It shows that frost is very near;
But when the Dotterel do go,
Then you may look for heavy snow.”
Aristophanes makes one of his characters say that in former times the Kite ruled the Greeks; his meaning being that in ancient days the Kite was looked upon as the sign of Spring and of the necessity of commencing active work in field and garden; and again, “The Crow points out the time for sowing when she flies croaking to Libya.” In another place he notices that the Cuckoo in like manner governed Phœnicia and Egypt, because when it cried Kokku, Kokku, it was considered time to reap the Wheat and Barley fields.
In our own country, this welcome harbinger of the Springtide has been associated with a number of vernal plants: we have the Cuckoo Flower (Lychnis Flos cuculi), Cuckoo’s Bread or Meat, and Cuckoo’s Sorrel (Oxalis Acetosella), Cuckoo Grass (Lazula campestris), and Shakspeare’s “Cuckoo Buds of yellow hue,” which are thought to be the buds of the Crowfoot (Ranunculus). The association in the popular rhyme of the Cuckoo with the Cherry-tree is explained by an old superstition that before it ceases its song, the Cuckoo must eat three good meals of Cherries. In Sussex, the Whitethorn is called the Cuckoo’s Bread-and-Cheese Tree, and an old proverb runs—
“When the Cuckoo comes to the bare Thorn,
Then sell your Cow and buy your Corn.”
Mr. Parish has remarked that it is singular this name should be given to the Whitethorn, as among all Aryan nations the tree is associated with lightning, and the Cuckoo is connected with the lightning gods Jupiter and Thor.
Pliny relates that the Halcyon, or Kingfisher, at breeding-time, foretold calm and settled weather. The belief in the wisdom of birds obtained such an ascendancy over men’s minds, that we find at length no affair of moment was entered upon without consulting them. Thus came in augury, by which was meant a forewarning of future events derived from prophetic birds. One of these systems of divinations, for the purpose of discovering some secret or future event was effected by means of a Cock and grains of Barley, in the following manner: the twenty-four letters of the alphabet having been written in the dust, upon each letter was laid a grain of Barley, and a Cock, over which previous incantations had been uttered, was let loose among them; those letters off which it pecked the Barley, being joined together, were then believed to declare the word of which they were in search. The magician Jamblichus, desirous to find out who should succeed Valens in the imperial purple, made use of this divination, but the Cock only picked up four grains, viz., those which lay upon the (Greek) letters th. e. o. d., so that it was uncertain whether Theodosius, Theodotus, Theodorus, or Theodectes, was the person designed by the Fates. Valens, when informed of the matter, was so terribly enraged, that he put several persons to death simply because their names began with these letters. When, however, he proceeded to make search after the magicians themselves, Jamblichus put an end to his majesty’s life by a dose of poison, and he was succeeded by Theodosius in the empire of the East.
The loves of the Nightingale and the Rose have formed a favourite topic of Eastern poets. In a fragment by the celebrated Persian poet Attar, entitled Bulbul Nameh (the Book of the Nightingale), all the birds appear before Solomon, and charge the Nightingale with disturbing their rest by the broken and plaintive strains which he warbles forth in a sort of frenzy and intoxication. The Nightingale is summoned, questioned, and acquitted by the wise king, because the bird assures him that his vehement love for the Rose drives him to distraction, and causes him to break forth into those languishing and touching complaints which are laid to his charge. Thus the Persians believe that the Nightingale in Spring flutters around the Rose-bushes, uttering incessant complaints, till, overpowered by the strong scent, he drops stupefied to the ground. The impassioned bird makes his appearance in Eastern climes at the season when the Rose begins to blow: hence the legend that the beauteous flower bursts forth from its bud at the song of its ravished adorer. The Persian poet Jami says, “The Nightingales warbled their enchanting notes and rent the thin veils of the Rose-bud and the Rose;” and Moore has sung—