The cook: "Ye thoughtless men, remember your Creator."
The dove: "All things pass away; Allah alone is eternal."
The eagle: "Let our life be ever so long, yet it must end in death."
The hoopoo: "He that shows no mercy, shall not obtain mercy."
The kata: "Whosoever can keep silence goes through life most securely."
The nightingale: "Contentment is the greatest happiness."
The peacock: "As thou judgest, so shalt thou be judged."
The pelican: "Blessed be Allah in Heaven and Earth."
The raven: "The farther from mankind, the pleasanter."
The swallow: "Do good, for you shall be rewarded hereafter."
The syrdak: "Turn to Allah, O ye sinners."
The turtle-dove: "It were better for many a creature had it never been
born."
The King, it appears, chose the hoopoo and the cock for his companions, and appointed the doves to dwell in the temple which he was to erect (547. 200, 201). In fairy-tale and folk-lore bird-speech constantly appears. A good example is the story "Wat man warm kann, wenn man blot de Vageln richti verstan deit," included by Klaus Groth in his Quickborn.
In the Micmac legend of the Animal Tamers, by collecting the "horns" of the various animals a youthful hero comes to understand their language (521. 347).
Longfellow, in his account of "Hiawatha's Childhood," has not forgotten to make use of the Indian tradition of the lore of language of bird and of beast possessed by the child:—
"Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How they built their nests in summer,
Where they hid themselves in winter,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them 'Hiawatha's Chickens.'
"Of all the beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How the beavers built their lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them 'Hiawatha's Brothers.'"
In the Middle Ages the understanding of the language of birds, their Latin, as it was called, ranked as the highest achievement of human learning, the goal of wisdom and knowledge, and the thousand rhyming questions asked of birds by children to-day are evidence of a time when communication with them was deemed possible. Some remembrance of this also lingers in not a few of the lullabies and nursery-songs of a type corresponding to the following from Schleswig-Holstein:—
"Hör mal, lütje Kind
Wo düt lütje Vagel singt
Baben in de Hai!
Loop, lüt Kind, un hal mi dat lüt Ei."
Among the child-loving Eskimo we find many tales in which children and animals are associated; very common are stories of children metamorphosed into birds and beasts. Turner has obtained several legends of this sort from the Eskimo of the Ungava district in Labrador. In one of these, wolves are the gaunt and hungry children of a woman who had not wherewithal to feed her numerous progeny, and so they were turned into ravening beasts of prey; in another the raven and the loon were children, whom their father sought to paint, and the loon's spots are evidence of the attempt to this day; in a third the sea-pigeons or guillemots are children who were changed into these birds for having scared away some seals. The prettiest story, however, is that of the origin of the swallows: Once there were some children who were wonderfully wise, so wise indeed that they came to be called zulugagnak, "like the raven," a bird that knows the past and the future. One day they were playing on the edge of a cliff near the village, and building toy-houses, when they were changed into birds. They did not forget their childish occupation, however, and, even to this day, the swallows come to the cliff to build their nests or houses of mud,—"even the raven does not molest them, and Eskimo children love to watch them" (544. 262, 263). From time immemorial have the life and actions of the brute creation been associated with the first steps of education and learning in the child.