 In Romanian folklore the Măiastra is a beautiful golden bird who foretells the future and cures the blind.Over the following 20 years, Brâncuși made multiple versions of "Bird in Space" out of marble or bronze.Athena Tacha Spear's book, "Brâncuși's Birds," (CAA monographs XXI, NYU Press, New York, 1969), first sorted out the 36 versions and their development, from the early "Măiastra", to the "Golden Bird" of the late teens, to the "Bird in Space", which emerged in the early 1920s and which Brâncuși developed throughout his life.