I have met people who do not like to hear the cuckoo for the first time before they get up from bed in the morning. To see the bird coming to the door is also regarded as an evil omen by some. A woman in North Cardiganshire informed me that a cuckoo came to the door before her father died. The cuckoo is supposed to be accompanied by the wryneck known in Welsh as Gwas-y-Gwcw.
If we are to believe an old legend, the cuckoo in former times used to begin to sing at Nevern, in Pembrokeshire, on the 7th of April, patron day of that parish; and George Owen of Henllys, who lived in the time of Queen Elizabeth, says, “I might well here omit an old report as yet fresh, of this odious bird, that in the old world the parish priest of the Church would not begin mass until this bird, called the citizen’s ambassador, had first appeared and began her note, on a stone called St. Byrnach’s Stone, being curiously wrought with sundry sorts of knots, standing upright in the Church-yard of the parish, and one year staying very long, and the priest and the people expecting her accustomed coming (for I account this bird of the feminine gender) came at last, lighting on the said stone, her accustomed preaching place, and being scarce able once to sound the note, presently fell dead.”
According to another old legend, this stone upon which the cuckoo began her note, was at first intended by St. David for Llanddewi Brefi, but St. Brynach prevailed upon him to leave it at Nevern. The Rev. J. T. Evans, Rector of Stow, gives this legend in “The Church Plate of Pembrokeshire.”
THE SWALLOW—Y WENNOL.
Many superstitions which cluster round the Swallow, have descended to us from remote antiquity; and among the Romans this bird was sacred to the household gods and the family. In Wales, it was formerly believed that the swallow, like the cuckoo, slept through the winter. This bird is also supposed to bring good fortune to the house upon which it builds its nest. If, however, the bird forsakes its old nest on a house, it is considered a sign of ill-luck. It is also most unlucky to break a swallow’s nest.
“Y neb a doro nyth y wenol
Ni wel fwyniant yn dragwyddol.”
(Whoever breaks a swallow’s nest,
Never, never shall be blest.)