[405] The magpie is proverbial as a babbler; hence, from its Italian name gazza, the name gazzetta given to newspapers, as divulging secrets.—In the Dialogus Creaturarum, dial. 80, it is written of the magpie, called Agazia: "Pica est avis callidissima.... Hæc apud quemdam venatorem et humane et latine loquebatur, propter quod venator ipsam plenaria fulciebat. Pica autem non immemor beneficii, volens remunerare eum, volavit ad Agazias, et cum eis familiariter sedebat et humane sermocinabatur. Agaziæ quoque in hoc plurimum lætabantur cupientes et ipsæ garrire humaneque loqui."
[406] Hence the request made in the popular song to the stork, to bring a little sister; cfr. the songs of the stork in Kuhn and Schwarz, N. S. M. u. G. p. 452. As the bringer of children, the stork is represented as the serpent's enemy; cfr. Tzetza, i. 945.
[407] Cfr. Phile, vi. 2; and Aristophanes in the Ornithes—
"Deî tous neotous t' patéra palin trephein."
"Lacte quis infantes nescit crevisse ferino?
Et picum expositis sæpe tulisse cibos?"
—Ovid, Fasti, iii.
[409] Compare pińǵûlas with pińǵalas and pińǵaras.—In the hymn, x. 28, 9, of the Ṛigvedas, we also have the mountain cleft from afar by a clod of earth: Adriṁ logena vy abhedam ârât. This analogy is so much the more remarkable, as in the same hymn, 4th strophe, the wild boar is also spoken of.
[410] The same virtue of opening the mountain by means of an herb I find attributed to the little martin, in connection with Venus, in Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 415: "Schon in einem Gedichte Meister Altschwerts, ed. Holland, s. 70, wird der Zugang zu dem Berge durch ein Kraut gefunden, das der Springwurzel oder blauen Schlüsselblume unserer Ortssagen gleicht. Kaum hat es der Dichter gebrochen, so kommt ein Martinsvögelchen geflogen, das guter Vorbedeutung zu sein pflegt; diesem folgt er und begegnet einem Zwerge, der ihn in den Berg zu Frau Venus führt."
[411] Carm. iii. 27.