And, again, Othello says:—
Oh, it comes o'er my memory
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all.
All know what powerful use Edgar Allan Poe has made of this "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore," in his marvellous poem, "The Raven."
The raven's power of scenting carrion from a great distance may have originally influenced, as in the case of the dog and owl, its selection as a personification of impending death or other calamity.
The raven was the standard of the Scandinavian vikingrs, as the eagle was of the Ancient Romans, and is of the French of the present day. Asser, in his "Life of Alfred the Great," when describing a victory gained by that king near Kynwith Castle says: "they gained a very large booty, and among other things the standard called Raven; for they say that the three sisters of Hindwai and Hubba, daughters of Lodobroch, wove that flag and got it ready in one day. They say, moreover, that in every battle, wherever that flag went before them, if they were to gain the victory, a live crow would appear flying in the middle of the flag; but if they were doomed to be defeated it would hang down motionless, and this was often proved to be so." Doubtless much of the still lingering aversion for crows, ravens, and magpies, is but the remains of the dislike of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors to the emblem of their once dreaded mortal enemies, or it is, perhaps, more probable that each people had preserved a similar traditionary faith in the supernatural character of the bird from their common remote ancestors. Indeed, reference is made to the raven as a war emblem in the fragment of heroic Anglo-Saxon poetry, containing part of a description of the battle at Finnesburg, which was found on the cover of a MS. of homilies, in the library at Lambeth Palace, by Dr. Hicks, in the sixteenth century. On the defeat of the warriors, the MS. says,—"The raven wandered, swart and sallow brown." There is, as I have previously observed, in Chapter IX., a tradition in Cornwall that King Arthur is yet alive in the form of a raven, and superstitious persons yet refuse to kill the bird from a belief in its truth.
Many other birds possess somewhat similar attributes to the raven, such as crows, magpies, jackdaws, &c. Ramesey (Elminthologia, 1668) says:—"If a crow fly but over the house and croak thrice, how do they fear, they, or some one else in the family, shall die." The croaking of crows and ravens foreboded rain. In this particular they resembled the woodpecker. It was, nay, it is yet held that to see a crow on the left hand is a sinister omen. In the "Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophesies," by the Earl of Northampton, published in 1583, we find the following:—"The flight of many crowes upon the left side of the campe made the Romans very much afrayde of some badde lucke; as if the greate god Jupiter had nothing else to do (said Carneades) but to drive jack-dawes in a flock together."
The evil boding of the "seven whistlers," or flock of plovers, in Lancashire, has been previously referred to. In Lancashire and the north of England magpies are termed pyanots. The old formula, which attributes certain results as the consequence of their appearance, is still firmly believed in, viz.:—"One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding and four for death." Intelligent persons, yet, from mere habit, on the sight of a magpie, involuntary turn round three times, or mark a cross with the toe on the ground, in order to avert the calamity supposed to be attendant upon its untoward presence. The original name, when fully expressed, appears to have been maggott pie. Shakspere mentions it under this designation, when, in Macbeth, he refers to its use in divination. He says:—
Augurs and understood relations have
By maggot pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.
The woodpecker, perhaps, of all the fire-bringing birds, has most permeated the ancient mythologies. The Latins named it Picus, whose brother (or double), Pilumnus, was the god of bakers and millers. In early times the millers pounded their corn with a pestle, and pilum signified both pestle and javelin, which are equally types of the thunderbolt. The tapping of the beak of the woodpecker was regarded as partaking of a similar character. On the birth of a child it was customary at Rome to prepare a couch for Pilumnus and Picumnus, who were believed to bring the fire of life, and were supposed to remain until the vitality of the infant was indisputable. The Romans likewise styled the woodpecker Martus and Feronius, from the god Mars and the Sabine goddess Feronia. The name Feronia is indicative of fire or soul bringing, and is intimately connected with that of Phoroneus, the Prometheus of a Peloponnesian legend, relating to the original procuration of the heavenly fire. Dr. Kuhn says both names are identical with the epithet commonly applied to the Aryan fire-god Agni, Churanyu, which signifies "one who pounces down, or bears down rapidly."
Picus was the son of Saturn, and the first King of Latium, as well as a fire-bringing bird. This, Kelly observes, "is only another way of saying that he, too, like Manu, Minyas, Minos, Phoroneus, and other fire-bringers, is the first man; and therefore it is that, under the name of Picumnus, he continued in latter times to be the guardian genius of children, along with his brother Pilumnus."