Huma- Persian CreatureCreature · Beast"Bird of Paradise"

The Shadow of Kings

The Huma never touches the earth. It spends its life in perpetual flight, soaring above the clouds where no hunter can reach it and no net can snare it. When its shadow passes over a mortal's head, that person is destined for kingship. In the Shahnameh, the legendary queen Homay takes her very name from the bird, her sovereignty a gift of its passing shadow.

The Huma feeds on bones, particularly the bones of the dead. What the living discard sustains the bearer of royal fortune. The bird is composite: male and female joined in a single form. It cannot be sought out or compelled. The shadow falls where it will.

Hafez invokes the Huma in his Divan to describe blessings that arrive without warning. Sa'di draws on the same image in his Golestan: grace that descends unbidden on those who never thought to look up.