Kings and Emperors

Kings and emperors often appear in leg­ends about flying. The earliest known story of a flying person-about 4,500 years old-is the legend of King Etana of Sumer in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). The king and his wife were not able to have a child, and he desperately wanted an heir. Following the instruc-

tions of the sun god, he freed a captured eagle. The bird carried King Etana to heaven, where he begged the goddess Ishtar for a child. She gave him a plant that both he and his wife ate, and the treatment worked.

Nearly as old is the Chinese legend of the emperor Shun. He used two over­sized hats to fly. Once he employed this device to escape a burning tower. On another occasion, he used it to fly around his empire.

The Persians also told of a king who flew. The vehicle that King Kai Kawus used was of ingenious design. Workers attached long poles to the four corners of this throne. They tied meat to the top of each pole, and at the bottom of each pole they chained an eagle. When the eagles grew hungry, they beat their
wings in an effort to reach the meat. That motion carried the throne aloft. This method worked, and the eagles car­ried the king into the sky. Unfortunately, they grew tired and stopped flapping their wings. When that happened, the throne tumbled to the ground.

A similar story involves the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. He tied hungry griffins to poles attached to his throne. Griffins were half lion and half eagle. Alexander’s story ends with a more direct moral than that of Kai Kawus, however. His vehicle stayed in the air for a week and brought him near the heavens. An angel then appeared and asked him why he wanted to see the
heavens when he did not yet understand everything about life on Earth. Humbled, the conqueror returned to land.

Britain also has an ancient legend of a king who flew. King Bladud, who reigned in the ninth century b. c.e., had great intelligence and practiced magic. He fashioned a pair of feathered wings and launched himself into the air.

However, the king’s flight ended in dis­aster. In some versions of the story, he plunged to his death. In others, he slammed into a wall. Either way, he lost his life and his kingdom, which was then inherited by his son—Lear. King Lear then became the subject of another leg­end, which was immortalized in a tragic play by William Shakespeare.