Bar yokni
Jewish legendary bird
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Description
A source from the early third century, while recounting a series of extraordinary phenomena, claims that the bird was so large that one of its eggs dropped from a height flooded sixty cities and destroyed three hundred cedar trees.[1][2] In two other passages, the egg and the bird are cited as examples of huge size.[3][4]
An assertion suggesting that this bird would be reserved as a source of sustenance for the righteous during Messianic times appears in the writings of Elijah Levita.[5]
Identification
The Talmud identifies the bar yokni with the ostrich, mentioned in the Book of Job.[6] It describes how this bird, after laying its egg, flies with it at a great height to its nest, where it puts it gently down.[7] Other scholars connect the bar yokni with the ziz and the vâraghna, the swiftest bird mentioned in the Zend Avesta.[8][9]
