To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Not only ghosts, but the Devil and all his powers of darkness, especially warlocks and witches, must disappear at Chanticleer’s cheerful warning that daylight is at hand.
Domestic fowls had become common in Palestine at the time of Jesus, having been received long before from Persia. According to the Mishna Jews were prohibited from selling a white cock to the heathen because it was suitable for sacrifice, but if it were defective it became unsuitable. Cyrus Adler tells us that they used to cut off a toe, and so circumvent the prohibition. Says the Talmud: “There be three that be unyielding—Israel among the peoples, the dog among beasts, and the cock among birds” (Beca, 56).
No doubt it is true, as Mr. R. L. Gales pointed out a few years ago in the National Review, that the sacred mythology of the Nativity and Passion, which is far wider than my immediate use of it, sprang up when the minds of people constantly dwelt on the Faith in a spirit of devotion rather than of controversy. “It seems, too, that there was in the Christianity of the earlier ages something that we may perhaps call a pantheistic element, which has since disappeared.”
Russians tell the story that while Christ was hanging on the cross the sparrows were maliciously chirping Jif! jif! that is, “He is living, He is living!” in order to urge the tormenters to fresh cruelties; but the swallows cried, with opposite intent, “Umer! Umer!” “Dead! Dead!” Therefore the swallow is blessed, but the sparrow is under a curse, and ever since that time it hops, because its legs are tied together, for its sin, by invisible bonds. Another story is that the sparrow was the bird that betrayed the hiding-place of Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane, whereas all other birds tried to entice away the officers who were searching for him, especially the swallow, whose erratic flight still shows that it is seeking to find him.
The oystercatcher is still known among the Gaels of northern Scotland as St. Bride’s lad, says Seton Gordon (Nineteenth Century, 1923, p. 420) from the fact that when that saint first visited Long Island she carried an oystercatcher in each hand; also, there is an old Gaelic tradition that this bird covered Jesus with seaweed when his enemies appeared in hot pursuit. The oystercatcher was therefore blessed, and still shows, as it flies, the form of a cross on its plumage.
A Spanish legend asserts that the owl was once the sweetest of singers; but that, having been present when Jesus died, from that moment it has shunned daylight, and now only repeats in a harsh tone Cruz! Cruz!
Most of the legends of the Cross, so far as concern birds, at least, seem to have arisen in Sweden. The Swedes say, for example, that a swallow hovered over the Crucifixion crying Svale! Svale! “Cheer up! Cheer up!” and it is therefore called in their country the bird of consolation. A similar story is current in Scandinavia of the stork, which is said to have cried to the Redeemer, as it flew about the Cross, Styrket! Styrket! “Strengthen ye.” In both cases there is a play on the Swedish names of these birds; but they testify that the stork, now virtually mute, formerly had a voice. In Sweden, where the red crossbill is a familiar winter bird, arose the tradition that its peculiarly crossed beak became twisted by its efforts to pull the nails from Christ’s hands and feet: