MF #36; Ziz, The King of all birds [Mythical Creature]

Hello everyone, in the two previous videos, we've already established that the behemoth was a beast symbolizing the earth, and that the leviathan was a beast symbolizing the ocean. Today, we're exploring the third and final creature in the legendary trio of primordial beings from the old testament, Ziz, the beast of the sky. Ziz was also known as the king of all birds, and its size was said to be comparable to that of the leviathan and the behemoth. It was extremely large, and could cover the whole sky with its wingspan. Sometimes, it was also represented as a huge griffon that had its feet on earth while its head was touching the heavens. Its wingspan was so large that it was able to protect the earth from raging storms and violent hurricanes. It is also said that without the creature's protection, the earth will be destroyed by the powerful wind. Unfortunately, compared to the other two primeval creatures, there isn't that much scriptures or documents describing the origins of the myths surrounding the beast of the sky. The first time we heard of Ziz was in the book of Psalms, and was only mentioned twice in these ancient scriptures. However, the first time the myth around Ziz was really elaborated and explained more in details was in a story in the Babylonian Talmud, the ancient central texts that served as a primary source of Jewish religious laws. In that story, it was said that one day a group of men were traveling on board of a ship in a seemingly endless ocean. They were sailing until one of them saw a bird standing up to its ankle in the sea while its head was touching the sky. They figured out that since the bird was able to stand there, it probably meant that the ocean wasn't deep at all, and so they could leave their ships and go in the water to cool themselves after all this time traveling at sea. However, just before one of them was about to leave the ship and get into the water, a divine voice came out from the heavens and warned the men. The heavenly voice told them that seven years ago, an axe was dropped in that exact same place, in the water, and to this day, it still didn't reach the bottom of the sea. That's when the crew of the ship realized that the bird they were staring at was not a normal-sized bird at all. It was Ziz, the king of all birds, and the reason the water only came up to its ankles was simply because the creature was in fact colossal. Unfortunately, nowadays, Ziz is not as popular as the other two primordial beasts, Behemoth and Leviathan. Although there are a few children's books and stories about the great bird here and there, it's not even close to the sheer amount of popularity the Leviathan and the Behemoth have in popular culture. So that's it for today's myth! Thank you all for watching, and hopefully you enjoyed it! You can tell me what you thought of the video in the comment section below, and you can also suggest myths and legends that you would like to see me cover. Now then, thanks again, and see you all very soon!