet) see everything as being alive and having a soul. Animism, the earliest religion, put a soul in every tree, bush, cloud and rock, and people would ask them for permission before using them for anything. You see the same thing happen on an individual scale, because as children we run mainly on the unconscious. The conscious mind requires the apparatus of the neocortex to fully develop, which doesn't finish growing in until your mid twenties or so. As young children we're essentially dreaming all the time, and the conscious mind is gradualluy growing in. So toys and everything else are seen as living entities we can communicate with. And we tend to invest our good traits into some and our bad traits into others.
Hmm, I'm not sure whether firebirds have anything to do with dragons (other than the "treasure" aspect). In real life, a "firebird" is any small little dickie bird that has orange or red plumage that shines in the sun. Not especially dangerous, and certainly doesn't breathe fire (not even in the myths). In Slavic myth, a firebird (in Russian жар-пти́ца, or romanized as zhar-ptit-sa) is a magical and/or prophetic glowing or burning bird from a faraway land, which is both a blessing and a harbinger of doom to its captor. Here is one story about the firebird, and the luck or doom that it can bring. There are more stories in the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebird_(Slavic_folklore) As for the phoenix "rising from the ashes" -- of course it does! After the old phoenix builds its nest and puts its egg within, it burns itself and the nest completely, in order to hatch the egg, which is so strong that only the heat of a phoenix can crack it. The old phoenix dies, but a new one is born, literally "in the ashes" of its sire. It's a simple trope: death and life/birth, old-and-young, etc. Since we're talking about fire creatures, salamanders are an interesting one. Salamanders (the name comes from Greek, and means "fire lizard") are claimed by sources like Pliny and Aristotle to be born in fire, to be able to live in fire, and having the power to thwart fire. Maybe that's because fire salamanders (a common species in Europe, with black and yellow markings) often hide under logs, and when people gathered those logs to build a fire, salamanders ran out of the flames. Regardless, gathering real salamanders and throwing them into a fire is not an eco-friendly act.
You're missing the connections. Dragons usually have wings and can fly. Both are associated with treasure (in different ways, but the association is there) and with fire. So in one culture they breathe it and in one they live in it or whatever, the association is still there. It's a hallmark of the conscious mind that it focuses on details and misses the bigger picture. If you study dream interpretation you learn to loosen up and look at associations, rather than specifics that can lead you astray. Mythical beings, like dreams, arise from archetypes that dwell in the unconscious, so there will be versions of them showing up in various places. The versions will be different, of course, but the basics are the same. In fact, people pluck high-value feathers from the firebird, which must carry great risk with it, and if you're clever enough great reward. Cleverness is also emphasized with dragons, often you have to answer their riddles, which makes them kin to the Sphinx. In fact the thought struck me of the evolutionary connection between reptiles and birds, but that's too fiddly and specific, probably not something our ancient ancestors would have understood, though they may have unconsciously noted many similarities.
Oh! That's true, of course. I never thought of that. Thanks, Xoic! (I blame my momentary missing of connections on the fact that I've only had 9 hours of sleep over the past 2 days -- and the fact that it's 12:45am here now. This forum is too interesting to stop. Must stop. I have work to go to tomorrow).
