It is curious to note that Paldea's legendary pokemon do not figure in the tales told of the region's origin; the treasures of ruin are associated with a half-forgotten civilization, while Koraidon, if acknowledged at all, is merely treated as Cyclizar's ancestor. Some early folklorists and travelers, however, strangely believed that Quaxwell was the region's defining legend.

It is said that all Paldea was once desert, until the travels of a beautiful dancer that brought the rain. Quaxwell were reputed to travel from oasis to oasis, wherever people eked out a living on the desert's edge. Humans would build circular platforms for them to stand on, with a fragile center that could not long support the Quaxwell's moves; when it finally collapsed, a storm would make the grass bloom, and a deep well – one which drew more than enough groundwater to support agrarian life – would be left behind.

In light of the old tradition, it should be noted that the cities toured by the Quaxwell Circus are all on the edge of Paldea's desert, although the creation of new permanent wells is avoided for environmental reasons. Circus attendees fill the tents, and are shocked, after witnessing their high jumps and magnificent dances, whenever they learn that Quaxwell, the so-called "fifth Oricorio", is actually a flightless bird. Like Dodrio, this pokemon makes up for degenerated wings with its powerful legs, and its eyesight is good enough to catch an all-but-invisible trapeze, but this is all illusion. And so it has been since ancient times, for no depictions before the last century (and the invention of the trapeze, and, perhaps more importantly, trick photography) show a single picture of a Quaxwell in true flight.