Gagana is a miraculous bird with an iron beak and copper claws featured in

Russian folklore Folklore of Russia is folklore of Russians and other ethnic groups of Russia. Russian folklore takes its roots in the pagan beliefs of ancient Slavs and now is represented in the Russian fairy tales. Epic Russian bylinas are also an important ...

. She is said to live on the

Buyan In the Dove Book and other medieval Russian books, Buyan (russian: Буя́н, sometimes transliterated as Bujan) is described as a mysterious island in the ocean with the ability to appear and disappear with the tide. Three brothers—Northern, ...

Island. The bird is often mentioned in

incantation An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremo ...

s. It is also said this bird guards the Alatyr, alongside

Garafena In the Dove Book and other medieval Russian books, Buyan (russian: Буя́н, sometimes transliterated as Bujan) is described as a mysterious island in the ocean with the ability to appear and disappear with the tide. Three brothers—Northern, ...

the snake. According to Tatyana Buynova, all birds in the world originated from Gagana. Gagana knows how to conjure and work miracles and, if she is asked correctly, can help a person. This bird is also the only one capable of giving

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...

Background

The bird Gagana is possibly attested in a tale compiled by author A. A. Erlenwein, and translated by

Angelo de Gubernatis Count Angelo De Gubernatis (1840–26 February 1913), Italian man of letters, was born in Turin and educated there and at Berlin, where he studied philology. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature fourteen times. Life In 1862 he w ...

in his ''Florilegio'' with the name ''Vaniúsha'', where the hero's sisters marry a bear, an iron-nosed bird ("uccello dal naso di ferro") and a

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

("luccio").Gubernatis, Angelo de. ''Florilegio delle novelline popolari''. Milano U. Hoepli. 1883. pp. 212-214. The "bird with iron beak" appears to be a creature that inhabits several Slavic folktales.

William Ralston Shedden-Ralston William Ralston Shedden-Ralston (1828–1889), known in his early life as William Ralston Shedden, who later adopted the additional surname of Ralston, was a noted British scholar and translator of Russia and Russian. Biography William Ralston S ...

, citing

Alexander Afanasyev Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (Afanasief, Afanasiev or Afanas'ev, russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Афанасьев) ( — ) was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer who published nearly 600 Russian fairy and folk ta ...

's notes on

Slavic folklore Slavic folklore encompasses the folklore of the Slavic peoples from their earliest records until today. Folklorists have published a variety of works focused specifically on the topic over the years.See, for example, Kononenko 2007. See also * ...

, writes that on the mythical island of Buyan there lives "The Tempest Bird", "the oldest and largest of all the birds", said to possess "an iron beak" and "copper claws".Ralston, William Ralston Shedden. ''The songs of the Russian people, as illustrative of Slavonic mythology and Russian social life''. London: Ellis & Green. 1872. p. 375.

References

Sources

* * Russian folklore Legendary birds Slavic legendary creatures {{legendary-creature-stub