Read Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters for Free Online
Authors: Matt Kaplan
high, and then dropping the bones onto rocky terrain below. The impact breaks the bones into pieces and allows the vultures to feed upon the juicy marrow inside.
That the Rukh seems to have done exactly what bearded vultures were doing, but on a grander scale, hints that the formation of this monster actually required the careful observations of the natural world that ultimately played a part in driving the Calydonian boar and Nemean lion to their end.
But why invent a Rukh at all? To answer this, it is helpful to look at what the Rukh offered that both the Calydonian boar and the Nemean lion did not. At its core, the Rukh differs from the boar and lion only in its ability to fly. Neither the boar nor the lion could contribute to the fears of ancient sailors heading off into the unexplored seas. The Rukh, on the other hand, because it had wings and could soar over oceans, remained a threat.
In Hindu mythology, the Rukh had something of a kindheartedalter ego in the form of Garuda, a giant bird of prey that the god Vishnu rode as an aerial mount. Garuda was a champion of good and frequently depicted in the Mahabharata as hunting venomous snakes and snakelike creatures. And in modern mythology, J. R. R. Tolkien presents the giant eagles in The Lord of the Rings as allies who save the wizard Gandalf when he is imprisoned by the villainous wizard Saruman. Why such variation?
It is impossible to know what the inventors of these benevolent beasts were thinking when they created them, but one possibility might be that regional understandings of birds and snakes differed between those dwelling in Middle Eastern settlements where the Rukh legend formed and Southeast Asian settlements where Garuda did.
Certainly, from the perspective of snakebites, these regions show very different patterns. In 1998, a review of the morbidity and mortality of snakebites in locations around the world was published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization . Aside from pointing out that deaths from snakebites are a major health problem in many places, the report presents some of the best available data on where humans are most likely to get bitten by a snake, fall ill from the bite, and die.
In India, the situation is relatively bad. The number of bites per year that actually get reported averages around 114.5 per 100,000 people, and roughly half require medical intervention to treat the spread of the venom through the body. Fortunately, due to the availability of antivenins, only 3 people per 100,000 typically die annually. In the Middle East, the situation is staggeringly different. An average of 12.5 bites are reported per 100,000 people and only 0.062 people per 100,000 die.
In fairness, perhaps it is not appropriate to look at current deaths from snakebites, since this could represent more of a commentary on the state of medical facilities in these two regions than on the threats actually presented by snakes, but the sheer number of snakebites being reported per year is probably a somewhat fair representation of the overall snake threat to the local population. With this in mind,it is pretty obvious that the snakes of India are a much more serious hazard than the snakes of the Middle East. And a 1954 report in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization confirms this by concluding that Southeast Asia was the fatal snakebite capital of the world at the time.
In both regions, there are birds of prey that hunt snakes, but among locals in India, where snakes currently inflict nine times more bites per 100,000 people than they do in the Middle East, one has to wonder if seeing birds of prey killing these dangerous animals might have been viewed as something positive. Did the goodness of Garuda have to do with the serious dangers presented by snakes? Was it the snake-hunting services provided by birds in the region that led to the invention of the noble Garuda in the first place? This all seems likely.
As for Tolkien, he was writing at a
That the Rukh seems to have done exactly what bearded vultures were doing, but on a grander scale, hints that the formation of this monster actually required the careful observations of the natural world that ultimately played a part in driving the Calydonian boar and Nemean lion to their end.
But why invent a Rukh at all? To answer this, it is helpful to look at what the Rukh offered that both the Calydonian boar and the Nemean lion did not. At its core, the Rukh differs from the boar and lion only in its ability to fly. Neither the boar nor the lion could contribute to the fears of ancient sailors heading off into the unexplored seas. The Rukh, on the other hand, because it had wings and could soar over oceans, remained a threat.
In Hindu mythology, the Rukh had something of a kindheartedalter ego in the form of Garuda, a giant bird of prey that the god Vishnu rode as an aerial mount. Garuda was a champion of good and frequently depicted in the Mahabharata as hunting venomous snakes and snakelike creatures. And in modern mythology, J. R. R. Tolkien presents the giant eagles in The Lord of the Rings as allies who save the wizard Gandalf when he is imprisoned by the villainous wizard Saruman. Why such variation?
It is impossible to know what the inventors of these benevolent beasts were thinking when they created them, but one possibility might be that regional understandings of birds and snakes differed between those dwelling in Middle Eastern settlements where the Rukh legend formed and Southeast Asian settlements where Garuda did.
Certainly, from the perspective of snakebites, these regions show very different patterns. In 1998, a review of the morbidity and mortality of snakebites in locations around the world was published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization . Aside from pointing out that deaths from snakebites are a major health problem in many places, the report presents some of the best available data on where humans are most likely to get bitten by a snake, fall ill from the bite, and die.
In India, the situation is relatively bad. The number of bites per year that actually get reported averages around 114.5 per 100,000 people, and roughly half require medical intervention to treat the spread of the venom through the body. Fortunately, due to the availability of antivenins, only 3 people per 100,000 typically die annually. In the Middle East, the situation is staggeringly different. An average of 12.5 bites are reported per 100,000 people and only 0.062 people per 100,000 die.
In fairness, perhaps it is not appropriate to look at current deaths from snakebites, since this could represent more of a commentary on the state of medical facilities in these two regions than on the threats actually presented by snakes, but the sheer number of snakebites being reported per year is probably a somewhat fair representation of the overall snake threat to the local population. With this in mind,it is pretty obvious that the snakes of India are a much more serious hazard than the snakes of the Middle East. And a 1954 report in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization confirms this by concluding that Southeast Asia was the fatal snakebite capital of the world at the time.
In both regions, there are birds of prey that hunt snakes, but among locals in India, where snakes currently inflict nine times more bites per 100,000 people than they do in the Middle East, one has to wonder if seeing birds of prey killing these dangerous animals might have been viewed as something positive. Did the goodness of Garuda have to do with the serious dangers presented by snakes? Was it the snake-hunting services provided by birds in the region that led to the invention of the noble Garuda in the first place? This all seems likely.
As for Tolkien, he was writing at a
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