Assuming the Form of a Bird.
That the soul quits the dead body in the form of a bird, is a wide-spread belief, and has been the subject of superstitious fancies from the earliest times. In the Egyptian hieroglyphics, a bird signifies the soul of man.
In the legend of St. Polycarp, who was burned alive, his blood extinguished the flames, and from his ashes arose a white dove which flew towards heaven. It was said that a dove was seen to issue from the funeral pyre of Joan of Arc.
In the Breton ballad of "Lord Nann and the Korrigan" there is an allusion to spirit-bearing doves—
"It was a marvel to see, men say,
The night that followed the day,
The lady in earth by her lord lay,
To see two oak-trees themselves rear
From the new-made grave into the air;
"And on their branches two doves white,
Who were there hopping gay and light;
Which sang when rose the morning ray,
And then toward heaven sped away."
A wild song, sung by the boatmen of the Mole, in Venice, declares that the spirit of Daniel Manin, the patriot, is flying about the lagoons to this day in the shape of a beautiful dove.
In the Paris Figaro (October, 1872), is an account of the death of a gipsy belonging to a tribe encamped in the Rue Duhesme. Among other ceremonies, a live bird was held close to the lips of the dying girl, with the view of introducing her soul into the bird.
In certain districts of Russia bread-crumbs are placed in a piece of white linen, outside of the window, for six weeks, under the belief that the soul of the recent inmate will come, in the shape of a bird, to feed upon the crumbs. When Deacon Theodore and his three schismatic brethren were burnt in 1681, the souls of the martyrs, as the "Old Believers" affirm, appeared in the air as pigeons.