Arising triumphantly from the ashes of its predecessor, the phoenix has been an everlasting image of resilience and renewal for millions of years. yet how did this legendary poultry turn into so recognized that it has performed a component in cultures around the globe and all through human heritage? How a lot of its tale will we truly comprehend? the following to supply a entire biography and interesting (un)natural heritage of the phoenix is Joseph Nigg, esteemed specialist on legendary creatures—from griffins and dragons to sea monsters.

Beginning in historic Egypt and touring all over the world and during the centuries, Nigg’s substantial and sweeping narrative takes readers on a super journey of the cross-cultural lore of this recognized, but little-known, immortal chicken. looking either the similarities and the variations within the phoenix’s many myths and representations, Nigg describes its numerous variations over millennia, together with legends of the chinese language “phoenix,” which was once one among the sacred creatures that presided over China’s future; classical Greece and Rome, the place it may be present in the writings of Herodotus and Ovid; nascent and medieval Christianity, during which it got here to embrace the resurrection; and in Europe throughout the Renaissance, whilst it used to be a favored logo of royals. Nigg examines a few of the phoenix traditions, the ideals and stories linked to them, their symbolic and metaphoric use, the skepticism and hypothesis they’ve raised, and their visual appeal in faith, bestiaries, or even modern pop culture, during which the ageless fowl of renewal is hired as a mascot and brand, together with for our personal college of Chicago.

Never bested via hassle or defeated via dying, the phoenix is the last word icon of desire and rebirth. And in The Phoenix: An Unnatural Biography of a legendary Beast, it eventually has its due—a whole chronicle priceless of one of these great and phantasmal creature. This unique and informative examine the

life and transformation of the phoenix often is the authoritative resource for an individual excited about folklore and mythology, re-igniting our interest approximately considered one of myth’s maximum beasts.