Bar yokni

The bar yokni (Hebrew: בר יוכני or בר יכני, lit. 'son of the nest') is a giant bird mentioned several times in the Talmud.

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]

See also

• Roc
• Ziz