Zoological Mythology Volume Ii Part 21

[388] In the articles against Bernard Saget in the year 1300, recorded by Du Cange, I read--"Aves elegerunt Regem quemdam avem vocatam Duc, et est avis pulchrior et major inter omnes aves, et accidit semel quod Pica conquesta fuerat de Accipitre dicto Domino Regi, et congregatis avibus, dictus Rex nihil dixit nisi quod flavit (flevit?). Vel (veluti) idem de rege nostro dicebat ipse Episcopus, qui ipse est pulchrior h.o.m.o de mundo, et tamen nihil scit facere, nisi respicere homines."

[389] Among the Tartars, according to Aldrovandi, the feathers of the male owl are worn as an amulet, probably to conjure the owl himself away, in the same way as, in the Vedic hymns, Death is invoked in order that it may remain far off. In the _Khorda Avesta_ (p. 147), translated by Spiegel, the hero Verethraghna derives his strength from the owl's feathers.--We are acquainted with the funereal moon in the form of Proserpine; the Hindoos considered Ma.n.u.s in relation with the moon, with which, moreover, it was also identified. Ma.n.u.s, as the first and the father of men, is also the first of the dead. Ma.n.u.s gives the somas to Indras. The dying sun is exchanged in the funereal kingdom for the moon; but of the moon's kingdom the souls come down, and to the moon's kingdom they return. With Ma.n.u.s the word _Menerva_ is joined, a Latin form, as a G.o.ddess, of the Greek Athene. The owl, the symbol of Minerva, may be equivalent to Ma.n.u.s as the moon. The intimate connection which exists in myths and legends between the maiden aurora and the maiden moon is well-known; they reciprocally do services to each other. Athene may very well have represented equally the two wise maidens--the moon, who sees everything in the dark night; the aurora, who, coming out of the gloomy night, illumines everything. The head of Zeus, out of which Athene comes, appears to be a form of the eastern sky.

[390] "Selbst in sternloser Nacht ist keine Verborgenheit, es lauert eine gramliche Alte, die Eule; sie sitzt in ihrem finstern Kammerlein, spinnt mit silbernen Spindelchen und sieht ubel dazu, was in der Dunkelheit vorgeht. Der Holzschnitt des alten Flugblattes zeigt die Eule auf einem Stuhlchen am Spinnrocken sitzend."

[391]

"Wenn durch die dunne Luft ein schwarzer Rabe fleucht Und krahet sein Geschrei, und wenn des Eulen Fraue Ihr Wiggen-gwige heult: sind Losungen sehr rauhe."

--Rochholtz, the work quoted before, i. p. 155.

[392] i. 175.

[393] ii. 5.

[394] i. 1152.

[395] ii. 105, v. 3.

[396] _Ib._

[397] ii. 105; cfr. also _Du Cange_, s. v. _corbitor_.--In the German legend of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, the emperor, buried under a mountain, wakens and asks, "Are the crows still flying round the mountain?" he is answered that they are still flying. The emperor sighs and lies down again, concluding that the hour of his resurrection has not yet arrived.

[398] In the _Ornithologia_ of Aldrovandi. The messenger crow is of frequent occurrence in legends.

[399] In Plutarch, two crows guide Alexander the Great, when he goes to consult the oracle of Zeus Ammon.

[400] Hence the name of Avis S. Martini also given to the crow, because it often comes about St Martin's day. In Du Cange and in the _Roman du Renard_ we also find indicated the auspices to be taken from the crow's flight; for the same custom in Germany, cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 546.

[401] Horace, _Carm._ iii. 27.--In _Afana.s.sief_, again (iv. 36), the rook is asked where it has flown to. It answers, "Into the meadows to write letters and sigh after the maiden;" and the maiden is advised to hurry towards the water. The maiden declares that she fears the crab.

In this maiden, that is afraid of the crab, I think I can recognise the zodiacal sign of Virgo (attracted by the crab of the summer),--the virgin who approaches the water, the autumn and the autumnal rains; the virgin loved by the crow, who is the friend of the rains.

[402] Horace, _Carm._ iii. 27.

[403] Saka? yakshma pra pata cashe?a kikidivina; _?igv._ x. 97, 13.

[404]

Sarovka, sarovka, Kasha varlla Na parok skakala, Gastiei saszivala.

[405] The magpie is proverbial as a babbler; hence, from its Italian name _gazza_, the name _gazzetta_ given to newspapers, as divulging secrets.--In the _Dialogus Creaturarum_, dial. 80, it is written of the magpie, called _Agazia_: "Pica est avis callidissima.... Haec apud quemdam venatorem et humane et latine loquebatur, propter quod venator ipsam plenaria fulciebat. Pica autem non immemor beneficii, volens remunerare eum, volavit ad Agazias, et c.u.m eis familiariter sedebat et humane sermocinabatur. Agaziae quoque in hoc plurimum laetabantur cupientes et ipsae garrire humaneque loqui."

[406] Hence the request made in the popular song to the stork, to bring a little sister; cfr. the songs of the stork in Kuhn and Schwarz, _N. S. M. u. G._ p. 452. As the bringer of children, the stork is represented as the serpent's enemy; cfr. _Tzetza_, i. 945.

[407] Cfr. _Phile_, vi. 2; and Aristophanes in the _Ornithes_--

"Dei tous neotous t' patera palin trephein."

CHAPTER VII.

THE WOODp.e.c.k.e.r AND THE MARTIN.

SUMMARY.

The _picus_ in the work of Professor Kuhn.--_Picus_, _corvus pica_, and _pic.u.mnus_; the Vedic word _v?ikas_.--The she-wolf and the woodp.e.c.k.e.r as the nurses of the Latin twin heroes.--_Picus_ as the phallos; _picus_, _pic.u.mnus_, _pilumnus_, _pilum_, _pistor_; _piciu_, _pinco_, _pincio_, _pinson_, _pincone_.--The sacred herb of Indras which cleaves the mountains.--Jupiter as a _picus_; the _picus_ presages rain; the herb of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r has the virtue of opening every shut place.--The woodp.e.c.k.e.r and the honey.--Beowulf and the woodp.e.c.k.e.r.--The woodp.e.c.k.e.r and the gold.--The green woodp.e.c.k.e.r.--The woodp.e.c.k.e.r as the devil.--The woodp.e.c.k.e.r in opposition to the fox.--The vengeance of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r.--The halcyon.--The martin or bird of St Martin.--_Martin piciu_.--The _yunx_ in love with Zeus; it attracts lovers.--_Alkuoneioi hemerai_; the halcyon.--Robin Redbreast and its "charitable bill."--The bird of St Gertrude; the _incendiaria avis_; _Jean rouge-gorge_.--Sea-birds with white and black plumage and a little spot of blood on their heads.

The woodp.e.c.k.e.r has already had the honour of being studied with great learning by Professor Adalbert Kuhn, in his excellent work upon the celestial fire and water, to which I refer the cultivated reader for the princ.i.p.al myths relating to the subject; that is to say, for the comparison of the Vedic hawk and the Vedic fire-bhura?yus with the h.e.l.lenic Phoroneus, the Latin _picus Feronius_, the _incendiaria avis_, the _picus_ that carries thunder, and that which carries food to the twins Romulus and Remus,[408] and which itself enjoys wine, with King Picus, progenitor of a race, and with the corresponding German traditions. I shall only observe here the mythological relationship between _picus_ and the _corvus pica_ (_pic.u.mnus_ was applied both to the woodp.e.c.k.e.r and the magpie), in order to return to the equivocal Vedic word _v?ikas_, which means wolf and crow, whence also arose and fostered itself the confusion between the she-wolf that nurses the Latin twin heroes, and the woodp.e.c.k.e.r which, in the same legend, offers itself as their nourisher. The woodp.e.c.k.e.r, the magpie, and the wolf, personify equally the G.o.d in the darkness, the devil, the cloud, the sky of night, the rainy season, the wintry season; from the night, and from the winter, the new sun, fed by the she-wolf, or by the funereal bird, arises; the penetrating beak of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r in the cloud is the thunderbolt; in the night, and in the wintry season, it is now the moon that disperses the darkness, now the sunbeam that comes out of the darkness. The thunderbolt, the moon, and the sun's ray, moreover, sometimes a.s.sume in myths the form of the phallos; the woodp.e.c.k.e.r as a phallos and the King Picus, progenitor of a race, seem to me to be the same. The Latin legend puts _picus_ in connection with _pic.u.mnus_, _pilumnus_, the _pilum_, and the _pistor_, in the same way as a Norwegian story puts in relation with flour the cuckoo, which we already know to be a phallical symbol, properly the presser down. In the Piedmontese dialect, the common name of the phallos is _piciu_; in Italian, _pinco_ and _pincio_ have the same meaning; _pincione_ is the chaffinch (in French _pinson_); and _pincone_ means a fool, for the same reason that the a.s.s, as a phallical symbol, personified folly. We already know Indras as a cuckoo, as a peac.o.c.k, and as a hawk. To find Indras again in the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, the _Taittiriya-Brahma?am_ offers us a notable a.n.a.logy. In it Indras kills the wild boar, hidden in the seven mountains (the shadows of the night, or the clouds), cleaving them by the touch of the stem of a sacred luminous and golden herb (sa darbhapin?ulam uddh?itya sapta girin bhittva[409]), which may be the moon in the night, or else the thunderbolt in the cloud; the thunderbolt is also not seldom represented in aryan traditions as a magic rod. It is with a golden rod that, in the seventh book of the _aeneid_, the enchantress Circe transforms the wise King Picus, son of Saturn (as Jupiter-Indras; Suidas also speaks of a Pekos Zeus, buried in Crete) into a bird, into the _picus_, sacred to the G.o.d of warriors (Mars-Indras), whence his name of _picus martius_, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, which is supposed to presage rain (like Zeus and Indras)--

"Picus equum domitor, quem capta cupidine conjux, Aurea percussum virga, versumque venenis, Fecit avem Circe, sparsitque coloribus alas."

Pliny relates that the woodp.e.c.k.e.r has the virtue of opening every shut place, touching it with a certain herb, which increases and decreases with the moon;[410] this herb may be the moon itself, which opens the hiding-places of the night, or the thunderbolt which opens the hiding-places of the cloud. It is well known that in the Vedic hymns, Indras, who is generally the pluvial and thundering G.o.d, is frequently a.s.sociated with the soma (ambrosia and moon), and even identified with it. Pliny adds, moreover, that whoever takes honey out of the hive with the beak of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r is not liable to be stung by the bees; this honey may be the rain in the cloud as well as the lunar ambrosia or the dew of the morning aurora; hence the woodp.e.c.k.e.r's beak may be the thunderbolt as well as the moonbeam, or the sunbeam. Beowulf (the wolf of the bees) is spoken of in connection with the woodp.e.c.k.e.r as well as with the bear: the _Bienenfresser_ of German legends, or the _pica merops_, explains the Latin superst.i.tion and the Beowulf. Like the crow, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, too, stays in darkness, but brings water, seeks for honey, and finds the light. In the _Aulularia_, Plautus makes woodp.e.c.k.e.rs live upon golden mountains (picos, qui aureos monies incolunt). Inasmuch as the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs announced the approach of winter, or were seen on the left, according to the well-known verse of Horace[411]--

"Teque nec laevus vetet ire picus,

they were considered birds of evil omen. In the _Ornithologus_, it is said that the green woodp.e.c.k.e.r (the moon, by the previously mentioned equivocalness of _haris_) presages winter (the moon, as we have said, rules over the winter). For this reason, St Ephiphanios could compare the woodp.e.c.k.e.r with the devil. According to Pliny, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r that perched upon the head of the praetor Lucius Tubero, whilst he was administering justice, announced approaching ruin to the empire if it were allowed to go free, and approaching death to the praetor if killed; Lucius Tubero, moved by love of his country, seized the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, killed it, and died soon afterwards. Hence Pliny could say with reason that woodp.e.c.k.e.rs were "in auspiciis magni."

In the twentieth story of the third book of _Afana.s.sieff_, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, which usually appears as a very knowing bird, lets itself be deceived by the fox, who eats its young ones, under the pretext of teaching them an art. In the twenty-fifth story of the fourth book, on the other hand, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r a.s.sumes a heroic and formidable aspect.

It makes friends with an old dog, which has been expelled from its kennel, and offers its services as purveyor. A woman, is carrying some dinner to her husband, who is working in the fields. The woodp.e.c.k.e.r flies before her and feigns to let itself be taken; the woman, to run after it, puts the dinner down, and the dog feeds upon it (in a variety of the same story, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r also offers to the dog a means of getting something to drink). Afterwards the dog meets the fox; then, in order to please the woodp.e.c.k.e.r (who, perhaps, remembered the treachery of the fox who ate its little ones), it runs upon the fox and maltreats it. A peasant pa.s.ses by and thrashes the poor dog, who dies. Then the woodp.e.c.k.e.r becomes furious in its desire of vengeance, and begins to peck now at the peasant, and now at his horses; the peasant tries to flog the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, instead of which he flogs the horses to death. Nor does the woodp.e.c.k.e.r's vengeance stop here; it goes to the peasant's wife and pecks at her; she endeavours to beat it, but instead of doing so, she beats her own sons (these are two varieties of the story of the mother who beats her son, thinking to beat the a.s.s, which, as a phallical symbol, we have already said corresponds to the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. The myth of Seilenos, which we saw in connection with the a.s.s, has also been quoted by Professor Kuhn in relation with the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. In the third book of the _Pancatantram_, we have a bird that throws gold from behind, a characteristic of the mythical a.s.s in fairy tales). Here the woodp.e.c.k.e.r has the same office which in another Russian story, already recorded, is attributed to the wintry, funereal, and ill-omened stork, the sun hidden in the darkness, or the cloud.

The halcyon, which announces tempests, and the bird of St Martin, the fisher martin, are of the same wintry and phallical nature as the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. In Piedmont, a fool is insultingly called by the name of Martin-Piciu (the podex and the phallos, and also the phallos martin, which reminds us of the _picus pistor_, and the _picus martius_), and the above-quoted Italian expression _pincone_ is equivalent to it. The sun that hides itself in darkness or clouds loses its power. The phallical symbol is evident. Here remark the h.e.l.lenic fable of the bird Yunx tetraknamon, of the four rays, of the long tongue, always changeful (the Trench call it _paille en cul_). Pan is said to have been the father of a girl called Yunx, who, having attempted to seduce Zeus, was changed by the vengeance of Here into a bird of the same name. In Pindar, Jason made use of this bird, the gift of Aphrodite, to gain the favour of Medea. In Theocritos, this bird is invoked by girls in love to attract their lovers into the house; women made use of this bird in their mischief-working love-mysteries.

According to the fifth book of Aristotle's _History of Animals_, the halcyon sits on its eggs in the serene days of winter, called therefore alkuoneiai hemerai; and the author cites a sentence of Simonides concerning this bird: "When Zeus, in the wintry season, creates twice seven warm days, mortals say, 'This tepid weather is nourishing the variously-painted halcyons.'" Ovid relates that Alcyon was transformed into the bird of this name while weeping for her husband, who had been drowned in the sea, whence Ariosto wrote--

"E s'udir le Alcione alla marina Dell' antico infortunio lamenta.r.s.e."

This bird, the kingfisher, several kinds of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, the wren, the crow, and the redbreast, the Scotch Robin Redbreast, also called in English ruddock and Robin-ruddock, which, "with charitable bill,"

according to the expression of Shakspeare in _Cymbeline_,[412] throws funereal flowers upon unburied bodies,[413] are all birds sacred to St Martin, the holy gravedigger, the bringer of winter, who, according to the Celtic and German traditions, divides his own cloak with poor men, and covers them. German legends are full of incidents relating to this funereal and wintry bird, with which now the funereal Norwegian bird of St Gertrude, now the cuckoo, now the _incendiaria avis_, are a.s.similated. Hence the same redbreast which in German tradition is sacred to St Martin is called _Jean rouge-gorge_ in the popular songs of Brittany, published by Villemarque, and is sacred to St John; but this John may be the St John of winter, whose festival is celebrated on the 27th of December, that is, two days after the Nativity of Christ, or in the days in which the sun, the Saviour, is born again, and the light increases. Birds of the same funereal nature as that of St Martin appear in the Breton song _Bran_ (or the prisoner of war):--"At Kerloan, upon the battlefield, there is an oak-tree which spreads its branches over the sh.o.r.e; there is an oak-tree at the place where the Saxons took to flight before the face of Evan the Great. On this oak, when the moon shines at night, birds come to meet one another, sea-birds with white and black plumage, and a little spot of blood on their heads; with them there comes an old grey crow, and with it a young crow. Both are very weary, and their wings are wet; they come from beyond the seas, they come from afar; and the birds sing such a beautiful song that the great sea is hushed and listens; this song they sing with one voice, except the old crow and the young one; now the crow has said--'Sing, little birds; sing, sing, little birds of the land; you do not die far away from Bretagne.'" The same funereal birds which have pity for the dead, like the stork, also take care of new-born infants, and bring the light forth. The cloudy nocturnal or wintry monster discovers his treasures; the funereal bird buries the dead, and brings them to life again; its beak pierces through the mountain, finds the water and the fire, and tears the veil of death; its luminous head disperses the gloomy shadows.

FOOTNOTES:

[408]

"Lacte quis infantes nescit crevisse ferino?

Et pic.u.m expositis saepe tulisse cibos?"

--Ovid, _Fasti_, iii.

[409] Compare _pin?ulas_ with _pin?alas_ and _pin?aras_.--In the hymn, x. 28, 9, of the _?igvedas_, we also have the mountain cleft from afar by a clod of earth: Adri? logena vy abhedam arat. This a.n.a.logy is so much the more remarkable, as in the same hymn, 4th strophe, the wild boar is also spoken of.

[410] The same virtue of opening the mountain by means of an herb I find attributed to the little martin, in connection with Venus, in Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 415: "Schon in einem Gedichte Meister Altschwerts, ed. Holland, s. 70, wird der Zugang zu dem Berge durch ein Kraut gefunden, das der Springwurzel oder blauen Schlusselblume unserer Ortssagen gleicht. Kaum hat es der Dichter gebrochen, so kommt ein Martinsvogelchen geflogen, das guter Vorbedeutung zu sein pflegt; diesem folgt er und begegnet einem Zwerge, der ihn in den Berg zu Frau Venus fuhrt."

[411] _Carm._ iii. 27.

[412]

"Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor The azured hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweetened not thy breath; the ruddock would, With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie Without a monument!), bring thee all this."

--iv. 2.