Saena, Before the Poem

There is an older bird under this one and it does entirely different work. The ancient Iranian hymns know a creature called Saena, a raptor, whose nest is on a tree standing in the middle of a sea — a tree the tradition calls all-healing, on which the seeds of every plant are stored. When the bird rises the seeds scatter; another bird gathers them and a star rains them down onto the earth. That creature fosters nobody, heals nobody, and never speaks. One thread does run forward into the epic, and it is the feather: the same hymns describe fortune being wrapped round a house like the great bird Saena.