Ernest Ingersoll - Birds in Legend, Fable and Folklore

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BIRDS IN LEGEND

FABLE AND FOLKLORE

St. Francis Preaching to the Birds.
Attributed to Giotto

BIRDS IN LEGEND
FABLE AND FOLKLORE

BY

ERNEST INGERSOLL

Author of The Life of Mammals, Natures Calendar, The Wit of the Wild, etc.: and Secretary of the Authors Club, New York

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4

TORONTO, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

1923

Copyright, 1923, by

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

MADE IN THE UNITED STATES

CONTENTS

CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	A Chat with the Intending Reader
II.	Birds as National Emblems
III.	An Ornithological Comedy of Errors
IV.	The Folklore of Bird Migration
V.	Noahs Messengers
VI.	Birds in Christian Tradition and Festival
VII.	Birds as Symbols and Badges
VIII.	Black Feathers make Black Birds
IX.	The Familiar of Witches
X.	A Flock of Fabulous Fowls
XI.	From Ancient Auguries to Modern Rainbirds
XII.	A Primitive View of the Origin of Species
XIII.	Birds and the Lightning
XIV.	Legends in an Historical Setting
XV.	Some Pretty Indian Stories
List of Books Referred to
Index

BIRDS IN LEGEND

FABLE AND FOLKLORE

CHAPTER I
A CHAT WITH THE INTENDING READER

Angus Mac-ind-oc was the Cupid of the Gaels. He was a harper of the sweetest music, and was attended by birds, his own transformed kisses, which hovered, invisible, over young men and maidens of Erin, whispering love into their ears.

When we say, A little bird told me, we are talking legend and folklore and superstition all at once. There is an old Basque story of a birdalways a small one in these talesthat tells the truth; and our Biloxi Indians used to say the same of the hummingbird. Breton peasants still credit all birds with the power of using human language on proper occasions, and traditions in all parts of the world agree that every bird had this power once on a time if not now. The fireside-tales of the nomads of Oriental deserts or of North American plains and forest alike attest faith in this power; and conversation by and with birds is almost the main stock of the stories heard on our Southern cotton-plantations. You will perhaps recall the bulbul bazar of the Arabian Nights, and, if you please, you may read in another chapter of the conversational pewit and hoopoe of Solomonic fame.

Biblical authority exists in the confidence of the Prophet Elijah that a bird of the air ... shall tell the matter; and monkish traditions abound in revelations whispered in the ear of the faithful by winged messengers from divine sources, as you may read further along if you have patience to turn the leaves. The poets keep alive the pretty fiction; and the rest of us resort to the phrase with an arch smile whenever we do not care to quote our authority for repeating some half-secret bit of gossip. This magical power of understanding birdtalk, says Halliday, is regularly the way in which the seers of myths obtain their information.

. This and similar superior figures throughout the text refer to the List of Books in the Appendix, where the author and title of the publication alluded to will be found under its number.

The author takes this opportunity, in place of a perfunctory Preface, to make grateful acknowledgment of assistance to Professor A. V. H. Jackson , who revised the chapter on fabulous birds; to Mr. Stewart Culin , helpful in Chinese matters, etc.; to Professor Justin H. Smith , who scanned the whole manuscript; and to others who furnished valuable facts and suggestions.

Primitive menand those we style the Ancients were primitive so far as nature is concernedregarded birds as supernaturally wise. This canniness is implied in many of the narratives and incidents set down in the succeeding pages; and in view of it birds came to be regarded by early man with great respect, yet also with apprehension, for they might utilize their knowledge to his harm. For example: The Canada jay is believed by the Indians along the northern shore of Hudson Bay to give warning whenever they approach an Eskimo campusually, of course, with hostile intent; and naturally those Indians kill that kind of jay whenever they can.

The ability in birds to speak implies knowledge, and Martha Young gives us a view of this logic prevailing among the old-time southern darkies:

Sis Dove she know mon anybody or anything in de worl. She know pintedly de time anybody gwine die. Youll hear her moanin fer a passin soul fo you hear de bell tone. She know fo cotton-plantin time wher de craps dat gatherin ll be good er bad. Fo folks breaks up de new groun er bust out middles, Sis Dove know what de yield ll be. She know it an shell tell it, too. Caze evybody know if Sis Dove coo on de right han of a man plowin, dare ll be a good crap dat year; but ef she coo on de lef dar ll be a faillery crap dat year.

Sis Dove she know about all de craps dat grow out er de groun but she special know about corn, fer she plant de fist grain er corn dat ever was plant in de whole worl. Whar she git it?... Ummhum! You tell me dat!

From the belief in the intuitive wisdom of birds comes the world-wide confidence in their prophetic power. Hence their actions, often so mysterious, have been watched with intense interest, and everything unusual in their behavior was noticed in the hope that it might express a revelation from on high. Advantage was taken of this pathetic hope and assurance by the Roman augurs in their legalized ornithomancy, of which some description will be found in another chapter. Nine-tenths of it was priestly humbug to keep ordinary folks in mental subjection, as priestcraft has ever sought to do. The remaining tenth has become the basis of the present popular faith in birds ability to foretell coming weather. Let me cite a few aboriginal examples of this faith, more or less sincere, in the ability and willingness of birds to warn inquiring humanity.

The Omahas and other Siouan Indians used to say that when whippoorwills sing at night, saying Hoia, hohin? one replies No. If the birds stop at once, it is a sign that the answerer will soon die, but if the birds keep on calling he or she will live a long time. The Utes of Colorado, however, declare that this bird is the god of the night, and that it made the moon by magic, transforming a frog into it; while the Iroquois indulged in the pretty fancy that the moccasin-flowers (cypripediums) are whippoorwills shoes.

This is a little astray from my present theme, to which we may return by quoting from Waterton that if one of the related goatsuckers of the Amazon Valley be heard close to an Indians or a negros hut, from that night evil fortune sits brooding over it. In Costa Rica bones of whippoorwills are dried and ground to a fine powder by the Indians when they want to concoct a charm against some enemy; mixed with tobacco it will form a cigarette believed to cause certain death to the person smoking it.

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