> Sirin is related to the Syrens of ancient Greece.
Is it a corrupt Greek word then? And is the Persian bird Shirin comes
from the same source?
> Gamayun is described as a prophetic bird, "a personification of the
mysterious fate of Russia with its tragedies & hopes."
One of the suggested etymologies is from the word gam - noise. Is
that possible?
> Grifon looks to me as if it could be the creature that is called a
griffin in English.
This bird is paired with the Mogol bird in some Russian folk tales.
They are not the original characters of Slavic mythology then?
All these birds are found in the old Russian literary
source "Golubinaya kniga" and in the Slavic myths as reconstructed by
A.Asov. I am interested in the etymology of the names themselves. It
appears to me that while some of them are possibly corrupt Greek
words (alkonost - halcyon, finist - phoenix etc.), the others could
be of Slavic origin (stratim (which is also called nogai/nagai),
mogol, gamayun). What would experts in the Slav languages say?
Regards,
Marina Orelskaya
Dr Marina Orelskaya
c/o Department of Sanskrit
and Prakrit Languages,
University of Pune,
Pune 411007
India