Chapter 21

Freyja's car was drawn by two cats (tveim köttum), p. 305. Now, as fres in ON. means both he-cat and bear, it has lately been contended, not without reason, that köttum may have been substituted for fressum, and a brace of bears have been really meant for the goddess, as Cybele's car was drawn by lions, p. 254. For Puss-in-boots see pp. 503-9, and the Norweg. tale n Folkeeventyr no. 29. Cats and weasels pass for knowing beasts with magical powers, whom one has good reason to indulge, Sup. I, 292 (see Suppl.).

Birds.----With birds the men of old lived on still more intimate terms, and their greater nimbleness seemed to bespeak more of the spiritual than was in quadrapeds. I will here quote some instances of wild fowl being fed by man. Dietmar of Merseb. relates of Mahtildis, Otto I.'s mother (Pertz 5, 740): 'non solum pauperibus, verum etiam avibus victum subministrabat;' and we find the same in the Vita Mahtild. (Pertz. 6, 294): 'nec etiam oblita est volucrum aestivo tempore in arboribus resonantium, praecipiens ministris sub arbores proicere micas panis.' In Norway they used to put out bunches of corn for the sparrows on Yule-eve: 'Jule-aften at sette trende kornbaand paa stöer under aaben himmel ved laden og föe-huset till spurrens föde, at de näste aar ikke skal giöre skade (do no harm next year) paa ageren,' Hiorthöi Gulbrands dalen, Kb. 1785. 1, 130; it was a sacrifice offered to the birds, to keep them from ravaging the crops. It reminds one of the legacy to birds on Walther von der Vogelweide's tombstone, whose very name denotes 'pascua avium.'

Gods and goddesses often change themselves into birds, but giants possess the same power too. The Esthonian god Tarapila flies from one place to another, p. 77; the Greek imagination pictured winged gods, the Hebrew winged angels, the Old German a maiden with swan's wings. The Norse gods and giants put on an eagle's coat, arnar-ham, p. 633n., the goddesses a falcon's coat, vals-ham, p. 302. Wind is described as a giant and eagle, p. 633, and sacred eagles scream on the mountains: 'örn gôl arla, arar gullo,' Sæm. 142ª 149ª. Wolfram thinks of the earth as a bird, when he says, Wh. 308, 27:

sô diu erde ir gevidere rêrt

unde si der meie lêrt

ir mûze alsus volrecken (see Suppl.).

Domestic fowl available for sacrifice, notably the cock and the goose, have but few mythic aspects that I know of. Fire is described as a red cock (p. 601): H. Sachs has the phrase 'to make the red cock ride on one's rooftree,' and the Danes 'den röde hane galer over taget,' the red cock crows on the thack (the fire crackles). Red cocks in preference had to be brought in payment of ground rent (formerly perhaps in sacrifice), RA. 376. The Völuspâ 54 sets before us 'Fialarr, fagur-rauðr hani' singing in the forest; a golden-crested cock awakes the heroes, a dark one crows in the nether world. In the Danish song 1, 212 there is meaning in the crowing of a red and a black cock one after the other; and another song 1, 208 adds a white cock as well. Another cook in the Edda, Vîðofnir, perches on Mîmameiðr, Sæm. 109ª; with him Finn Magnusen (Lex. myth. 824. 1090) would connect the cock they stick on the Maypole. The Wends erected cross-trees, but, secretly still heathen at heart, they contrived to fix at the very top of the pole a weathercock. (48) In one fairy-tale, no. 108, Hansmeinigel's cock sits on a tree in the wood. I do not know when the gilded cock on the church-steeple was introduced; it can hardly have been a mere weather-vane at first. Guibertus in Vita sua, lib. 1 cap. 22, mentions a gallus super turri, so that the custom prevailed in France at the beginning of the 12^th century; in S. Germany we know it existed two centuries earlier. Eckehard tells of the great irruption of Hungarians: 'duo ex illis accendunt campanarium, cujus cacuminis gallum aureum putantes, deumque loci sic vocatum, non esse nisi carioris metalli materia fusum, lancea dum unus, ut eum revellat, se validus protendit, in atrium de alto cecidit et periit' (Pertz 2, 105). The Hungarians took this gilded cock (gallus) for the divinity of the place, and perhaps were confirmed in their error by the bird's name being the same as that of St. Gallus; they even left the minister standing for fear of him: 'monasterio, eo quod Gallus, deus ejus, ignipotens sit, tandem omisso' (ibid. 106). (49) Tit. 407: 'ûz golde ein ar gerœtet, gefiuret unde gefunkelt ûf jeglich kriuze gelœtet.' True, the cock is an emblem of vigilance, and the watchman, to command a wide view, must be highly placed; (50) but it is quite possible that the christian teachers, to humour a heathen custom of tying cocks to the tops of holy trees, made room for them on church-towers also, and merely put a more general meaning on the symbol afterwards (see Suppl.).

At the head of wildfowl the eagle stands as king, and is the messenger of Jove. In our beast-fables the raven seems to take upon him the parts both of wolf and of fox, uniting the greed of the one with the other's cunning. Two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, are, like the two wolves, constant companions of Oðinn (p. 147); their names express power of thought and remembrance: they bring him tidings of all that happens. (51) Compare the sage sparrow (spörr) of the Norse king Dag (Yngl. saga 21), who gathers news for him out of all countries, and whose death he avenges by an invasion. Those scouts of Oðinn seem to alluded to in several stories, e.g., Olaf Tryggv. cap. 28, where screaming ravens testify that Oðinn accepts the offering presented; and in Nialss. 119 two ravens attend a traveller all day. In like manner St. Gregory is escorted by three flying ravens, Paul. Diac. 1, 26. In the beautiful myth of king Oswald, the raven who gets his plumage bound with gold (conf. the falcon, Ms. 1, 38b) acts an essential part: he has nothing of the fiendish nature afterwards imputed to this bird. It shows the same tendency, that where the Bible says of the raven sent out of the ark by Noah, simply that he exelqwn ouk anestreye (Gen. 8, 7), our Teutonic poetizers must make him alight on carrion, Cædm. 87, 11. Diut. 3, 60. King Arthur, whom we lately met as a bear, is said to have been converted into a raven: 'que anda hasta ahora convertido en cuervo, y le esperan en su reyno por momentos,' Don Quixote 1, 49. In folksongs it is commonly a bird tht goes on errands, brings intelligence of what has passed, and is sent out with messages: the Bohemians say 'to learn it of the bird' (dowedeti se po ptacku, see Suppl.).

In our legends, birds converse together on the destinies of men, and foretell the future. Ravens reveal to the blind the means of recovering their sight, KM. no. 107. Domestic fowls discuss the impending ruin of the castle, Deut. sag. 1, 202. In the Helgaqviða, Sæm. 140-1, a wise bird (fugl frôðhugaðr) is introduced talking and prophesying to men, but insists on a temple and sacrifices before he will tell them more. In one German story, men get to understand the language of birds by eating of a white snake, KM. no. 17. Sigurðr understands it too, the moment the heart's blood of the dragon Fafnir has got him his finger-tips to his tongue: and then swallows (igðor) give him sound advice, Sæm. 190-1. To kill swallows brings misfortune: acc. to Sup. I, 378 it occasions four weeks' rain; and their nests on the houses no one dares knock down. From Saxo's account (p. 327) of the oaken statue of Rugivit, we may conclude that the Slavs had let swallows build on it in peace (see Suppl.).

The mythical character of the swan is certified by the legend of swan-wives (p. 426) and by the bird's own death-song (see Suppl.). The stork too was held inviolable, he is like swallows a herald of spring; his poetic name certainly reaches back to heathen times, but hitherto has baffled all explanation. OHG glosses give odebero, Graff 3, 155, udebero, Sumerl. 12, 16, otivaro, odebore, Fundgr. 1, 386, odeboro, Gl. Tross; MHG. adebar only in Diut. 3, 453; MLG. edebere, Brun's Beitr. 47, adebar, Reinke, 1777. 2207; M. Neth. odevare, hodevare, Rein. 2316. Clignett 191; New Neth. ôyevâr; New LG. êber, äbêr, atjebar; AS. and Norse have nothing similar. The 'bero, boro' is bearer, but the first word, so long as the quantity of its vowel remains doubtful, is hard to determine; the choice would lie between luck-bringer (fr. ôt opes) and child-bringer, which last fits in with the faith, still very prevalent, that the stork brings babies. If, besides the OS. partic. ôdan, AS. eáden, ON. auðinn (genitus), we would produce a subst. ôd, eád (proles), all would be straight. The prose word, OHG. storah, AS. storc, ON. storkr [[stork]], may be just as old. In Frisian superstition there occur metamorphoses of storks into men, and of men into storks. A lay of Wolfram 5, 21 declares that storks never hurt the crops (see Suppl.).

The woodpecker was held sacred by ancient peoples of Italy, and ranked as the bird of Mars, Areoj ornij: perched on a wooden pillar (epi kionoj xulinou) he prophesied to the Sabines in the grove by Matiena (or Matiera, Dion. hal. 1, 14. Reiske p. 40); he had once guided them on their way, wrmhntai oi Pikentinoi druokolaptou thn odon hgesamenou , Strabo v, p. 240. And he purveyed for Romulus and Remus when the wolf's milk did not suffice them, Ov. Fasti 3, 37. 54; conf. Niebuhr 1, 245. Acc. to Virg. Aen. 7, 189 and Ov. Met. 14, 321 Picus was the son of Saturn and father of Faunus, (52) and was changed into the bird. The apparent relationship of this Picus to our poem of Beowulf (bee-hunter, i.e. woodpecker), was pointed out p. 369. In Norway the red-hooded blackpecker is called Gertrude's fowl, and a story in Asbiörnsen and Moe (no. 2) explains its origin: When our Lord walked upon earth with Peter, they came to a woman that sat baking, her name was Gertrude, and she wore a red cap on her head. Faint and hungry from his long journey, our Lord asked her for a little cake. She took a little dough and set it on, but it rose so hight that it filled the pan. She thought it too large for an alms, took less dough and began to bake it, but this grew just as big, and again she refused to give it. The third time she took still less dough, and when the cake still swelled to the same size, 'Ye must go without' said Gertrude, 'all that I bake becomes too big for you.' Then was the Lord angry, and said: 'Since thou hast grudged to give me aught, thy doom is that thou be a little bird, seek thy scanty sustenance twixt wood and bark, and only drink as oft as it shall rain.' No sooner were these words spoken, than the woman was changed into Gertrude's fowl, and flew up the kitchen chimney. And to this day we see her in her red cap, and the rest of her body black, for the soot of the chimney blackened her; continually she hacks into the bark of trees for food, and pipes before rain, because, being always thirsty, she then hopes to drink. (53) The green-pecker has the alias giessvogel, Austr. gissvogel (Stelzhamer's Lieder pp. 19. 177), goissvogel (Hofer 1, 306), Low G. gütvogel, gietvogel, gütfugel (Ehrentr. 1. 345), Engl. rainbird, rainfowl, because his cry of 'geuss, giess, giet' (pour!) is said to augur a downpour of rain. About him there goes a notable story: When the Lord God at the creation of the world ordered the beasts to dig a great well (or pond), this bird abstained from all work, for fear of soiling his handsome plumage (or yellow legs). Then God ordained that to all eternity he should drink out of no well (pond); therefore we always see him sip laboriously out of hollow stones or cart-ruts where rainwater has collected. But when no rain has fallen and there is drought, he is sore athirst, and we hear unceasingly his pain-stricken 'giet!' And the good Lord takes pity, and pours down rain (Reusch in Preuss. provinz. bl. 26, 536; from Samland). Fählmann in the Dorpater verhandl. 1, 42 gives an Esthonian myth: God was having the Em-bach (-beck, -brook, p. 599n.) dug, and set all the beasts to work; but the Whitsun -fowl idly flew from bough to bough, piping his song. Then the Lord asked him: 'has thou nought to do but to spruce thyself?' The bird replied, 'the work is dirty, I can't afford to spoil my golden-yellow coat and silvery hose.' 'Thou foolish fop,' the Lord exlaimed, 'from henceforth thou shalt wear black hose, and never slake thy thirst at the brook, but pick the raindrops off the leaves, and only then strike up thy song when other creatures creep away from the coming storm.'---Now that Norwegian Gertrude's fowl, whose thirsty piping brings on rain, is evidently identical, and very likely another story explains the rainbird as the metamorphosis of a vain idle person. Sometimes it is not the woodpecker at all that is meant by giessvogel, giesser, wasservogel, pfingstvogel, regenpfeifer, but a snipe (Höfer 1, 306. 341), whose cry likewise forebodes a storm (p. 184), or the curlew (numenius arquata), Fr. pluvier (pluviarius), Boh. koliha, Pol. kulig, killik, LG. regenwolp, waterwolp (Brem. wtb. 5, 286). In our own beast-fables the woodpecker is left without any part to play, only in an altogether isolated episode he is introduced conversing with the wolf (Reinh. 419). The Votiaks pay divine honours to the tree-tapping woodpecker, to induce him to spare their woods. (54) The cry of the woodpecker (zhunia) the Servians call klikchi, kliknuti, kliktati, as they do that of the vila [p. 436, but there wrongly ascribed to the tapping noise]. Woodpeckers by their tapping show the way to the river (Lay of Igór 79); the old legend of the woodpecker and springwurzel will be examined in Chap. XXXII (see Suppl.).---A near neighbour of the pecker (picus) is the pie, magpie (pica). In ON. her name is skaði [[skathe, harm, dagage; loss; death]] (masc., says Biörn), Swed. skata, Dan. skade, which may be referred to the abstract notion of damnum, OHG. scado; at the beginning of the Völsunga saga there occurs a man's name Skaði, which Finn Magn. (Lex. 699) declares to be the goddess Skaði. In Flemish beast-legend the magpie was 'ver Ave,' frau Ave. In Poitou there still lingers a trace of pie-worship; viz. a bunch of heath and laurel is tied to the top of a high tree in honour of the magpie, because her chatter warns the people of the wolf's approach: 'porter la crêpe (pancake) a la pie,' Mém. des antiq. 8, 451.

In Old Bohemian songs the sparrowhawk (krahui, krahug) is a sacred bird, and is harboured in a grove of the gods (Königinh. MS. 72. 80. 160). On the boughs of an oak that springs out of a murdered man's grave, holy sparrowhawks perch, and publish the foul deed (see Suppl.).




ENDNOTES:

48. Annalen der Churbr. Hannöv. lande, 8 jahrg. p. 284. Some think the cock referred to Peter's denial. [Back]

49. All very legendary; for the Hungarian attack on the monastery of Herzfeld (Hirutfeld) on the Lippe is related much in the same way in the Vita S. Idae, viz. that having scaled the nolarius, but not succeeded in wrenching off the bells, they suddenly fled, aliquid ibi esse divalis numinis suspicati sunt (Pertz 2, 573). Here the cock does not come into play, the bells do it all. [Back]

50. Münster's Sinnbilder der alten Christen, p. 55. As Gregory the Great explains gallus by 'praedicator' (Opp., Paris 1705. i, 959. 961), and again speculator by the same 'praedicator,' he may in the following passage have had the cock in view, without naming him: 'speculator semper in altitudine stat, ut quidquid venturum sit longe prospiciat,' ibid. i, 1283. [Back]

51. In a Slovènic fairy-tale somebody had a raven (vrána) who was all-knowing (védezh), and used to tell him everything when he came home. Murko's Sloven. deutsches wtb. Grätz 1833. p. 696. [Back]

52. When the Swiss call the black-pecker merzafülli (March-foal, Stald. 2, 199. Tobler 316ª), the simplest explan. is from picus martius; yet fülli may be for vögeli, and so March-fowl or Martin's fowl; see more in Chap. XXXV., Path-crossing. [Back]

53. Rytchkov's Journ. thro' the Russ. Emp., trsl. by Hase, Riga 1774. p. 124. [Back]

54. Carniol. zuna, Pol. zluwa, Boh. also wlha, wolga. [Back]