Bird

Ubume

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Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternative names: Ubume, Ubugame, Guhuo Bird (姑獲鳥)
Category: Ghost, Bird

The Myth

The Ubume is the restless spirit of a woman who died during childbirth. She appears at night along lonely roads, bridges, and riverbanks, carrying an infant in her arms. Dressed in blood-stained clothing, she weeps and asks passersby to hold her child for a moment while she fixes her hair or prays for salvation.

Anyone who accepts the baby soon discovers that it grows heavier and heavier. In some tales, the child eventually transforms into a stone or a bundle wrapped around a straw hammer. Other stories say that a person who fulfills the Ubume’s request and faithfully carries the child receives extraordinary physical strength as a reward. In Akita Prefecture, this supernatural power was known as Obōjikara.

The Ubume is one of Japan’s oldest ghostly beings and was already known during the time when the Konjaku Monogatari-shū was compiled. During the Edo period, it became closely associated with the Chinese Gu Huo Bird, since both were believed to originate from women who had died while pregnant or giving birth. Because of this connection, the two creatures gradually became confused with one another.

Most depictions portray the Ubume as a sorrowful woman holding a baby while wearing blood-soaked garments. Some illustrations, however, give her bird-like features, with wing-shaped arms wrapped protectively around the child.

Though feared, the Ubume is not considered a malicious spirit. She is remembered as a tragic mother unable to abandon her child, forever wandering the night and seeking someone willing to carry the burden she herself could no longer bear.

Sources

TYZ. (n.d.). Ubume [産女]. In 新版TYZ 妖怪図鑑. Retrieved June 20, 2026, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1010652594.html

Dragon Eagle

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Tradition / Region: Bulgarian Mythology
Alternative names: Eagle Dragon / Dragon Eagle
Category: Dragon, Bird

The Myth

High above the mountains of Bulgaria there lived a supernatural eagle connected to storms, dragons, and the powers of the sky. It nested on remote peaks, flew above the clouds where violent winds raged, and was believed to travel between the world of the living and the underworld. Unlike ordinary creatures, the eagle never grew old because it drank from a hidden lake of life-giving water at the edge of the world.

The Dragon Eagle was feared and respected as a guardian of villages and farmlands. In the Pirin mountains it was said to build its nest in giant sycamore trees overlooking the countryside. From there it defended the land against destructive hailstorms and black storm clouds. As storms approached, the eagle flew directly against them, battling the clouds in the sky and driving them away before they could ruin crops.

People believed the eagle’s powers were almost identical to those of the dragon. In parts of Western Bulgaria, the Rhodopes, and Serbia, dragons and eagles were sometimes considered the same kind of supernatural being. The Dragon Eagle was said to possess four invisible wings and to create winds merely by flying. Some traditions claimed it could even become human or take human form, much like dragon-men in Balkan folklore.

The eagle was also connected with sacred trees, especially the oak, the tree of thunder. It symbolized both heavenly and earthly power. Folk songs described giant eagles battling in forests while rivers of blood flowed beneath them. In older traditions, the Dragon Eagle was seen not only as a storm fighter but as a guardian spirit and protector of clans, villages, and rulers.

One of the oldest images linked to the creature was the battle between the eagle and the serpent. This struggle appeared in medieval art and stories across Bulgaria, where the eagle represented heavenly force and the serpent represented darkness, evil, or destructive powers. Because of this, images of eagle-like dragon beings were carved onto churches, doors, jewelry, and protective objects to ward away danger.

Sources

Georgieva, I. (1985). Bulgarian mythology. Sofia: Svyat Publishers.

White Bird with the Golden Tail

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Tradition / Region: Moldova Mythology
Alternative names: The White Bird, Golden-Tailed Bird
Category: Bird

The Myth

The White Bird with the Golden Tail is a mysterious supernatural creature from Moldovan folklore connected with enchanted trees, magical kingdoms, and distant otherworldly realms. It appears first as a radiant white bird with a shining golden tail, but later reveals its true form as a beautiful fairy-like maiden.

The story begins with an Emperor and Empress who longed for a child. After the Empress walked through the Blue Grey Wood at dawn along an untouched path wet with dew, she gave birth to a miraculous son named Break-of-Day. At the same time, an enormous tree began growing in the imperial garden, rising so high that its top disappeared into the sky. At its summit grew three golden apples.

Many warriors tried to climb the tree and failed, but Break-of-Day spent twelve years climbing until he finally reached the top. There he discovered the White Bird with the Golden Tail descending from the sky to eat the apples. Before the creature could devour the last one, Break-of-Day seized the bird by the tail. The bird escaped, leaving behind a golden feather while the prince saved the final apple.

Determined to find the strange being, Break-of-Day journeyed through magical lands and eventually learned from the Black Arab — a powerful supernatural ruler and shapeshifter — that the bird was not truly a bird at all, but a maiden of extraordinary beauty living beyond deadly enchanted barriers.

Her realm was protected by poisonous gardens, magical walls, and powerful curses. When Break-of-Day finally reached her palace, he captured her by the waist while she slept, just as the Black Arab had instructed. But his curiosity awakened ancient powers and brought him into conflict with devils, underworld rulers, and supernatural horse guardians.

Throughout the tale, the White Bird remains connected to gold, light, and transformation. Her palace and gardens could be turned into golden apples, and when the Devil who controlled her finally died, the bird itself transformed completely into a beautiful maiden. She then traveled beside Break-of-Day as his companion and future bride.

The tale presents the White Bird with the Golden Tail as both an elusive sky-creature and an enchanted woman tied to magical kingdoms, impossible journeys, and supernatural trials. She belongs to the distant world above the clouds and beyond mortal lands, appearing first as a radiant bird feeding upon golden fruit high at the top of a tree that touched the heavens.

Sources

Botezatu, G. (1986). Moldavian folk-tales (2nd rev. & enl. ed.). Kishinev: Literatura Artistikă.

Sango the Eagle

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Tradition / Region: Ghana Mythology
Alternative names: Sango, Sango the Bird
Category: Bird

The Myth

Sango was a powerful magical eagle known for supernatural abilities and terrifying vengeance. She could heal wounds, transform the land itself, restore forests, destroy entire villages, and command reality with spoken words.

One story tells of Sango meeting an old woman suffering from a terrible sore on her leg. The eagle healed the wound instantly with magic. She then transformed the empty land around the woman into farms, houses, and finally an enormous town. In return for all this, Sango asked only for a silk-cotton tree where she could build her nest.

The old woman agreed, and Sango settled there, laying two eggs in the great tree. After hatching her children, she left to search for food. While she was gone, the old woman’s grandchild demanded to eat the eagle’s young. The child cried and screamed until the old woman ordered the villagers to cut down the silk-cotton tree and seize the eaglets.

As the axes struck the tree, one of the young eagles climbed to the edge of the nest and cried out desperately for its mother:

“Sango, the bird!
Sango, come back!”

Sango heard the cries and rushed back through the sky. Using her magic word “Sanguri,” she restored the nearly-fallen tree and swallowed the attackers within it. After feeding her children, she warned them and left once more.

But the villagers returned again. This time Sango was too far away to hear the cries. The silk-cotton tree crashed down, and the villagers captured the eaglets. One escaped, but the other was roasted and eaten by the old woman’s grandchild.

When Sango returned and learned what had happened, she flew to the village in fury. She spoke her magic again:

“Sanguri.”

At once the people vanished. Again she spoke, and every house collapsed. Again the village became wilderness. Finally, the old woman’s terrible sore returned to her leg exactly as before.

Sango then declared that kindness must be repaid with kindness, not betrayal and cruelty.

Sources

Rattray, R. S. (1930). Akan-Ashanti folk-tales. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Silver Bird of Dzialandze

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Tradition / Region: Comoros Mythology
Alternative names: The Birds of Dzialandze, The Jinn’s Birds
Category: Bird

The Myth

The Silver Birds of Dzialandze are mystical creatures said to inhabit the enchanted lake of Dzialandze on Anjouan. They are described as elegant birds with feathers that shimmer like polished silver beneath the sunlight and moonlight alike. Their songs are soft, haunting, and strangely melodic, echoing across the lake and forest like voices from another world.

According to local tradition, the birds serve the jinn who dwell within the sacred waters of Dzialandze. The lake itself is believed to possess supernatural purity: no fallen leaf, branch, or speck of dirt is ever allowed to rest upon its surface. Whenever something falls from the surrounding forest canopy, the silver birds descend instantly, snatching it away before it can touch the water.

The people of Anjouan believe the birds are not ordinary animals but spiritual guardians bound to the lake by an ancient pact with the unseen world. Their endless vigilance preserves the sacred balance between nature, spirits, and humanity.

One of the most famous legends surrounding the birds tells of a curious boy named Hani. Fascinated by stories of the lake, he secretly traveled there at dawn to witness the miracle for himself. Hidden among the bushes, he watched in amazement as a single falling leaf was caught midair by a flash of silver wings before it touched the water.

Overcome with curiosity, Hani threw handfuls of leaves into the air to test the birds. They darted through the sky with supernatural speed, catching every leaf before it landed. But as they did, mist rose from the lake and a luminous jinn emerged from the waters.

The spirit warned Hani that the lake was sacred and remained pure because of the harmony between the jinn and the silver birds. Disturbing that balance, the jinn explained, could invite chaos into the world.

Humbled and frightened, Hani apologized. The jinn forgave him and instructed him to teach others to respect the mysteries of Dzialandze rather than seek to control or challenge them.

From that day onward, the Silver Birds became symbols of sacred balance, spiritual guardianship, and the invisible forces protecting the natural world. Even today, stories persist of travelers hearing strange songs near the lake at dusk or glimpsing flashes of silver wings moving silently through the mist above the water.

Sources

Hichamou, P. (n.d.). Prince tales of the Comoros: Legends, mysteries & enchantments from the Isles of the Moon.

Passadinha

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Tradition / Region: Cape Verde Mythology
Alternative names: Passadinha, Little Blue Bird
Category: Bird

The Myth

Passadinha is a mysterious little blue bird from Cape Verde folklore, remembered for its bright red mouth, mocking intelligence, and connection to the downfall of Lob the Wolf. Though physically small and seemingly harmless, Passadinha acts as a supernatural trickster figure that humiliates greedy or foolish characters. In the tales, the bird is often associated with the sky, unreachable places, and deceptive appearances. Its red mouth is sometimes mistaken for meat by the starving Lob, emphasizing the bird’s strange, almost magical nature.

In one story, Lob learns from his clever nephew Tobinh’ about an enchanted fig tree that obeys spoken commands. By saying special words, the tree bends down to the ground, allowing someone to climb aboard before rising high into the air. Lob uses the tree to gorge himself on fruit, but in his greed he forgets the command needed to descend.

Instead of bringing him back to earth, the tree continues rising higher and higher until it reaches heaven itself.

There Lob encounters God, who gives him pieces of leather to wash so a drum can be made for him. But Lob is so hungry and gluttonous that he repeatedly eats the leather instead. Eventually God sends an angel to watch him, and a drum is finally completed. Lob is lowered back toward earth hanging from a string attached to heaven itself. God instructs him to beat the drum once he safely reaches the ground so the string can be cut.

As Lob descends through the sky, he sees Passadinha flying nearby. The bird carries something red in its mouth which Lob mistakes for meat. Desperate with hunger, he begs the bird for food.

Passadinha refuses unless Lob plays the heavenly drum.

Lob knows that if he beats the drum too early, God will cut the string and he will fall to his death. But his greed overwhelms him once again. Hoping to survive the fall, he shouts for Tobinh’ to prepare mattresses and hay below.

Instead, Tobinh’ gathers knives, razors, broken glass, pins, and every sharp object he can find.

Lob finally plays the drum.

God cuts the string.

Lob crashes down onto the deadly trap below and is killed.

In the tale, Passadinha functions as more than an ordinary bird. It acts almost like a sky-spirit or supernatural tester whose presence exposes greed, impatience, and foolishness. Small, mocking, and untouchable, the bird represents cunning intelligence triumphing over brute appetite — a recurring theme throughout Cape Verdean Lob stories.

Sources

Parsons, E. C. (1923). Folk-lore from the Cape Verde Islands. Part I. Cambridge, MA & New York: American Folk-Lore Society.

Aunt Ganga

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Tradition / Region: Cape Verde Mythology
Alternative names: Ganga
Category: Bird

The Myth

Aunt Ganga is a strange and frightening being from Cape Verde folklore, associated with a water-fowl but portrayed more like a supernatural old woman or monstrous bird spirit. She lives alone in an isolated house protected by a magical talking door that opens only with secret words. She is connected with huge stores of eggs, bundles of firewood, ashes, and dark magical power. In the tale, she appears as an elderly female figure with immense strength and an intimidating presence, carrying enormous loads of wood through the wilderness by herself. Though not described in precise physical detail, she is imagined as something between a giant bird and an old crone: harsh, dangerous, solitary, and feared.

In the story, Lob the Wolf becomes jealous after noticing how fat and healthy his clever nephew has grown. The nephew finally reveals that he has secretly been stealing eggs from Aunt Ganga’s hidden house, but he warns Lob that she is extremely dangerous and unlucky visitors do not survive encounters with her.

Lob insists on going anyway.

Before entering the house, the nephew teaches Lob the magical words needed to open the enchanted door:

“Door toboc tobac!”

But he deliberately gives Lob the wrong phrase for leaving the house, ensuring he will become trapped inside once Aunt Ganga returns.

Inside the house, Lob becomes consumed by greed. He devours enormous numbers of Aunt Ganga’s eggs while continuing to eat even after his nephew warns him she is approaching. Outside, the nephew watches Aunt Ganga returning through the landscape carrying a huge bundle of gathered wood. As she approaches, songs are exchanged between Lob trapped inside the house, the mocking nephew outside, and Aunt Ganga herself advancing toward the door.

When Aunt Ganga reaches the house, Lob mistakenly repeats the false password and the magical door refuses to open. Suspicious, Aunt Ganga commands the door repeatedly until it finally bursts open on its own.

Lob hides beneath the bed while Aunt Ganga calmly enters, prepares coffee, and lies down to rest. But when she breaks wind, Lob insults her from beneath the bed, calling her filthy. Realizing something is hiding in the room, Aunt Ganga searches until she discovers him.

Lob leaps upward and clings desperately to a roof beam while Aunt Ganga savagely beats him. Eventually exhausted, he falls into a pile of ashes where he hides in silence.

When the nephew later arrives, Aunt Ganga explains that Lob somehow disappeared. The nephew tricks Lob into exposing himself by claiming that members of Lob’s kind never die without breaking wind.

Hearing this, Lob foolishly breaks wind loudly from inside the ashes, revealing his hiding place.

Aunt Ganga immediately kills him.

In the tale, Aunt Ganga functions as a supernatural guardian of hidden food and secret places. She punishes greed, intrusion, and gluttony, while her magical house and enchanted door give her the qualities of a witch, ogress, or spirit-being rather than an ordinary woman.

Sources

Parsons, E. C. (1923). Folk-lore from the Cape Verde Islands. Part I. Cambridge, MA & New York: American Folk-Lore Society.

Fire Hawk

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Tradition / Region: Burkina Faso Mythology
Alternative name: Giant Hawk
Category: Bird

The Myth

The Fire Hawk is a gigantic supernatural bird from Moose folklore in Burkina Faso. It is remembered as a terrifying creature that descended from the sky to attack villages and devour people.

According to the legend, the monster appeared every seven days. Entire communities lived in fear of it, knowing that sooner or later the hawk would return to claim more victims. People eventually gathered together, preparing to sacrifice themselves all at once so the nightmare would finally end.

The hawk was said to land on a massive rock before attacking. When it opened its beak, fire burst out, scorching the ground and terrifying everyone nearby. Its arrival was associated with destruction, panic, and death.

The hero Raôgo confronted the creature after hearing of the suffering it caused. Armed with a heavy iron club, he faced the giant hawk alone. During the battle, the hawk repeatedly rose after being struck down, but Raôgo continued attacking until he finally killed the monster.

After the death of the Fire Hawk, the people celebrated their freedom from the creature’s terror. In some versions of the story, the defeat of the hawk becomes linked to storms and thunder, with Raôgo later ascending into the sky alongside his sister Poko.

Sources

Sissao, A.-J. (2010). Folktales from the Moose of Burkina Faso. African Books Collective.

Huma

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Tradition / Region: Iranian Mythology, Persian Mythology
Alternative Name: –
Category: Bird

The Myth

The Huma is a legendary bird from Persian mythology said to live its entire life flying high above the earth without ever landing. In many legends, the bird is invisible to humans and is believed to never touch the ground.

The Huma is often described as a bird of fortune and divine blessing. Seeing its shadow or catching even a brief glimpse of it is believed to bring happiness, luck, or greatness for the rest of a person’s life. In some traditions, the bird’s shadow falling upon someone foretells that they will become a ruler or king.

Certain legends describe the Huma as similar to a phoenix, burning itself in fire after many centuries before rising again from its ashes. Some stories also say the creature possesses both male and female qualities within a single body.

In Persian and Sufi traditions, the Huma became a symbol of spiritual elevation, destiny, and unreachable perfection. The bird was believed to be impossible to capture, and legends warned that anyone who killed a Huma would die within forty days.

The Huma later appeared in Ottoman, Mughal, and Central Asian traditions, where it continued to symbolize kingship, fortune, and heavenly blessing.

Sources

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Huma bird. In Wikipedia. Retrieved May 10, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huma_bird

Dilmun Griffin

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Tradition / Region: Dilmun Mythology, Bahrain Mythology, Qatari Mythology
Alternate Names: None Recorded
Category: Bird

The Myth

The Dilmun Griffin is a rare chimeric creature appearing on ancient Dilmun seals from the Bronze Age civilization of Dilmun. It is shown as part of a mythological battle scene in which a humanoid or divine figure leads several beasts against a great serpent or dragon.

The griffin-like creature appears beside a bull, lion, and ibex as they confront the serpent. It is depicted as one of the creatures accompanying the divine champion during the battle. In other seal scenes, the same griffin-like being appears again beside the humanoid figure, suggesting it belonged to the same mythological motif.

Very little survives about the creature itself, and no detailed myths describing its origin or nature remain. The surviving imagery only shows it participating in the sacred conflict against the serpent-dragon alongside the other beasts.

Sources

Laursen, S. T. (n.d.). Dilmun boats on seals, horned figureheads, and the serpent/dragon slaying myth, c. 2050–1500 BC, p. 7-8.