Zoological Mythology Volume Ii Part 19

The swallow has the same mythical meaning as the cuckoo; it is the joyful herald of spring, emerging from the tenebrific winter. In the winter season, the swallow is of sinister omen; in the spring-time, on the contrary, it is propitious.

In Piedmont, the swallow is called the chicken of the Lord. In the _Edda_, the seven swallows, one after another, advise Sigurd, who is still undecided, to kill the monster that guards the treasures. Sigurd follows the advice of the swallows, finds and obtains the hidden gold, and recovers his wife (the sun marries the spring, the flowery and verdant earth, when the swallows arrive and begin to sing). In the fifth story of the fourth book of the _Pentamerone_, the swallow blinds the witch who had expelled it from its nest (the wintry season obliges the swallows to depart; the hot and luminous season disperses the wintry darkness). In Germany the swallows are called the birds of the Madonna; San Francesco called the swallows his sisters; and in the Oberinnthal it is believed that they helped the Lord G.o.d in building the sky. In Germany, as well as in Italy, the swallows are considered to be birds of the best augury; it is a mortal sin to kill them, or to destroy their nests. In Germany and in Hungary, if a man destroys a swallow's nest, his cow no longer gives milk, or else gives it mixed with blood. Hence it is advisable always to have a window open, because if a swallow enters the house it brings every kind of happiness with it; in the same way, it is believed that guests bring luck into a house, and this is a beautiful belief, which is honourable to mankind, and one of the most signal evidences of man's sociable nature. In the _Ornithes_ of Aristophanes, the swallows are intrusted with the building of the city of the birds. Solinus writes that even birds of prey dare not touch the swallow, which is a sacred bird.

According to Arrianos, a swallow which chirped round the head of Alexander the Great, whilst he was asleep, wakened him to warn him of the machinations in his family that were being plotted against him. In an apologue the swallow warns the hen not to sit upon the eggs of the serpent. Swallows were anciently used in time of war as messengers.

According to Pliny, again, the head of a swallow that fed in the morning, was, when cut off at full moon, and tied in linen and hung up, an excellent remedy for headache.

But in an apologue where the swallow boasts to the crow of its beauty, the crow answers that he is always equally beautiful, whilst the swallow is only beautiful in spring. In another apologue, which is found in the Epistle of St Gregory of n.a.z.ianzen to Prince Seleusius, the swallows boast to the swans of their twittering for the benefit of the public, whilst the swans sing only for themselves, and that little, and in solitary places. The swans answer that it is better to sing little and well to a chosen few than much and badly to all. The Greeks, in a proverb, advise men not to keep swallows under their roofs, by which they meant to put them on their guard against babblers. The swallow here evidently begins to a.s.sume, as in the mythical tragedy of Tereus, a sinister aspect, for which, reason Horace calls it--

"Infelix avis et Cecropiae domus aeternum opprobrium."

The swallow, beautiful and propitious in spring, becomes ugly and almost diabolical in the other seasons. Hence the ancients believed that it was a bad omen to dream of swallows. According to Xenophon, the appearance of the swallows preceded the expedition of Cyrus against the Scythians, and announced it to be unlucky. The same presage is made by the swallows to Darius when he moves against the Scythians, and to Antiochus, who is at war with the Parthians. It is also said that Pythagoras would have no swallows in his house, because they were insectivorous. In _Suidas_, the _pudendum muliebre_ is called _chelidon_; and it is perhaps as such that the swallow is represented in opposition to the sparrow, which is a well-known phallical symbol, sacred (like the doves) to Venus, whom it accompanied, according to Apuleius,[380] and to Asklepios. The sparrow destroys the swallow's nest, as it is said in a popular German song of Michaelstein:--

"Als ich auszog, auszog, Hatt' ich Kisten und Kasten voll, Als ich wiederkam, wiederkam, Hatt' der Sperling, Der d.i.c.kkopf, der d.i.c.kkopf Alles verzehrt."

The swallow, moreover, is a diabolical, dark form which, by the witch's enchantment, the beautiful maiden a.s.sumes when she finds herself near the fountain (_i.e._, near the ocean of night, or of winter).[381]

FOOTNOTES:

[361] _?igv._ vii. 104, 22.

[362] Kanikrada? ?a.n.u.sham prabruva?a iyarti vacam ariteva navam sumangalac ca cakune bhavasi ma tva ka cid abhibha vicvyavidat. Ma tva cyena ud vadhin ma supar?o ma tva vidad ishuman viro asta; pitryamanu pradica? kanikradat sumangalo bhadravadi vadeha. Ava kranda dakshi?ato g?iha?am sumangalo bhadravadi cakunte; _?igv._ ii. 42.

[363] St Anthony of Padua said of the partridge: "Avis est dolosa et immunda et hypocritas habentes, ut dicit Petrus, oculos plenos adulterii et incessabilis delicti signa."--Partridge's foot (perdikos pous) meant, in the Greek proverb, a deceitful foot.

[364] _Indische Studien_, i. 117, 118.

[365]

Stuti? tu punar evechanam indro bhutva kapin?ala?

Risher ?igamishor acam vavace prati dakshi?am Sa tam arshe?a sa?prekshya cakshusha pakshirupi?am Parabhyam api tush?ava suktabhya? tu kanikradat.

[366] i. 66.

[367] ii. 79.

[368] Cfr. the chapter on the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. A whoop, kept by me for some time with its young ones, had been taken with its nest from the trunk of a tree which had been cut down, and which it had scooped out in its higher part in order to build its nest in the lowest and deepest part of the trunk.

[369] I, for instance, kept for some time a young cuckoo which had been found in the nest of a little granivorous singing bird, which is very common in Tuscany, and is called scoperina or scopina.

[370] Villemarque, _Barzaz Breiz_, sixieme ed. p. 493.

[371] The old English popular song celebrates it as the bringer of summer--

"Sumer is ic.u.men in, lhude sing cuccu."

The old Anglo-Saxon song of St Guthlak makes the cuckoo the announcer of the year (geacas gear budon). The ancient song of May in Germany welcomes it with the words--

"The cuckoo with its song makes every one gay."

The popular Scotch song caresses it thus--

"The cuckoo's a fine bird, he sings as he flies; He brings us good tidings, he tells us no lies.

He sucks little bird's eggs to make his voice clear, And when he sings 'cuckoo,' the summer is near."

In Shakspeare (_Love's Labour Lost_, v. 2), the owl represents winter, and the cuckoo spring--"This side is Hiems, winter, this Ver, the spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo."

In a mediaeval Latin eclogue recorded in the third volume of Uhland's _Schriften_ (Abhandlung uber die deutschen Volkslieder), the death of the cuckoo is wept over--

"Heu cuculus n.o.bis fuerat cantare suetus, Quae te nunc rapuit hora nefanda tuis?

Omne genus hominum Cuculum complangat ubique!

Perditus est cuculus, heu perit ecce meus.

Non pereat Cuculus, veniet sub tempore veris Et n.o.bis veniens carmina laeta ciet.

Quis scit, si veniat? timeo est submersus in undis, Vorticibus raptus atque necatus aquis."

A popular German song shows us the cuckoo first wet, and then dried by the sun--

"Der Kuckuck auf dem Zaune sa.s.s, Kuckuck, kuckuck!

Es regnet sehr und ward na.s.s.

Darnach da kam der Sonnenschein, Kuckuck, kuckuck!

Der kuckuck der ward hubsch und fein."

--Cfr. also the "Entstehung des Kukuks" in Hahn's _Albanesische Marchen_, ii. 144, 316.

[372] _s. v. cucullus._

[373] Cfr. the chapter on the Peac.o.c.k.

[374] Cfr. Uhland's _Schriften_, iii. 25.

[375] Cfr. _Afana.s.sieff_, i. 12.

[376] Villemarque, _Barzaz Breiz_, sixieme ed. p. 392.

[377] "Quand il le tint, se mit a rire de tout son c?ur. E il l'etouffa, et le jeta dans le blanc giron de la pauvre dame. Tenez, tenez, ma jeune epouse, voici votre joli rossignol; c'est pour vous que je l'ai attrape; je suppose, ma belle, qu'il vous fera plaisir;"

Villemarque, _Barzaz Breiz_, p. 154.

[378] iii. 5.

[379] Dixon, _Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England_; cfr. also on the traditions relating to the cuckoo and the nightingale in Russia, Ralston, _The Songs of the Russian People_.

[380] Currum Deae prosequentes, gannitu constrepenti lasciviunt Pa.s.seres; _De Asino Aureo_, vi.

[381] A woman of Antignano, near Leghorn, once told me the story of a beautiful princess who stayed upon a tree till her husband returned, who had gone in quest of robes for her. Whilst she is waiting, up comes a negress to wash clothes, and sees in the water the reflection of the beautiful princess. She induces her to come down by offering to comb her hair for her, and puts a pin into her head, so that she becomes a swallow. The negress then takes the maiden's place by her husband. The swallow, however, finds means of letting herself be caught by her husband, who, stroking her head, finds the pin, and draws it out; then the swallow becomes again a beautiful princess. The same story is narrated more at length in Piedmont, in other parts of Tuscany, in Calabria, and in other places; but instead of the swallow we have the dove, as in the _Tuti-Name_.

CHAPTER VI.