Kelly says:—"The cuckoo's connection with storms and tempests is not clearly determined, but the owl's is indisputable. Its cry is believed in England to foretell rain and hail, the latter of which is usually accompanied with lightning, and the practice of nailing it to the barn door, to avert the lightning, is common throughout Europe, and is mentioned by Palladius in his treatise on agriculture."
The wren, as I have shown in a previous chapter, is mercilessly hunted to death in the Isle of Man, although he partakes of the sanctity of the robin in most parts of England. Not so in Ireland, however. General Vallancy says:—"The Druids represented this as the king of all birds. The superstitious respect shown to this little bird gave offence to our first Christian missionaries, and by their commands he is still hunted and killed on Christmas-day; and on the following (St. Stephen's-day) he is carried about hung by the leg in the centre of two hoops crossing each other at right angles, and a procession is made in every village, of men, women, and children, singing an Irish catch importing him to be the king of all birds."
The wren is sometimes treated in a similar manner in the south of France. It is generally, however, regarded as a sacred bird, as in England and Scotland. To take its life or to rob its nest even, in the Pays de Caux, is regarded as a crime of such atrocity that it will "bring down the lightning" upon the homestead of the offender. Robert Chambers, in his "Popular Rhymes," has the following couplet on this subject:—
Malisons, malisons, mair than ten,
That harry the Ladye of Heaven's hen!
It would seem from these facts that the poor little bird has met with a somewhat similar fate to that of Odin and the rest of the Æsir gods, and has been transformed, occasionally at least, into a spirit of evil.
In Perigord, according to De Nore, the swallow is called "La Poule de Dieu" and is regarded as "the messenger of life." The cricket, too, is held in similar estimation. May not the latter have acquired its reputation from its fondness of the domestic hearth, and its presumed immunity from the effects of fire?
The raven, sacred to Odin and Apollo, the German and Greek forms of the Aryan Rudra, was, and indeed is yet, pre-eminently the bird of ill-omen. Lady Macbeth, in the fulness of her murderous impulse, exclaims:—
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlement.
And Hamlet, impatient at the grimaces of the actor, representing, in the play, the murderer of his father, exclaims:—
Leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come—
The croaking raven
Doth bellow for revenge.