Chapter 35

The woodpecker too was a sacred bird, p. 673-5; in Lindenblatt's Chron. p. 31: 'ir speht hatte nicht recht geflogen,' i.e. not from the right hand. To the Romans the screeching parra (green-pecker? peewit?) boded mischief: 'impios parrae recinentis omen ducat,' Hor. Od. iii. 27, 1; 'picus et cornix est ab laeva, corvus, parra ab dextera,' Plaut. As. ii. 1, 12. In Sweden the flight of the lom (a sort of heron, says Ihre) is presignificant, Sup. K, 94. To see the magpie from the front is a good sign, from behind a bad, I, 158. When you hear the first swallow in spring, stop at once (on your road), and from under your left foot dig a coal out of the ground, I, 217. G, 1. 98; just as one cut out the footmark on the spot where one heard the cuckoo (p. 1129). (33) Ms. 2, 118b. 208b: 'nû jârlanc stêt vil hôch mîn muot, ich hôrte den süezen sanc von einer swalwen dâ si fluoc,' as she flew. Servants in Denmark notice whether they see the stork for the first time flying or standing, Sup. K, 130. With the frog, all depends on where you see him hop first, on land or in water, I, 237. To meet a bald or plucked hen was reckoned bad:

Enmi sa voie a encontrée

une geline pielée,

qui pasturoit en la charriere;

a poi ne sen retorne arriere,

por ce quil i entendoit sort;

à ses piez trueve un baston tort,

à la geline lest aler,

et ele sen prist à voler,

en son gelinois le maudist

'honte li viegne!' et il se fist.
Passages in Provencal poetry bearing upon angang are collected in Diez's Lives of the Troub. p. 22-3; they relate to the raven, crow and varieties of the falcon tribe (albanel, gavanh), the criteria being their right or left flight, their going or coming, their crying or keeping silence:

Los destres e'ls senestres, los anans e'ls venens,

d'albanel, de gavanh, d'autras auzels ferens,

del corp e de la gralha, los crîdans, los tacens.
Poes. der troub. p. 221. One would like to have fuller accounts of this bird-interpreting as practised in the Mid. Ages (see Suppl.). (34)

Our early ages appear also to have been a meaning in the over-flight of certain birds. Ms. 2, 1b on the lord of the Dürings: 'ob ime ein adelar (over him an eagle) z'allen zîten ist mit hôhen flügen gewesen.' Eagles spread their wings over famous heroes to shade them from the sun: when the heathen deputies came to Charles's hall, (35) they saw 'daz die adelaren dar zu gewenit wâren, daz sie scate bâren,' Rol. 21, 20. This evidently stands connected with the eagle over Charles's palace (p. 633), perhaps even with that in Oðin's hall, Sæm. 41b. The dove hovering above was mentioned p. 148; supervenire and adumbrare are even Biblical language. By the side of 'drûpir iörn yfir' I place an important stanza of the Hâvamâl, Sæm. 12b:

ôminnis hegri, sâ er yfir ölðrom þrumir,

hann stelr geði guma;

þess fugls fiöðrom ec fiötraðr varc

î garði Gunnlaðar
(oblivionis ardea, qui super symposiis stridet mentemque hominum furatur; ejus avis pennis captus sum in domo Gunnladae). It is Oðinn that speaks, who, after intoxicating himself with full draughts of nectar at the house of Gunnlöð (p. 903-5), flies awa in eagle's shape, 'ôminnis hegri' being a circumlocution for the divine bird. Hergi stands for hêgri, hrêgri, AS. hrâgra, OHG. heigiro, hreigiro, erwdioj, one large bird instead of another. When Oðinn swilled the drink he had longed for, and enjoyed the favour of the fair giantess, he was fettered in eagle's feathers, i.e. put on the form of an eagle. How like the myth of Zeus, when, transformed into an eagle, he carries off Ganymede, and makes him pour out nectar for him! (see Suppl.) (36)

The Romans framed a system of augury of their own, not based on the flight of wildfowl, but on the domestic breed of poultry. The Greeks practised an alektruomanteia by laying grains of corn on the letters of the alphabet, and letting a cock pick them off. The Roman divination was simpler, according to the eager or sluggish eating, or refusing to eat, of young fowls; every legion had its pullarius, who bred, fed and guarded the fowls, and the consul held the augurium in his own house or tent: 'pullis regitur imperium Romanum, hi jubent acies' says Pliny 10, 24; and Procopius 1, 316 gives examples. (37) Yet they also observed the cries of the cock and hen: 'gallina cocinit' is named amongst other bad omens for the bridegroom, in Terence's Phormio iv. 4, 30; the gloss of Donatus makes it mean 'superiorem marito esse uxorem.' And in our own superstition (I, 83; L, 23) a hen that crowed like a cock was held in horror. If a listener under the henroost heard the cock crow, the omen was happy, if the hen cried, it was sad (I, 105. 1055); the same thing applies to droppings of the cock and hen (I, 230). The gander too was supposed to prophesy (I, 847). The Esthonians distinguish between birds of bare and those of shaggy foot (M, 95).

Often it is neither the flight of wayside fowl, nor the chance encounter of a quadruped, but their appearing, their residing in the dwellings of men that bodes them weal or woe. The swallow (L, 9) and the stork are birds of luck (p. 672), one is glad to see storks build on one's roof (I, 215). He that first sees the stork fly in spring, is sure to go on a journey. To the Lettons the titmouse foretokened good, its name is sihle, and sihleht is to foretell (p. 683). A weasel or snake on the roof boded ill (Suidas sub v. Xenocrates); 'anguis per impluvium decidit de tegulis,' Ter. Phormio iv. 4, 29. So does a mouse nibbling at your clothes, Sup. I, 184. Raven, crow or magpie on a sick house is unlucky, or of double meaning, I, 120. 158. 496 (see Suppl.).

There were corpse-birds, birds of dole, whose appearing signified actual or impending death. I suppose the turtle-dove with her melancholy wail to have been such to the Goths, by their calling her hráivadubô (corpse-dove); neither trugwn nor turtur conveys this collateral sense, the bird merely mourns her lost mate; (38) tales about her are coll. in Aw. 3, 34. One of the way-birds, the owl, is also, and preeminently, in place here (Sup. I, 789; L, 8). Hartmann contrasts her flight across one's path with that of the mûsar, hers appears to have been baleful, as his was wholesome: Ms. 2, 174 says 'der iuweln fluc' ne'er profited the world. Ovid Met. 5, 550:

foedaque fit volucris, venturi nuntia luctus,

ignavus bubo, dirum mortalibus omen.
Here metamorphosis strikes in: the owl was an enchanted person, and strix, strinx (' e tectis strix violenta canat,' Tibull. i. 5, 52), bruxa signify at once the bird and the witch that fly by night (p. 1039n.): 'ululae, upupae, bubones toto anno in tectis funebria personantes,' p. 481n.; 'male ominatos cantus ulularum,' Chron. S. Trudonis p. 379. The OHG. holz-rûna, holz-muoja, holz-muwo (Gl. Flor. 988b. 996b. Sumerl. 10, 65. 27, 44. 29, 74) translate lamia, but they rather express wailing bodeful birds, or sprites (of both sexes), who are heard whispering and muttering (rounding, mooing) in the wood, p. 433. Hence also their name of klag-muhme (wailing aunt), klag-mutter, klage-weib; (39) in the Ackerman v. Böhmen, ed. Hag. p. 38, 'klagmut' should be amended 'klagmuoter.' In the Upper Harz klagmutter, klagweib, klagefrau mean a spectral yet winged being (Spiel's Archiv 2, 247); elsewhere it is called weh-klage (Sup. I, 863), leich-huhn (lich-hen), grabe-eule, todten-vogel, and in Brunswick the läpsch, because of its lazy lingering flight (Brauns. anz. 1746. p. 236), 'ignavus bubo,' which again calls up the old sense of feig (fey, moribundus). Other prognostics of death are, when the raven belches, Sup. G, 1. 166, when a cock or hen trails straw, M, 77, when the galadrot (charadrius) turns his head away from the sick man (see Suppl.).

In the same way other animals give notice of a death: when a priest is called in, and his horse lowers his head, Sup. M, 35; when a black ox or cow has been killed in the house, I, 887, which points right back to ancient sacrifices. Also the mole burrowing in a human habitation 555. 601. 881, the cricket chirping 555. 600. 930, (40) the woodworm ticking 901, and mice nibbling at the clothes of a sleeper (see Suppl.).

Prophetic ants, Sup. K, 88; M, 99. A spider running toward you early in the morning is unlucky, but there are luck-spinners too, I, 134. Bosquet 219. A swarm of bees settling on a house betokens fire, I, 160 or some disaster, (41) from those in Drusus's camp downwards (Pliny 11, 18. Dio Cass. 54, 33. Jul. Obsequens de prodig. 1, 132). To Leopold of Austria they foretold the loss of Sempach fight in 1386: 'da kam ein imb geflogen, in d'linden er genistet hat, an's herzogen waffen er flog als do der selbig herzog wol für die linden zog: das diutet frömbde geste, so redt der gemeine man,' Wackern. leseb. 703. It is usually a flight of grasshoppers that announces stranger guests (Justinger p. 160, conf. 271), or else a good take of salmon, ib. 379. Other intimations of coming guests in Sup. I, 71-2-3. 889. 1028; K, 63 (see Suppl.).

Lifeless things, especially elements, can furnish omens. Flames standing on the helmets or spears of warriors were a prognostic of victory (nikhj sumbolon). Sæm. 110a,b mentions a fire of this kind, but not what it signified: 'hyrr leingi mun â brodds oddi bifaz'; and more plainly 151b: 'af geirom geislar (rays) stôðo.' Tac. Ann. 12, 64: 'signa militum arsere'; 15, 7: 'pila militum arsere.' Procop. de b. Vand. 2, 2: twn doratwn autoij ta akra puri pollw katelampeto, kai autwn ai aicmai kaiesqai epi pleiston sfisin edokoun. Greg. Tur. mirac. Mart. 1, 10: 'dum haec agerentur, duae puerorum lanceae emissis flammis lumen euntibus praebuerunt, ibantque fulgurantes hastae.' Before the battle of Prague in 1620 a will o' wisp settled on the general's flag, and was taken for a pledge of victory. This too is the Dioscuri's flame, that shone on the masts of ships, a saving sign under stress of storm. Further, a candle that sneezes (spits), a brand that snaps over (Sup. I, 889) betokes guests again; a candle that goes out, death (150); one that burns roses (forms wickheads), good luck (252). To spill oil or wine, to pour water under the table, were signs to the ancients, one good, the other bad. The table squeaking, the rafters creaking, justified the gloomiest auguries (Dempster 3, 9). Water sinking away or rising indicated a death or famine (p. 590). When the fire crackles, or salt is spilt, it is a sign of strife, Sup. I, 322. 534-5. 64. Connect with this the mythic interpretation of the bickering flame, p. 242: the god is present in the flame as in the bodeful thunder. Gaps formed by earth tumbling in (gropar) prognosticate a death (M, 95); from the sound of the first three clods thrown into a grave, you can tell if others will die soon. A splinter splitting off the floor is a sign of guests (I, 71. 1032), a hoop bursting off a barrel, of death (I, 149) (42) (see Suppl.).

The custom of sprinkling barleycorns on the hot fireplace, and watching if they leap up or lie still, I find in Burchard alone, Sup. C, p. 195d, not in later authors; the Greek kriqomanteia was different.

If in time of war two ears of corn were found on one stalk, it was thought to prefigure the return of peace; (43) on the contrary, for the cherry-tree to blossom twice in the same year is a sign of war, Sup. I, 1116 (see Suppl.).




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