CURIOUS STORIES OF THE OLD-TIME FAITH IN THE "KING OF THE FEATHERED
TRIBES."
Birds were trusted, honored and made the symbols of wisdom and power
in the old time, and they have not, at least in their emblematical
signification, been neglected in modern times. The eagle, in
particular, is exalted to a high and potential distinction. On the
banner of a hundred States he is displayed as a conquering symbol and
floats to-day over many a fair realm where Rome's imperial standard
never penetrated.
The eagle has always been considered a royal bird, and was a favorite
with the poets. They called him king of the air and made him bear the
thunderbolts of Jove. Euripides tells us that "the birds in general are
the messengers of the gods, but the eagle is king, and interpreter of
the great deity Jupiter."
The eagle figures in the early legends of all people. When the ancient
Aztecs, the mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley, were moving
southward under Mexi, their king, their god, Vitziputzli, whose image
was borne in a tabernacle made of reeds and placed in the center of the
encampment whenever they halted, directed them to settle where they
should find an eagle sitting on a fig-tree growing out of a rock in a
lake. After a series of wanderings and adventures that do not shrink
from comparison with the most extravagant legends of the heroic ages
of antiquity, they at last beheld perched on a shrub in the midst of
the lake of Tenochtitlan a royal eagle with a serpent in his talons and
his broad wings opened to the rising sun. They hailed the auspicious
omen and laid the foundation of their capital by sinking piles into the
shallows. This legend is commemorated by the device of the eagle and
the cactus, which forms the arms of the modern Mexican Republic.
A goose, it is said, saved Rome once upon a time, but it was an
eagle that directed the selection of the ancient Byzantium--now
Constantinople--as the capital of the Eastern Empire. The site of
ancient Troy had been settled upon by Constantine, and the engineers
were engaged in surveying the plan of the city, when an eagle swooped
down, seized the measuring line, flew away with it and dropped it at
Byzantium. At any rate, this was the story told to the soldiers and
marines, in order to reconcile them to the change of plan, which they
might otherwise have deemed an unfavorable omen, though the splendid
situation of the new capital and its long prosperity, prove how
admirably sagacious was the choice of its founder.
In the reign of Ancus Martius, King of Rome, a wealthy man, whose name
was Tarquin, came to that city from one of the Etruscan States. Sitting
beside his wife in his chariot, as he approached the gates of Rome, an
eagle, it is said, plucked his cap from his head, flew up in the air,
and then, returning, placed it on his head again. Not a few suspect
that the eagle was a tame one and had been taught to perform this
trick. If so, however, the apparent prodigy lost none of its effect in
the popular belief, and Tarquin succeeded Ancus as King of Rome. The
eagle's head on the Roman sceptre, and later on its standard, took its
origin from this occurrence.
Plutarch, in his life of Theseus, relates that when Cymon was sent by
the Athenians to procure the bones of that hero, who had long before
been buried in Scyros, to reinter them in his former capital, he found
great difficulty in ascertaining the burial place of the ancient
monarch. While prosecuting his search, however, he chanced to observe
an eagle that had alighted on a small elevation and was trying with
his beak and claws to break the sod. Considering this a fortunate
omen, they explored the place and discovered the coffin of a man of
extraordinary size, with a lance of brass and a sword lying by it.
These relics were conveyed to Athens amid great rejoicing, where they
found a resting place in the famous temple of Theseus, whose ruins are
still in existence.
The old historians state that the Greek poet Aeschylus lost his life
through an eagle's mistaking his bald head for a rock and dropping a
tortoise upon it in order to break the shell of his amphibious prey,
but which broke, instead, the poet's skull. That an eagle, proverbially
the keenest-sighted of created things, should mistake a man's head
for a stone is absurd beyond the necessity of comment. The story is
probably intended for an allegory, showing how stupidity can overwhelm
genius, or a dull criticism smash a lively poet.
In A. D. 431 there was war between the Emperor Theodosius II. and
Genseric the Vandal, and Marcian, the general of the former, was taken
prisoner. The unfortunate captive was doomed to death. At the place
of execution an eagle alighted on his head and sat there some time
undismayed by the tumult around it. Upon seeing this, and believing
that the captive was destined for some exalted fortune, Genseric
pardoned him and sent him home. About eighteen years afterwards
Theodosius died, and, as his sister had married Marcian, the latter
became Emperor of Constantinople.
During the wars between the Christians and the Moors, of Spain, a
Spanish knight engaged in combat with a gigantic Moslem. The conflict
remained undecided for a long time, but at last the Spaniard began to
lose ground. At this juncture an eagle, swooping from above, flew into
the face of the Moorish giant, and, taking advantage of this sudden and
miraculous intervention, the Spanish champion plunged his sword into
the heart of his antagonist, thus winning the battle.
Rudolph, count of Hapsburg, one morning was looking out of his castle
window upon the surrounding country, and while thus engaged noticed an
eagle circling strangely above a certain place in the forest. Taking
some men at arms he proceeded to the spot, where he found a beautiful
and high-born lady held captive by a band of robbers. He rescued her
and afterwards married her. When a new emperor was wanted in Germany he
obtained the election through the influence of his wife's relatives. In
this romantic fashion began the glory of the present reigning house of
Austria.
I have alluded to the prominence of eagles in the arms of nations and
individuals. The famous ensign of the Roman legions verified the text
of Scripture when, in referring to the eagle, Job says: "Where the
slain are there is she," for the Roman bird flew over nearly the whole
known world and delighted in destruction and in threatening it. The
Byzantine Caesars sported a double-headed eagle to indicate that they
were lords of both the Eastern and the Western world. The Russians
adopted the symbol from those princes. About four hundred years ago a
lady, who claimed to be the heir of the Byzantine Emperor, married Ivan
III., Czar of Russia, who, therefore, assumed the Greek arms, which may
possibly be restored again to Constantinople by Russian arms.
The United States chose for her emblem the same imperial and triumphant
bird. Some have considered it as not altogether an appropriate device
for our republican government. Students of natural history have
observed that the eagle is mean and cowardly. He lives, moreover, a
life of rapine, plundering birds that are bolder and more industrious
than himself. This is rather a bad character for our national bird.
The ancients would probably be horrified at such a criticism of their
royal bird, and, after all, it is not surprising that they held him
in such reverence. These people of the long ago had no books nor
newspapers, but they were proficient students in the book of nature.
By them the birds were accounted prophets, and by their varied flights
they foretold future events and regulated the movements and enterprises
of nations.
We call the wisdom of birds instinct, but they considered it divine
intelligence. Nor was it strange that they should take them for the
interpreters of fate, seeing that in many things the birds were wiser
than themselves, for they seemed to have a knowledge of the future
that was denied to man.
We have some idea of how these people regarded the movements of the
birds from one of the ancient Greek writers, who, in a play entitled
"The Birds," makes them give the following account of themselves: "We
point out to man the work of each season. When the crow takes his
flight across the Mediterranean it is seed-time--time for the pilot
to season his timber. The kite tells you when you ought to shear your
sheep; the swallow shows you when you ought to sell your watch-coats,
and buy light dresses for the summer. We birds are the hinge of
everything you do. We regulate your merchandise, your eating and
drinking, and your marriages."
This Greek play-writer probably voiced the sentiments of the majority
of the people, who had implicit faith in what they called "the
prophecies of the birds;" and it is not surprising that they endowed
the eagle--the king of the feathered tribes--with almost supernatural
wisdom.
Phebe Westcott Humphrey.