Flights of Fancy Read online

  FLIGHTS OF FANCY

  A Delacorte Press Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Random House UK hardcover edition published 2007

  Delacorte Press hardcover edition / November 2008

  Published by

  Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2007 by Peter Tate

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.,

  and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tate, Peter.

  Flights of fancy : birds in myth, legend and superstition / Peter Tate.

  p. cm.

  Originally published: London : Random House, 2007.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-78397-4

  1. Birds—Folklore. 2. Birds—Mythology. I. Title.

  GR735.T37 2008

  398.24′528—dc22

  2008023169

  www.bantamdell.com

  v3.1

  For Anne

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Blackbird

  Cockerel

  Crane

  Crossbill

  Cuckoo

  Diver

  Dove

  Eagle

  Goose

  Hoopoe

  House Sparrow

  Kingfisher

  Lapwing

  Magpie

  Nightingale

  Nightjar

  Owl

  Peacock

  Pelican

  Quail

  Raven

  Robin

  Rook

  Stonechat

  Stork

  Swallow

  Swan

  Woodpecker

  Wren

  Wryneck

  Authors quoted or mentioned in the text

  Gods and goddesses

  Bibliography

  Introduction

  From the significance of the first cuckoo to rhymes about magpies, an astonishingly large and varied body of folklore has grown up around birds. Some of the stories that have been handed down through the generations are quite straightforward, such as the belief that it’s bad luck to kill a robin. Others are amazingly elaborate or bizarre, such as the Greek folk-cure for a headache, which involved removing the head of a swallow at the full moon, then leaving it in a linen bag to dry. They can be found in all parts of the world, from the story of Yorimoto in Japan, who hid from his enemies in a tree and was protected by two doves, to the strange tale of Gertrude in Germany, who was turned into a woodpecker as punishment for her miserliness. What they all show is just how fascinated mankind has always been by birds. They are, after all, creatures that occupy a very particular and unusual place in our lives. On the one hand, they seem very familiar: they build nests in our gardens or in the eaves of our houses; some have even been domesticated and play an important role in agriculture to this day. On the other hand, they also inhabit a completely different realm from our own – one that we land-bound creatures can only imagine and wonder at. It seems scarcely surprising, therefore, that they should have proved such a rich source of speculation and myth-making.

  What I have tried to do in this book is not to attempt an exhaustive survey of traditional beliefs about birds – such a survey would take up many hundreds of pages – but to select the stories that have most intrigued me in the course of a lifetime’s study. For example, I knew that migration was not fully understood before the eighteenth century, but I was fascinated to discover that many people used to believe that cuckoos turned into hawks when they departed for the winter months. I’m also intrigued by stories that recur in different traditions. The belief that birds with black plumage, such as crows and ravens, originally had white feathers but were punished for some crime or other, for example, is very widely spread. Similarly, tales of swan maidens can be found as far afield as India, Greenland and Ireland. Perhaps the strangest example of a well-travelled tale is that told of cranes. I first came across the belief that every winter migrating cranes do battle with pygmies in Aristotle’s History of Animals. I was astonished, years later, to come across precisely the same story among the Cherokees of the south-eastern USA. I still have no idea how the same story came to be told in places so many thousands of miles apart.

  Of course, many of the stories recorded here were almost certainly told just for fun originally. Some, no doubt, were old wives’ tales, told to scare or instruct youngsters. Some reflect people’s desperate desire to control the present or foretell the future through natural signs – such as the belief in Snowdonia that circling eagles portended victory on the battlefield. One story, however, can lay good claim to having a place – or at least a footnote – in history. It concerns the barnacle goose, which in medieval times was variously described as a bird or, thanks to some rather confused travellers’ tales, as a sort of fish that hatched from barnacles. Since Catholic countries had strict rules on what could be eaten when, the barnacle goose debate was eventually picked up by the Church, and in 1215 one of the most powerful of all medieval popes, Innocent III, felt compelled to weigh in and make a judgement on the matter at the Fourth Lateran Council. It’s a nice reminder of how central to people’s lives story-making can be.

  My thanks go to my agent Charlotte Vamos, without whom this book would never have taken flight. I would also like to thank the editorial team at Random House: Nigel Wilcockson, Caroline Pretty and Sophie Lazar.

  Blackbird

  (Turdus merula)

  A rather plump species of thrush with very obvious differences between males and females. The male blackbird lives up to its name and has black feathers with a bright orange bill, while the female is mainly dark brown. Related to what in the US are called robins (Turdus migratorius), it is one of Northern Europe’s most familiar birds, and can be found in most gardens and parks. Its song is clear, beautiful and distinctive, making blackbirds one of the most recognizable songsters.

  Like so many birds with a black plumage, blackbirds were once thought to have been white. In Brescia in Italy, for example, it was believed that the blackbird changed colour as a result of a cruel and cold winter. Forced to take shelter from the wind and snow, the bird sought refuge in a chimney, where it became blackened by the soot. In commemoration, the last two days of January and the first of February became known as i giorni della merla, ‘the blackbird days’. White blackbirds can also be found in ancient Greek tradition: Aristotle describes them in his History of Animals as living on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. These mythical birds were supposed to have a wider range of notes than other blackbirds and to appear only by moonlight.

  An alternative legend was recorded by the nineteenth-century French author Eugene Rolland. It tells how a white blackbird, while lurking in a thicket, was greatly astonished to discover a magpie hiding diamonds, jewellery and golden coins in her nest. Upon asking the magpie how he too might acquire such a treasure, he received the reply:

  ‘You must seek out in the bowels of the earth the palace of the Prince of Riches, offer him your services and he will allow you to carry off as much treasure as you can carry in your beak. You will have to pass through many caverns each more overflowing with riches than the last, but you must particularly remember not to touch a single thing until you have actually seen the Prince himself.’

  The blackbird immediately went to the entrance of the subterranean passage to discover the treasure. The first cavern he had to pass through was lined with silver, but he managed to keep the magpie’s advice in mind and continue on his way.
The second cavern was ablaze with gold, and though the blackbird tried to master himself, it proved too much for him and he plunged his beak into the glittering dust with which the floor was strewn. Rolland continues:

  Immediately there appeared a terrible demon vomiting fire and smoke who rushed up to the wretched bird with such lightning speed that the bird escaped with the greatest difficulty. But alas the thick smoke had besmirched forever his white plumage and he became as now, quite black with the exception of his bill which still preserves the colour of the gold he was so anxious to carry off.

  This legend also sought to account for the piercing cries of terror uttered by a blackbird when startled: it claims the bird is expecting to be attacked by another terrible demon.

  Blackbirds tend not to play much of a part in religious stories (unlike, for example, doves and ravens), and where they do appear their role is generally a subsidiary one. One rather charming story tells of St Kevin (498–618), an Irish saint who, like St Francis of Assisi, preferred the company of animals to humans and was said to have a mystical command over them. Once, when he was praying during Lent, a blackbird landed on his outstretched hand and laid an egg there. St Kevin then remained perfectly still until the egg had hatched – an illustration of the virtuous saint’s patience and gentleness.

  Although the blackbird is not generally credited with the gift of prophecy, there is a reference to its weather-forecasting ability in a saying from County Meath in Ireland: ‘When the blackbird sings before Christmas, she will cry before Candlemas’. This means that if the bird should start to sing before its usual time of early to mid February, a cold spell will occur before 2 February, when the rite of Candlemas is observed. Blackbirds were also the subject of weather-based superstitions in Germany, where it was thought that a blackbird kept caged in a house offered protection against lightning.

  Cockerel

  (Gallus gallus)

  Bred from oriental junglefowl which originated in India, Burma and South-East Asia. Over the years, selective breeding has vastly altered its form and colours, ranging from white to black with many variations in-between. Known as roosters in North America and Australia, the female of the species is the hen.

  As urban society has spread and farming practices have changed, the waking of the whole community by a farmyard cockerel who crows at first light has all but ceased to exist. But not so long ago, when country dwellers had no watches or clocks, the farm worker’s day literally began at cockcrow. This use of cockerels as alarm clocks seems to have been universal in countries where they had been domesticated. In Abyssinia, for example, the Coptic Church used cockerels to rouse local villagers to worship.

  Cockerels are associated with many different aspects of folklore, from augury to popular legend, and many of the ideas and stories about them go back to very early times. In Greece, for example, where the bird was first introduced around 700 BC, it became linked with several of the gods: it was dedicated to Apollo, the sun god, as people believed that its crowing heralded the sunrise and its red comb symbolized the sun; it was also sacred to Hermes, the winged messenger; and it was associated with Ares, the god of war, perhaps because of its reputation for vigilance and valour (one was even reputed to have put a lion to flight).

  One story about Ares and a cockerel, however, casts the cockerel in a less flattering light. It tells how Ares planned to spend the night with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and ordered a cockerel to keep watch for Aphrodite’s husband, Hephaestus (the blacksmith god). Unfortunately, the bird fell asleep, and when Hephaestus came home unexpectedly he caught the couple together. Deciding to embarrass rather than punish them, Hephaestus bound them to the couch on which they lay and called the other gods to come and see how ridiculous they looked.

  Perhaps because they have been so closely associated with vigilance, cockerels are often linked to augury and divination. The Greeks invented a method of forecasting in which grains of corn marked with letters of the alphabet were fed to cockerels. The order in which the birds pecked at them was carefully noted and used to make predictions. A more simplified version of this method was recorded in Roman times: unmarked grain was fed to a group of hens, known as sacred chickens, and if they fed so eagerly that some spilt from their beaks it was considered a good omen. So important were the predictions of sacred chickens that the Roman army carried a cage of the birds with it wherever it went, and even appointed an official sacred-chicken keeper, known as the pullarius.

  In De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), Cicero tells a salutary tale about the great Roman general Publius Claudius (d. 249/246 BC), who foolishly disregarded the importance of these sacred birds:

  Shall we remain unimpressed by the tale of the presumptuous conduct of Publius Claudius in the first Punic war, who, when the sacred chickens, on being let out of the coop, refused to feed, ordered them to be plunged into the water, that they might, as he said, drink, since they would not eat? He only ridiculed the gods in jest, but the mockery cost him many a tear (for his fleet was utterly routed), and brought a great disaster upon the Roman people.

  Central and North European pagan beliefs link the cockerel with both the corn god and fertility. In Britain, the cockerel not only formed part of the harvest celebrations, but was also used in a number of the fertility ceremonies that took place at the time of the sowing of the crops. These tended to cluster around Shrove Tuesday and generally involved some sort of sacrifice. One example was ‘Cockshies’, when a cockerel was tied to a pole so that men could throw stones at it, rather like at a coconut shy. Whoever killed the bird was allowed to keep the carcass. The same rite was practised in France, while in Transylvania the cockerel would be cut up and mixed with the seed corn destined for the following year’s harvest. An even crueller ritual was one where a cockerel was buried in the ground with only its head protruding. As the harvesters cut the last stalks of corn, the cockerel’s head would be cut off.

  As well as being linked with the harvest, the cockerel was also closely associated with medicine and healing, often being employed in rather bizarre rituals. For example, in Transylvania when a woman left her house for the first time after having a baby, a cockerel (or a hen, if the newborn child was a girl) would be cut in half and the two sections nailed to the doorpost. The idea was that magic properties from the bird would pass to the new mother and help her to regain her health and strength.

  Bird stones

  Many different species of birds were thought to carry stones with magical properties. Here are just a few:

  The Romans believed that cockerels could hide a stone known as alectorius in their gizzards. If you were lucky enough to find one, it had the power to make you invisible.

  Eagle stones were thought to be hollow and red or black with yellow spots. They contained a second stone that rattled about inside them. Found in the birds’ nests, they were much prized as an aid to childbirth.

  Hoopoe stones could force confessions from sleeping men.

  It was believed that there were three different types of raven stone: the release stone, which was used to aid childbirth; the invisibility stone, which when clasped under the right armpit would make you disappear; and the life stone, which was the most valuable of all.

  The skulls of storks were thought to contain a stone that could be used as an antidote to poison.

  Swallows were thought to carry two different stones with them. One was red and could cure an invalid instantly, the other was black and brought good fortune.

  The beneficial properties of the cockerel were noted by the Roman writer and naturalist Pliny the Elder. He suggested that stewing and eating red cockerel would provide protection against wild beasts and also grant extra strength. In a similar fashion, during the Middle Ages, a brew called ‘Cock Ale’, prepared from a boiled red cockerel and strong ale, was thought to make people stronger.

  Many ancient pagan beliefs and customs were adopted and then adapted by Christians, often resulting in a strange amalgam of Christian
and pagan rites. A good example of just such a meeting of cultures could once be found at Llandegla in Wales, where a well near the church was thought to have magic properties. Sufferers from ‘falling sickness’ (epilepsy) would bathe in the well, then walk round it three times while reciting the Lord’s prayer, before throwing in some money. Following this, a cockerel or a hen (depending on the sex of the sufferer) would be carried ceremoniously round the church and the well. Finally, the patient would take the bird and spend the night lying beneath the altar. At the end of the night, it was thought that the sickness would be transferred to the bird, and as recently as 1850 an onlooker reported that he had seen birds ‘staggering about’ after the ritual.

  Another belief that certainly persisted until the nineteenth century was that to bury a cockerel under a church, or indeed any building, was a guaranteed way to ward off evil. But of course the cockerel’s main connection with Christianity comes from the New Testament account of Jesus’s crucifixion. The Gospel writers record that at the Last Supper, Jesus predicted that his closest disciple, Peter, would deny him three times before cockcrow. Peter duly did so, and, on the third occasion, as Luke records:

  And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

  And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

  The weathervanes that can often be found on church towers and spires were traditionally made in the form of a cockerel to serve as a reminder to all believers that they must not deny their God.

  The cockerel plays a significant role in traditional Islamic tales about Muhammad’s mir’aj, his travels through the seven heavens. It was said that he met a huge cockerel during his journey whose duty it was to wake every living creature with the exception of man. Muhammad was told that when this cockerel ceased to crow, the world would come to an end. There is an Arab saying that Allah will always listen to those who pray for pardon, to those who read the Koran, and to the cockerel, whose chant is divine melody.