Reading Notes: Sinbad, Part A

The prose style of this story is archaic and rather difficult, but the elements of the adventure itself are fantastic! This post will highlight and summarize a few monsters in order of appearance and provide more background for them.

The Island Whale: the first of many massive creatures Sinbad meets, and one of many giant sea creatures in legends and myths. Things of this nature show up in several Native American cultures, but the Iriquois creation myth in particular says the entire planet is a massive turtle in an infinite sea. The kraken and leviathan also fall into this category--in early kraken legends especially, it would surface for long enough that flora would grow on its back and sailors would mistake it for an island. Aztec mythology tells about land being created from the corpse of a giant crocodile. Indonesia, according to local myth, is what remains of a giant solidified crocodile as well, and Singapore is a turtle-shaped island that, according to legend, came about when a giant turtle turned itself to land to save drowning sailors. Pre-Islamic Arabian mythology turns this up to an extreme; according to myth, the world is on a massive angel's back, who is in turn on the back of a bull, who is in turn on the back of a fish, which is swimming through a vast astral ocean. As you might guess, because of its prevalence in mythology, giant waterbound creatures are also popular tropes in contemporary media.

The Giant Snakes: I'm led to believe these snakes are normal, other than being huge. Giant land monsters have a decidedly different place in myths and pop culture than giant waterbound monsters. Think Godzilla and King Kong. Snakes in particular carry creepy associations--think Harry Potter's basilisk. In mythology, think Greek mythological serpents, like the one Medea helped Jason to defeat, or the Norse ouroboros-like monster, Jormungandr.


The Roc: And to make it a triad, a giant airborn monster. Huge flying birds are unlike ground-bound
beasts, in that they are often helpful to pop culture and mythological heroes alike. Think the eagles from Lord of the Rings, the titular character's dragon in Eragon, and mythical birds like the phoenix and thunderbird. The roc specifically doesn't appear in too many myths or modern stories, but it does show up in a few RPG settings and in other games. The roc is mostly Arabic in origin, with Sinbad's story being its main fictional vehicle. Interestingly, one possibly real-life origin for the roc is the enormous (but flightless) Aepyronis elephant bird, which was hunted to extinction in the 15th century. It was said to be almost ten feet tall.


Sources:
The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang.TV Tropes: Sinbad the Sailor
TV Tropes: Turtle Island
TV Tropes: Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever
TV Tropes: Giant Flyer
Wikipedia: Roc

Image: Roc from the Book of Knowledge