(The guil, Swann explains, is an obnoxious weed, the Gordon refers to the thieving propensities of a neighboring clan, and the crow killed lambs and annoyed sickly sheep.) “It is interesting,” says Wentz,[[62]] “to observe that this Irish war-goddess Morrigu, the bodb or babd, ... has survived to our own day in the fairy-lore of the chief Celtic countries. In Ireland the survival in the popular and still almost general belief among the peasantry that the fairies often exercise their magical powers under the form of royston crows; and for this reason these birds are always greatly dreaded and avoided. The resting of one of them on a peasant’s cottage may signify many things, but often it means the death of one of the family or some great misfortune, the bird in such case playing the part of a bean-sidhe (banshee).” In the western Highlands “the hoody crow plays the same rôle; and in Brittany fairies assume the form of the magpie.”
Under the influence of Christian teaching Odin gradually became identified throughout northern Europe with Satan: so the raven and all the Corvidae are now “Devil’s birds” in the folklore of the North. Even the magpie is said to have devils’ blood in its tongue, and its chattering is ominous of evil, requiring various rustic charms to counteract its harm—in fact, if the farmer-folk are correctly informed, virtually all the birds of this family was naturally tainted with deviltry. It is not surprising then to hear that European crows go down to hell once every year, when they must appear before Old Nick and give him a tribute of feathers. The time of this visit coincides with their moulting-season in midsummer, when the crows retire and remain inconspicuous and silent for a time—so maybe it’s true!
An extraordinary survival of this last notion—unless it be original—is found among the negroes of some of our Southern States, who say that the “jaybird” (bluejay) is never to be seen on Friday, because on that day he is carrying sticks to the Devil in hell; that in general this bird is the Devil’s messenger and spy; and that the reason he is so gay and noisy on Saturday is that he is so glad to get back to earth. An old Georgia darky explained the matter a follows:
“Some folks say Br’er Jay takes a piece er wood, des a splinter, down to de bad Place ev’y Friday fer ter help out Mister Devil, so’s to let him ’n’ his wife, ole Aunty Squatty, have good kindlin’ wood all de time.... But some folks tell de tale ’nother way. Dey say he make dat trip ever’ Friday ter tote down des a grit er dirt. He make de trip sho’. Ever’body knows dat. But for what he goes folks tells diffunt tales. You sho’ly can’t see a jay bird in dis worl’ on Friday fum twelve o’clock twel three—hit takes ’em des dat long ter make de trip.... Some folks say Bre’r Jay and all his fambly, his folks, his cousins, and his kin, does go dat way and d’rection, ev’y one totin’ dey grain o’ sand in der bill an’ drappin’ hit in—des one teeny weeny grit—wid de good hopes er fillin’ up dat awful place.”[[2]]
Louisiana negroes are of the opinion that the jay is condemned to this weekly trip as a punishment for misbehavior at Christ’s crucifixion, but what dreadful deed he did has been forgotten. Every reader of “Uncle Remus,” or of the stories of Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart, Mr. Harry Stillwell Edwards, and other Southern writers, knows how largely the “jaybird” figures in the plantation-tales of the negroes, especially of the coastal districts, where the bluejay is one of the most conspicuous and interesting of resident birds.
The coming of Christianity, as has been said, swept away the images of Odin and of his Pagan familiars Hugin and Munin out of both Teutonic and Keltic Europe, but it did not sweep away the birds themselves, nor discolor their sable wings, nor silence the baleful croak; and the impression left by the old tales lingered long in the minds of the people. To the horror of the raven and his kind among the natives of Britain, as a symbol of the northern marauders from whom they had so long suffered, was now added the anathema of pious missionaries who condemned everything pagan as diabolic, and all things black—except their own robes—as typifying the powers of darkness. Truly, remarked St. Ambrose, all shamelessness and sin are dark and gloomy, and feed on the dead like the crow. A Chinese epithet for the raven is “Mongol’s coffin.”
The people were sincere enough in this, for behind them was not only the Devil-fearing superstition of the Middle Ages but a long line of parent myths and folklore that made the bird’s reputation as black as its plumage, and added to this was the new and terrifying idea of prophecy. You get a hint of the feeling in Gower’s Confessio Amantis:
A Raven by whom yet men maie
Take evidence, when he crieth,
That some mishap it signifieth.