BIRD WOMEN
A beautiful girl of about twenty years of age lived in a Provençal
village. Her figure was good, she had an engaging carriage, fine hair,
lovely eyes and teeth, and, in short, she was very attractive, but
none of the young men of the village ever attempted to make love to
her, and she had never had an offer of marriage. Whenever she met a
young man who was new to the neighbourhood, he said, "Oh, what a
pretty girl!" But his friends whispered in his ear, "Yes, she's lovely
but she's a witch," and the mere suspicion of such a thing was so
unpleasant that the young man knew it was quite impossible to give the
lady a second sympathetic thought.
A few courageous young men, it is true, were anxious to hear further
details about her sad story, and their friends gave them the following
account as soon as they were out of earshot of any curious listener.
The young girl's mother, it appeared, had become a witch in her early
youth, because, finding herself at the bedside of an old neighbour who
lay at death's door and who was a notorious witch, she had been
imprudent enough to take hold of her hand. Her indiscretion had not at
the time become public property, and she had no difficulty in getting a
husband, but a very short time after the marriage had taken place, the
man had fallen ill, and died soon afterwards in a mysterious decline.
Under these circumstances there could be no doubt that the daughter
was a witch as well as the mother, and it was equally certain that any
bold gentleman who might venture to marry her would be condemned to
an early death.
Whether the young lady in question was pleased at the prospect of
being laid on the shelf is very doubtful. Most girls of twenty have
not an idea in the world beyond getting married, and she did not seem
to be an exception to the rule.
One day a nice-looking young man who had recently come to the district
to take up a position of some importance, was much struck by the young
lady's good looks. When a friend told him she was undoubtedly a witch
he shrugged his shoulders in contemptuous incredulity and continued to
glance at her with interest and even tenderness in his gaze.
He was specially favoured by the girl, who received his attentions with
pleasure and returned his glances. They soon made one another's
acquaintance and, before long, an engagement was arranged between them.
The young man's family looked upon the forthcoming marriage with
anything but good-will. But the young lover was obstinate, and as the
girl and her mother did their best to keep him to his intentions, the
arrangements were settled and the wedding-day fixed.
The fiancé was allowed to pay court to his lady-love every evening,
and he made good use of this privilege. Autumn was approaching and the
evenings were drawing in, and as the wedding was to be in November,
there were many things to arrange and discuss every day, which made
long visits a matter of course.
Time and time again one of the young man's friends pointed out the
danger into which he was running by marrying a witch, but all advice
was useless. It had an effect in one way, however, as it made the
young man anxious to know whether the accusation could possibly be
true. After a long time, in which his friend's suggestions had slowly
made an impression, the young man decided to take steps to make sure
what sort of a woman he was about to marry.
It is a well-known fact that the witches' Sabbath begins exactly at
midnight, and once or twice when it grew very late whilst he was
visiting his fiancée, her mother had suggested it was time he took his
leave as it was close on midnight. This occurrence had made him
slightly suspicious, and he decided to resort to a ruse.
One evening, having arrived at the usual hour, he complained of
fatigue and pretended to fall asleep. Being Friday, the meeting of the
witches was a specially solemn one, and not a single witch could
afford to be absent. As time wore on, mother and daughter tried to
wake the young man, but this was impossible, as he was sleeping too
heavily, even snoring in a marked fashion, although all the time he
was prepared to glance out of one eye if anything extraordinary went
on in the room.
Presently, finding all their efforts in vain, the two women began
talking in whispers, and were seemingly in great trouble. Then, as time
pressed on, they took a mighty resolution. They put out the light, so
that the room was in utter darkness save for the glowing embers on the
hearth, then they took from a hidden press a jar of ointment which they
placed on the table. They quickly divested themselves of their clothes
and, dipping their fingers into the jar, rubbed themselves all over very
carefully with the ointment. Every time they rubbed a limb they cried
out, "Supra fueillo--above the foliage!"
As soon as they had finished this ritual they suddenly became owls,
flew up the chimney, uttering the lugubrious hoot of the night-bird,
and leaving behind them no signs of their presence except their
discarded clothes on a chair in the room which had been the stage of
this strange transformation.
As soon as he was left alone, the young man opened his eyes in a state
of indescribable stupefaction. He rose, lit the lamp, looked carefully
all round the room, touching many of the things to make sure that he
was really awake and that he had not been the subject of an
hallucination. When he came to the clothes, which still felt warm
from their owners' bodies, and saw on the table the jar of black
ointment which smelt as though it had been made of burnt animal fat,
he knew he was not dreaming.
Just then a clock close by struck the hour of twelve, and the young man,
shaking and quaking with the strangeness of what had taken place, looked
round in fear lest some awful apparition should greet his eyes. But
nothing happened, for all the witches were at the Sabbath by that time.
Then a mad idea entered his head! Why should not he, too, transform
himself into an owl and go to join his future wife and her mother, who
had effected the transformation without apparently the slightest
difficulty. The idea had no sooner struck him than he prepared to
carry it out. In the twinkling of an eye he slipped off his clothes,
dipped his fingers into the magic jar and rubbed himself exactly as
the women had done. Unfortunately, however, he could not remember the
exact phrase they had used, and instead of crying "Supra fueillo," he
said, "Souto fueillo--under the foliage," with every rub.
Scarcely had he completed his exercises, and said "Souto fueillo" for
the last time, than he was immediately changed into an owl and flew
towards the chimney.
Scarcely had he reached the grate, however, when he knocked against
the smouldering green faggots and burnt himself.
He attributed this misadventure to his want of address, not being
accustomed to the shape and movements of a bird, and he assured
himself that as soon as he was free of the house he would manage
better. But when he reached the open country he began to suffer
tortures. Where the fields were bare he found himself easily able to
fly, just like any ordinary owl, but as soon as he came to the
smallest hedge or thicket, he was obliged to pass through it instead
of clearing it from above, and every branch, twig or thorn hit and
stung him like a whip.
He wished to stop flying, for every moment his suffering grew more
unendurable, but it was impossible to stop, for he was induced by some
superior power to go straight ahead, and however much he tried, he could
not avoid the shrubs and trees which lay in his path. The words "souto
fueillo--under the foliage" which he had used were literally true, in
the most cruel sense. He was bruised and torn all over, and felt as
though he were at the point of death and that his last moment had come,
when suddenly he heard a cock crow and the first ray of light appeared
in the sky, heralding the dawn. The witches' Sabbath ended, he fell
heavily to earth, finding himself lying naked on the wet soil. Bruised
and bleeding, and smarting from a hundred scratches, his condition was
pitiable, but he took heart when he realised that his experiment, so
foolishly attempted, had not turned out even worse. He stood up, and
limping and sore, hastened to his own house, slinking into bed, where he
developed a serious fever which kept him there for many weeks. No one
ever guessed the real cause of his illness, but as soon as he had
recovered his ordinary state of health he went to live in another town
and never even called on his ex-fiancée and her mother to ask them for
the clothes which he had left on a chair in their sitting-room.
A legend about another owl-woman is alluded to by Shakespeare in
Hamlet, Act IV, Sc. V, in Ophelia's speech, "They say the owl was a
baker's daughter." The common version of this story comes from
Gloucestershire, and is told as follows: "Our Saviour went into a
baker's shop where they were baking and asked for some bread to eat.
The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the
oven to bake for him, but was reprimanded by her daughter who,
insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it
considerably in size. The dough, however, immediately afterwards began
to swell, and presently became an enormous size. Whereupon the baker's
daughter cried out, 'Wheugh! wheugh! wheugh!' which owl-like noise,
it is said, probably induced our Saviour, for her wickedness, to
transform her into that bird."
An old ode gives a more aristocratic descent to the owl than the
family of a tradesman.
"Once I was a monarch's daughter,
And sat on a lady's knee:
But am now a mighty rover,
Banished to the ivy tree.
"Crying hoo hoo, hoo hoo, hoo hoo,
Hoo! hoo! hoo! my feet are cold!
Pity me, for here you see me,
Persecuted, poor and old!"
In the north country the owl was also said to be of royal descent,
perhaps of birth even as high as the child of a Pharaoh.
"I was once a king's daughter and sat upon my father's knee,
But now I am a poor hoolet, and hide in a hollow tree."
Another common tradition represents the owl as an old weaver spinning
with silver threads, and the barn owl is said to be a transformation
of one of the servants of the ten kings of the infernal regions.[132]
A similar story about the Saviour and the dough is told of the
woodpecker. When Christ and St. Peter were wandering about the earth,
they came to a house where an old wife sat baking. Her name was Gertrude
and she wore a red mutch on her head. The Saviour, being hungry, pleaded
that she should give Him a bannock, and to this she agreed. She took a
very small piece of dough and rolled it out, but as she was rolling it
it grew bigger and finally covered the whole griddle.
Then she said it was too large and she could not give away that
bannock, and she took up a still smaller piece of dough and began
again. But this piece grew as large as the other, and she refused to
let her visitors have it. The same thing occurred a third time, and
then Gertrude said, "I can't give you anything. You will have to go
without, for all these bannocks are too large."
Then Christ was angry and said, "Since you grudge me a morsel of food
you shall turn into a bird and seek your livelihood between bark and
hole, and only drink when it rains."
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]
The Eskimo captures the fairest and carries her to his snow house, where
she becomes his wife and bears him three children, and he promises that
whatever bird or beast he shall slay for food he will never capture
another grey gull. But as time goes on he forgets his vow and once when
food is scarce and he can get no game, he shoots four sea-gulls with his
bow and arrow. Then his wife tells him her hour has come, and, calling
her children to fetch the feather plumes, she dons them and flies away
with her little ones and the husband is left lamenting.
A more definite variant of the bird-maiden legend is found in "The
Arabian Nights." Janshah enters a pavilion and mounting the throne
falls asleep. But presently awaking he walks forth and sees flying in
mid-sky, three birds, in dove-form but as large as eagles. They alight
on the brink of the basin of the fountain. There they become maidens,
plunge into the basin and play and swim in the water. Janshah, struck
by their beauty, rises and follows them when they come to land,
saying, "Who are ye, O illustrious princesses, and whence come ye?"
The youngest maiden replies, "We are from the invisible world of
Almighty Allah, and we come hither to divert ourselves."
Still marvelling at her beauty, Janshah said to the youngest, "Have
ruth on me and deign kindness to me and take pity on my case and all
that hath befallen me in my life." But she will not hearken to his
pleadings, and though he recites love poems to them all they only
laugh and sing and make merry. They stay with him feasting till
morning and then, resuming dove-shape, fly off and are seen no more.
Janshah, deprived of their company, well-nigh loses his reason and
falls into a swoon.
Eventually he wins the princess by seizing her feather robe and refusing
to return it in spite of the fact that the fair lady, Shamsah by name,
beseeches him with all her wiles to do so. They decide to go back to the
princesses' motherland to be married, and Janshah returns the feather
suit, which she dons, telling him to mount her back and shut his eyes
and ears, so that he "may not hear the roar of the revolving sphere,"
and, she adds, "keep fast hold of my feathers lest thou fall off."
They return to his home happily wedded and Janshah places the
feather-vest of the princess in a white marble chest, which is sealed
with melted lead and buried under the palace walls. But Shamsah when
she enters the new palace smells the scent of her flying feather-gear,
and when her husband is asleep she gets out the garment and flies
away. Then Janshah has to search for the Castle of Jewels, where he
meets his fair bride once more.[137]
A very similar story is told by Charles Swynnerton in "Romantic Tales
from the Panjab, with Indian Nights' Entertainment,"[138] about Prince
Bairam and his fairy bride. The Prince, sitting down in a beautiful
garden, watches four milk-white doves who settle in the shape of four
fairies by the edge of a tank of clear crystal water. There they bathe
and when they come out to dress three of them resume their dove-shape,
but the fourth fairy, whose name is Ghulab Bano, cannot find her
clothes and bids farewell to her sisters, saying, "It is my kismet.
Some different destiny awaits me here and we shall never meet again."
Then she falls in love with the Prince, who has purposely hidden her
dove-skin, and marries him. After a time she asks her husband for
leave to visit her father and mother, promising to return. He gives
her the fairy clothes and she disappears as a milk-white dove. But her
parents are angry with her for marrying a mortal and imprison her in a
subterranean city, so that she cannot keep her promise. The Prince
goes in search of her and at last finds his bride, but as women cannot
keep a secret, she tells her friends of his presence, and her father
sends giants to kill him, and only after many further adventures are
the Prince and the fairy-Princess once more happily united.
In a Basuto legend a girl is devoured by wer-animals in whose care, as
men, she has been sent to her betrothed. Her heart is transformed into a
dove and joins a flock of these birds. They visit the hut of the
bridegroom's sister, who suspects that the beautiful bird may be the
lost maiden. Then the bridegroom seizes hold of the dove, the wings come
off and the girl herself steps forth as beautiful and innocent as ever.
Hans Andersen's "The Wild Swans" differs in an important particular
from the other stories of this class, as it deals with Swan-princes.
Princess Elsie's eleven brothers are transformed into swans by their
wicked stepmother, who says, "Fly away in the form of great speechless
birds." But she could not make their transformation so disagreeable as
she wished, and the princes were changed into eleven white swans.
Elsie releases them by plucking stinging-nettles which she has to
weave into eleven shirts with long sleeves. She does not finish in
time, and one sleeve being wanting in the youngest boy's shirt, he has
one arm, and a wing instead of the other.[139]
The robin, oddly enough among birds, is also a transformed man. The
legend is told amongst the Chippeway Indians that there was once a
hunter so ambitious that his only son should signalise himself by
endurance when he came to the time of life to undergo the fast for the
purpose of choosing his guardian spirit, that after the lad had fasted
for eight days, his father still pressed him to persevere. But the
next day, when the father entered the hut, his son had paid the
penalty of violated nature, and in the form of a robin had just flown
down to the top of a lodge. There before he flew away to the woods, he
entreated his father not to mourn the transformation. "I shall be
happier," he said, "in my present state than I could have been as a
man. I shall always be the friend of men and keep near their
dwellings; I could not gratify your pride as a warrior, but I will
cheer you with my songs."[140]
In Bavaria the hoopoe is said to play the part of attendant to the
cuckoo. It is believed that the plantain was once a maiden, who,
watching by the wayside for her lover, who was long in coming, was
changed into a plant, and once in seven years she becomes a bird,
either the cuckoo or the hoopoe,[141] or, as it is called in
Devonshire, the "dinnick," the cuckoo's servant.
One of the best-known classical stories of bird-women is, of course,
the tragedy of Progne and Philomela, daughters of Pandion, King of
Athens. Progne marries Tereus, King of Thrace, but Tereus, blinded by
Philomela's beauty, betrays his sister-in-law and cuts out her tongue
lest she should tell of his villainy. Nevertheless she manages to send a
message to her sister, who revenges herself and Philomela on her husband
Tereus by killing his son Itys and dishing up his body as food at a meal
which she sets before his father. Tereus, having eaten of the flesh of
his beloved son, discovers the trick played upon him and pursues his
wife and her sister with the intention of punishing them. As they flee
Philomela is transformed into a nightingale, while Progne becomes a
swallow, upon whose breast the red stains of her murdered son appear.
Tereus is changed into a crested bird, either a hoopoe or a lapwing.
"The Thracian king, lamenting sore,
Turned to a lapwing, doeth them upbrayde."
A pretty story of a woman-kingfisher is also to be found among the
classics. Ceyx, King of Trachyn, sets out for Claros, to succour his
brother, against the advice of his wife, Halcyone. A storm overtakes
the ship on which he is travelling and he is drowned. Halcyone hastens
to the seashore to find him, as she feels she cannot live without his
presence, and as she stands looking out to sea the body of the drowned
Ceyx floats towards her. She leaps into the water to seize his corpse
and at that moment is transformed into a kingfisher, and with her bill
and wings caresses the dead face and limbs of her beloved husband.
Then the gods, in compassion, transform Ceyx also into a kingfisher,
so that as birds their love may endure for ever.[142]
FOOTNOTES:
[132] _See_ Swainson, Ch., "Folklore of British Birds," 1886, pp. 123-7.
[133] Dasent, G. W., "Popular Tales from the Norse," 1903, pp. 213-4.
[134] Quoted from other sources by Swainson, Ch., "The Folk-lore of
British Birds," 1886, pp. 20-1.
[135] 1845, Vol. II, pp. 124-7.
[136] Tomson, Graham R., "The Bird Bride," 1889, p. 1.
[137] "Arabian Nights," Lady Burton's edition, Vol. III, 1887, pp.
417-50.
[138] 1908, pp. 464-9.
[139] Andersen, H. C, "Danish Fairy Legends," 1861, pp. 1-16.
[140] _See_ Jones' "Credulities Past and Present."
[141] "Quarterly Review," July, 1863, p. 245.
[142] Gibson, Frank, "Superstitions about Animals," 1904, pp. 140-2.