26 June: Phoenixes

According to Pharaoh’s Egyptian astrology we are currently in the sign of the Phoenix. 10 things you might not know about phoenixes:

1. A phoenix is a mythological bird which lives for a long time, anything from 500 years to 97,000 years depending on the myth, then bursts into flames and is reborn from the ashes. When the time comes for it to die it builds a nest which is either ignited by a clap of its wings, or by the Sun. Once it's burned to a crisp, a worm would crawl out of the ashes which would turn into a tiny phoenix. The new phoenix's first job would be to gather up the ashes and turn them into a ball of incense which it would fly to the temple of the sun god for burial.
2. There would only ever be one phoenix alive at a time, always a male.
3. Scholars disagree about whether the concept of a phoenix first appeared in Greek or Egyptian mythology. The origin of the phoenix was attributed to Ancient Egypt by Herodotus. It may be that the Egyptian phoenix was actually Bennu, a deity that looked like a heron and was reborn every 500 years.
4. In fact, there are birds similar to phoenixes in any number of mythologies. There's a Chinese version (Feng Huang), a Japanese version (Ho-Oo, which appears at the start of a new dynasty), a Slavic version (Firebird), a Hindu version (Garuda, king of the birds, an eagle like bird who was also the mount of the god Vishnu), a Native American version (Thunderbird) and a Jewish version (Milcham, a bird which lived in the Garden of Eden and refused to eat the fruit offered to it by Eve and so God granted it immortality).
5. The word comes from the Greek language, possibly deriving from a word which meant "griffin" or "palm tree" or the word for a Red dye called madder. The word Phoenician, meaning those who work with red dyes comes from the same root. So phoenix may mean 'the Phoenician bird' or 'the purplish-red bird'.
6. So a phoenix is red, then? Depends which mythology you subscribe to. While they all agree it would be a colourful bird which would stand out from all the rest, it was sometimes described as being red and Yellow, sometimes blue like a peacock with red legs and yellow eyes. Others said it had yellow/gold legs with sapphire Blue eyes and rose coloured talons. Its size varied as well, with some saying it was the size of an eagle and others saying it was much bigger, more like the size of an ostrich.
7. Greek mythology says that the phoenix would bathe in a well in Arabia each morning and would sing while it bathed. Its song was so beautiful that the sun god would stop his chariot to listen.
8. In heraldry, the phoenix is depicted as the head, chest and wings of an eagle rising from flames. The whole bird is never shown. It's commonly adopted as an emblem by places or entities which have been destroyed by something and been rebuilt. San Francisco's flag has one, because it was rebuilt after the earthquake in 1906, and Coventry's university and football club have one because the city was rebuilt after the Blitz.
9. The bird is commonly associated with the sun, immortality and resurrection. It's therefore a common symbol for Jesus Christ.
10. In the Harry Potter books, Dumbledore had a phoenix as a familiar. Hans Christian Anderson wrote about ‘The Phoenix Bird’ which was born under the tree of good and evil from a blossomed rose in the Garden of Eden. Finally, there is the X-Men character Phoenix, an alias used by Jean Grey and Rachel Summers.

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