Garth Wallace wrote on Tue, Sep 13, 2016 06:28 PM UTC:
AIUI "aanca" is a hapax legomenon in the Libro de los Juegos of King Alfonso X. Murray translated it as "gryphon" but the text just describes it as a large bird, not a chimeric creature. According to Musser-Golladay and Cazaux, it's a borrowing of the Arabic word "anka", the elephant bird, a real but now-extinct very large bird (legends make it similar to the roc, capable of carrying off an elephant hence the name "elephant bird", though the real thing was flightless).
AIUI "aanca" is a hapax legomenon in the Libro de los Juegos of King Alfonso X. Murray translated it as "gryphon" but the text just describes it as a large bird, not a chimeric creature. According to Musser-Golladay and Cazaux, it's a borrowing of the Arabic word "anka", the elephant bird, a real but now-extinct very large bird (legends make it similar to the roc, capable of carrying off an elephant hence the name "elephant bird", though the real thing was flightless).