The Greek traveler and historian Herodotus [Heh-ROD-uh-tus] circa 484-425 BC, is known as the "Father of History."

Much of his History is derived from what he saw and heard during his many years of travel around the ancient world.

He heard the phoenix story in Egypt. It is the first major account we have of the magical bird.

They have also another sacred bird called the phoenix, which I myself have never seen, except in pictures.

Indeed it is a great rarity, even in Egypt, only coming there-according to the accounts of the people of Heliopolis-once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix dies.

Its size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follows:- The plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly that of the eagle.

They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible; that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body.

In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball, and puts his parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh, and the ball is then of exactly the same weight as at first; so he brings it to Egypt, plastered over as I have said, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun.

Such is the story they tell of the doings of this bird.

Hundreds of years after Herodotus recounted the death and rebirth of the phoenix, the Roman poet Ovid [AH-vid] 43 B.C.-A.D. 18, included a variation of the story in his Metamorphoses, a collection of classical myths about the changing forms of gods, goddesses, humans, and animals.

This tale is told by "the Philosopher."

Nothing retains the shape of what it was,
And Nature, always making old things new, Proves nothing dies within the universe, But takes another being in new forms.

What is called birth is change from what we were, And death the shape of being left behind.

Though all things melt or grow from here to there, Yet the same balance of the world remains.

"How many creatures walking on this earth Have their first being in another form?

Yet one exists that is itself forever,
Reborn in ageless likeness through the years.

It is that bird Assyrians call the Phoenix,
Nor does he eat the common seeds and grasses, but drinks the juice of rare, sweet-burning herbs.

When he has done five hundred years of living He winds his nest high up a swaying palm.

And delicate dainty claws prepare his bed Of bark and spices, myrrh and cinnamon-And dies while incense lifts his soul away.

Then from his breast-or so the legend runs-A little Phoenix rises over him,
To live, they say, the next five hundred years.

When he is old enough in hardihood,
He lifts his crib (which is his father's tomb)

Midair above the tall palm wavering there
And journeys toward the city of the Sun,
Where in Sun's temple shines the Phoenix' nest."