As He spoke these words, Gertrude turned into a large black woodpecker and flew up from the kneading trough and out through the chimney. Her body is black but she still wears the red mutch and she taps at the trees for her food.[133]
The Bohemians believe the cuckoo to be a transformed peasant woman who hid herself when she saw the Saviour approaching because she feared she would have to give Him a loaf. After He had gone by she looked out of the window and cried "Cuckoo!" and thereupon she was changed into a bird.
Another tradition says that the cuckoo is a transformed maiden, who is calling for her lost brother, or else that she proclaims to the world by her cry that her brother has been found again. A Serbian song says that a dead man was detained in misery on earth because his sister persisted in shedding tears over his grave. Becoming angry at her unreasonable sorrow, he cursed her and she was changed into a cuckoo and had enough to do grieving over her own condition without troubling further about his.
In an Albanian version of this legend a sister had two brothers, and accidentally killed one of them by getting up from her needlework and stabbing him in the heart with her scissors. She and her surviving brother grieved so deeply that they turned into birds, and all day long she cried "Ku-ku, ku-ku, Where are you?" to the brother she had slain.
The Westphalian peasants say that the nightingale is a shepherdess who treated a shepherd, who loved her, harshly, for she kept on promising to marry him but was never prepared to fulfil her vow. At last the shepherd could not endure her dilly-dallying any longer and he prayed that she might never sleep again until the day of judgment. Since then her voice is always heard at night-time, singing, "Is tit, is tit, to wit, to wit—Trizy, Trizy, to bucht, to bucht"—which is the cry of the shepherdess to her dog Trizy.[134]
"In former times," says Mr. Train, in his "Account of the Isle of Man,"[135] "a fairy of uncommon beauty exerted such undue influence over the male population, that by her sweet voice she induced numbers to follow her footsteps till by degrees she led them into the sea, where they perished. This barbarous exercise of power had continued for a long time, till it was apprehended that the island would be exhausted of its defenders: when a knight-errant sprang up who discovered some means of countervailing the charms used by this siren, and even laid a plot for her destruction, which she escaped at the moment of extreme hazard by taking the form of a wren. But, though she evaded instant annihilation, a spell was cast upon her by which she was condemned to animate the same form every succeeding New Year's day, until she should perish by a human hand." Every anniversary therefore man and boy hunt the island from dawn till twilight for the small brown bird whose feathers are looked upon as a charm against shipwreck.
In German folk-lore the magpie is a bird of the infernal regions, now changing herself into a witch, or sometimes turning herself into the steed or broomstick on which the witch rides to the Sabbath. In Sweden tradition says that sorcerers on Walpurgis night ride to Blocula and there turn into magpies. A lady at Carlstadt in that country was haunted by witch-birds in a very unpleasant manner. Having insulted a Finn woman who had begged food of her she told her to take a magpie that was hanging in a cage and eat it if she was hungry. The Finn cast an "evil eye" on the lady for this insult, but took the bird away with her. Some time after the Swedish lady noticed that whenever she went out a magpie came hopping in front of her. This happened for some days running, and then the magpie was joined by a companion bird, and presently by a number. The lady began to be frightened, but the more she tried to get rid of these strange companions the more numerous they became. They perched on her shoulders, tugged at her dress, and pecked at her ankles. In despair she shut herself up indoors, but they remained outside, and as soon as the door was open in they hopped. At last she went to bed and had the shutters closed, and the magpies kept on tapping outside till she died.
There is a beautiful Eskimo legend of a bird-bride:—
"Years agone, on the flat white strand,
I won my sweet sea-girl,
Wrapped in my coat of the snow-white fur,
I watched the wild-birds settle and stir,
The grey gulls gather and whirl.
"One of the greatest of all the flock,
Perched on an ice-floe bare,
Called and cried as her heart were broke,
And straight they were changed that fleet bird-folk,
To women young and fair."[136]