The cinnamon bird, also known as Cinnamologus, Cinomolgus, or Cynnamolgus is a

mythical Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

creature described in various

bestiaries A bestiary () is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beas ...

as a giant

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

that collected

cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...

to build its nests.

According to Herodotus

According to

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

in his ''The History'', the cinnamon bird inhabited

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, the only country known to produce cinnamon at the time. The giant cinnamon birds collected the cinnamon sticks from an unknown land where the cinnamon trees grew, and used them to construct their nests, fastened to sheer

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

s. The Arabians employed a trick to obtain the cinnamon. They cut

oxen An ox (: oxen), also known as a bullock (in BrE, British, AusE, Australian, and IndE, Indian English), is a large bovine, trained and used as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castration, castrated adult male cattle, because castration i ...

and other

beasts of burden A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. Some are used for their physical strength (e.g. oxen and draft horses) or for transportation (e.g. riding horses and camels), while oth ...

into pieces, laid them near the birds' nests and withdrew to a distance; the birds were then tempted down to carry the chunks of meat back to their nests, where the weight of the carcasses broke them from the cliffs, leaving the Arabians to collect the fallen cinnamon.

According to Aristotle

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

's ''

Historia Animalium ''History of Animals'' (, ''Ton peri ta zoia historion'', "Inquiries on Animals"; , "History of Animals") is one of the major texts on biology by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. It was written in sometime between the mid-fourth centur ...

'' (''History of Animals''), one of his works of natural history, he explains that the cinnamon bird brought the cinnamon from unknown locations to build its nest on the slender branches in the tops of high trees. The inhabitants of the bird's home attached leaden weights to their arrow tips to topple the nests, collecting the cinnamon sticks within. Aristotle referred to the bird as .

According to Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

adopted a more skeptical view of the cinnamon bird, erroneously named ''cinnamolgus''. He discredited Herodotus specifically and antiquity in general in his ''Naturalis historia'' (''Natural History'') by asserting that the tales were invented by the natives to raise the price of their commodities.

Other appearances in classical literature

*''De Natura Animalium'' (''On Animals'') by

Claudius Aelianus Claudius Aelianus (; ), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so fluently that he was called "h ...

Solinus __NOTOC__ Gaius Julius Solinus, better known simply as Solinus, was a Latin grammarian, geographer, and compiler who probably flourished in the early 3rd century AD. Historical scholar Theodor Mommsen dates him to the middle of the 3rd century. ...

' ''Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium'' (''Collection of Remarkable Facts'') *''

Physiologus The ''Physiologus'' () is a didactic Christian text written or compiled in Greek by an unknown author in Alexandria. Its composition has been traditionally dated to the 2nd century AD by readers who saw parallels with writings of Clement of Alexa ...

'', a collection of moralized animal tales expanded upon over 1000 years *A

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

prose bestiary from the 12th century with Aristotle's version of the cinnamon bird *''How We Visited the Land of Satin'' from ''

Gargantua and Pantagruel ''The Five Books of the Lives and Deeds of Gargantua and Pantagruel'' (), often shortened to ''Gargantua and Pantagruel'' or the (''Five Books''), is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It tells the advent ...

'' by

François Rabelais François Rabelais ( , ; ; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French writer who has been called the first great French prose author. A Renaissance humanism, humanist of the French Renaissance and Greek scholars in the Renaissance, Gr ...

, referred to as cinnamologi

References

* Nigg, Joseph. ''The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient Times to the Present''. Oxford University Press, 1999. * Françoise Lecocq, ** « L’œuf du phénix. Myrrhe, encens et cannelle dans le mythe du phénix », ''L’animal et le savoir, de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance'', 2009, Presses univ. de Caen ; preprint on line : , p. 107-130
Archived copy
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606045250/http://www.unicaen.fr/services/puc/ecrire/preprints/preprint0172009.pdf , date=2011-06-06 ** « ''Kinnamômon ornéon'' ou phénix ? L’oiseau, la viande et la cannelle », ''Prédateurs dans tous leurs états. Evolution, biodiversité, interactions, mythes, symboles'', XXXIe Rencontre Internationale d'Archéologie et d'Histoire d’Antibes, dir. J.-P. Brugal, A. Gardeisen, A. Zucker, Éditions APDCA, Antibes, 2011, p. 409–420. Legendary birds Greek legendary creatures Legendary creatures in Roman mythology Cinnamon