Auk

Auk

The Great Auk was the last flightless seabird of the Northern Hemisphere, now extinct. It was the original bird called “Penguin”. European explorers familiar with the "penguins" of the North Atlantic applied the name to the Southern Hemisphere birds. Like the Southern Hemisphere penguins, Great Auks lost their ability to fly as they evolved large body size to dive deeper. One possible derivation is for the word "penguin" is "white [pen] head [gwyn]". Another is "pen-winged" or "pinioned".

Awk = Wrong, or not commonly used, clumsy, or sinister – in this case, as in the awk-end (butt-end) of a rod; Auk is the “awkward” side of Silk. He is the Sun gone down into the Underworld of Tartarus (the Silk entry on Hephaestus). He shares with Silk the role of Aristeas.

Back to Main Page