The oldest description of the phoenix comes from the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC.

He said the priests at Heliopolis in Egypt told him of a great red-and-gold bird that lived five hundred years, and that when its time came it built a nest of frankincense and myrrh, set itself alight, and rose again from the ashes as a chick.

The Egyptians had a similar bird of their own called the Bennu — a grey heron that stood at the beginning of the world on the first mound of dry earth to emerge from the flood.

The Romans took the phoenix onto their coins as a symbol of an empire that would never end.

The Chinese have their own version, the fenghuang, which appears only in ages of peace.

The phoenix is really one idea told everywhere: that some things burn, and come back anyway.