PHANTOM BIRDS
One of the forms which the soul is said occasionally to assume at
death is that of a bird--a pretty belief which, under one form or
another, exists all over the world. An early legend tells how, when
St. Polycarp was burnt alive, there arose from his ashes a white dove
which flew towards heaven; and a similar story is told of Joan of Arc.
The Russian peasantry affirm that the souls of the departed haunt their
old homes in the shape of birds for six weeks, and watch the grief
of the bereft, after which time they fly away to the other world. In
certain districts bread-crumbs are placed on a piece of white linen at
a window during those six weeks, when the soul is believed to come and
feed upon them in the form of a bird. It is generally into pigeons or
crows that the dead are transformed. Thus, when the Deacon Theodore
and his three schismatic brethren were burnt in the year 1682, writes
Mr. Ralston,[92] 'the souls of the martyrs appeared in the air as
pigeons.' In Volhynia dead children are believed to come back in the
spring to their native village under the semblance of swallows and
other small birds, endeavouring, by soft twittering or song, to console
their sorrowing parents. The Bulgarians say that after death the soul
assumes the form of a bird; and according to an old Bohemian fancy the
soul flies out of the dying in a similar shape. In the 'Chronicles of
the Beatified Anthony'[93] we find described fetid and black pools
'in regione Puteolorum in Apulia,' whence the souls arise in the form
of monstrous birds in the evening hours of the Sabbath, which neither
eat nor let themselves be caught, but wander till in the morning an
enormous lion compels them to submerge themselves in the water.
It is a German belief that the soul of one who has died on shipboard
passes into a bird, and when seen at any time it is supposed to
announce the death of another person. The ghost of the murdered mother
comes swimming in the form of a duck, or the soul sits in the likeness
of a bird on the grave. This piece of folk-lore has been introduced
into many of the popular folk-tales, as in the well-known story of the
juniper tree. A little boy is killed by his step-mother, who serves
him up as a dish of meat to his father. The father eats in ignorance,
and throws away the bones, which are gathered up by the half-sister,
who puts them into a silk handkerchief and buries them under a juniper
tree. But presently a bird of gay plumage perches on the tree, and
whistles as it flits from branch to branch:
Min moder de mi slach't,
Min fader de mi att,
Min swester de Marleenken,
Söcht alle mine Beeniken,
Und bindt sie in een syden Dodk,
Legst unner den Machandelboom;
Ky witt! ky witt! Ach watt en schön vogel bin ich!
--a rhyme which Goethe puts into the mouth of Gretchen in prison.[94]
In Grimm's story of 'The White and the Black Bride,' the mother and
sister push the true bride into the stream. At the same moment a
snow-white swan is discovered swimming down the stream.
Swedish folk-lore tells us that the ravens which scream by night in
forest swamps and wild moors are the ghosts of murdered men whose
bodies have been hidden by their undetected murderers, and not had
Christian burial. In Denmark the night-raven is considered an exorcised
spirit, and there is said to be a hole in its left wing caused by the
stake driven into the earth. Where a spirit has been exorcised, it is
only through the most frightful swamps and morasses that it ascends,
first beginning under the earth with the cry of 'Rok! rok!' then 'Rok
op! rok op!' and when it has thus come forth, it flies away screaming
'Hei! hei! he!--i!' When it has flown up it describes a cross, but one
must take care, it is said, not to look up when the bird is flying
overhead, for he who sees through the hole in its wing will become
a night-raven himself, and the night-raven will be released. This
ominous bird is ever flying towards the east, in the hope of reaching
the Holy Sepulchre, for when it arrives there it will find rest.[95]
Then there is the romantic Breton ballad of 'Lord Nann and the
Korrigan,' wherein it is related how--
It was a marvel to see, men say,
The night that followed the day,
The lady in earth by her lord lay,
To see two oak trees themselves rear,
From the new made grave into the air;
And on their branches two doves white,
Who there were hopping, gay and light,
Which sang when rose the morning ray,
And then towards heaven sped away.
In Mexico it is a popular belief that after death the souls of nobles
animate beautiful singing birds, and certain North American Indian
tribes maintain that the souls of their chiefs take the form of small
woodbirds.[96] Among the Abipones of Paraguay we are told of a peculiar
kind of little ducks which fly in flocks at night-time, uttering a
mournful tone, and which the popular imagination associates with the
souls of those who have died. Darwin mentions a South American Indian
who would not eat land-birds because they were dead men; and the
Californian tribes abstain from large game, believing that the souls of
past generations have passed into their bodies. The Içannas of Brazil
thought the souls of brave warriors passed into lovely birds that fed
on pleasant fruits; and the Tapuyas think the souls of the good and
the brave enter birds, while the cowardly become reptiles. Indeed, the
primitive psychology of such rude tribes reminds us how the spirit
freed at death--
Fills with fresh energy another form,
And towers an elephant, or glides a worm;
Swims as an eagle in the eye of noon,
Or wails a screech-owl to the deaf cold moon.
It was also a belief of the Aztecs that all good people, as a reward of
merit, were metamorphosed at the close of life into feathered songsters
of the grove, and in this form passed a certain term in the umbrageous
bowers of Paradise; while certain African tribes think that the souls
of wicked men become jackals. The Brazilians imagined that the souls
of the bad animated those birds that inhabited the cavern of Guacharo
and made a mournful cry, which birds were religiously feared.
Tracing similar beliefs in our own country, may be compared the
Lancashire dread of the so-called 'Seven Whistlers,' which are
occasionally heard at night, and are supposed to contain the souls of
those Jews who assisted at the Crucifixion, and in consequence of their
wickedness were doomed to float for ever in the air. Numerous stories
have been told, from time to time, of the appearance of these 'Seven
Whistlers,' and of their being heard before some terrible catastrophe,
such as a colliery explosion. A correspondent of 'Notes and Queries'
relates how during a thunderstorm which passed over Kettering, in
Yorkshire, on the evening of September 6, 1871, 'on which occasion the
lightning was very vivid, an unusual spectacle was witnessed. Immense
flocks of birds were flying about, uttering doleful affrighted cries as
they passed over the locality, and for hours they kept up a continual
whistling like that made by sea-birds. There must have been great
numbers of them, as they were also observed at the same time in the
counties of Northampton, Leicester, and Lincoln. The next day, as my
servant was driving me to a neighbouring village, this phenomenon of
the flight of birds became the subject of conversation, and on asking
him what birds he thought they were, he told me they were what were
called the "Seven Whistlers," and that whenever they were heard it was
considered a sign of some great calamity, and that the last time he
heard them was the night before the great Hartley Colliery explosion.
He had also been told by soldiers, that if they heard them they always
expected a great slaughter would take place soon. Curiously enough, on
taking up the newspaper the following morning, I saw headed in large
letters, "Terrible Colliery Explosion at Wigan," &c.' Wordsworth speaks
of the 'Seven Whistlers' in connection with the spectral hounds of the
wild huntsman:
He the seven birds hath seen that never part--
Seen the seven whistlers on their nightly rounds,
And counted them. And oftentimes will start,
For overhead are sweeping Gabriel's hounds,
Doomed, with their impious lord, the flying hart
To chase for ever on ærial grounds.
A similar tradition prevails on the Bosphorus with reference to
certain flocks of birds, about the size of a thrush, which fly up and
down the Channel, and are never seen to rest on the land or water.
These are supposed to be the souls of the damned, and condemned to
perpetual motion. Among further instances of the same belief may be
mentioned one current among the Manx herring fishermen, who, from time
immemorial, have been afraid of going to sea without a dead wren, for
fear of disasters and storms. The story goes that once upon a time 'a
sea spirit hunted the herring track, always attended by storms, but
at last assumed the form of a wren, and flew away.' Accordingly they
believe that so long as they have a dead wren with them all is snug and
safe. Similarly, in the English Channel a rustling, rushing sound is
occasionally heard on the dark still nights of winter, and is called
the herring spear, or herring piece, by the fishermen of Dover and
Folkestone. But this strange sound is really caused by the flight of
the little redwings as they cross the Channel on their way to warmer
regions.
Stories of disembodied souls appearing as birds are very numerous. An
old well-known Cornish legend tells how, in days of old, King Arthur
was transformed into a chough, 'its talons and beak all red with
blood,' denoting the violent end to which the celebrated chieftain
came. In the same way a curious legend in Poland affirms that every
member of the Herburt family assumes the form of an eagle after death,
and that the eldest daughters of the Pileck line take the shape of
doves if they die unmarried, of owls if they die married, and that
they give previous notice of their death to every member of their race
by pecking a finger of each. A wild song sung by the boatmen of the
Molo, Venice, declares that the spirit of Daniel Manin, the patriot, is
flying about the lagunes to this day in the shape of a beautiful white
dove.[97] There is the ancient Irish tradition that the first father
and mother of mankind exist as eagles in the island of Innis Bofin,
at the mouth of Killery Bay, in Galway; indeed, survivals of this old
belief occur under all manner of forms. There is the popular legend of
the owl and the baker's daughter which Shakespeare has immortalised
in 'Hamlet' (iv. 5), where Ophelia exclaims, 'They say the owl was
a baker's daughter; Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we
may be.'[98] Gervase of Tilbury tells how the stork was formerly
regarded as both bird and man, on account of which superstition it is
carefully protected in Prussia from any kind of injury. The stork,
too, is still held in superstitious dread by the Chinese, who, on the
twenty-first day of the period of mourning for the dead, place three
large paper birds resembling storks on high poles in front of the house
of mourning. The birds are supposed to carry the soul of the deceased
person to Elysium, and during the next three days the Buddhist prays
to the ten kings of the Buddhist Hades, calling on them to hasten the
flight of the departed soul to the Western Paradise.[99] The Virginian
Indians had great reverence for a small bird called Pawcorance, that
flies in the woods, and in its note continually sounds that name. This
bird flies alone, and is heard only in twilight. It is said to be the
son of one of their priests, and on this account they would not hurt
it; but there was once a profane Indian who was hired to shoot one of
them, but report says he paid dearly for his act of presumption, for a
few days afterwards he disappeared, and was never heard of again.[100]
The Indians dwelling about the Falls of St. Anthony supposed that the
spirits of their dead warriors animated the eagles which frequented the
place, and these eagles were objects of their worship. In the 'Sæmund
Edda' it is said that in the nether world souls as singed birds fly
about like swarms of flies--
Of that is to be told
What I just observed,
When I had come into the land of torment:
Singed birds,
That had been souls,
Flew as many as gnats.
The Finns and the Lithuanians speak of the 'Milky Way' as the Bird's
Way--the way of souls. According to Kuhn, the notion of the soul
assuming the form of a bird is closely allied with the primitive
tradition of birds as soul-bringers. Thus, as it has been suggested,
'the soul and the bird that brought it down to earth may have been
supposed to become one, and to enter and quit the body together.'
In the Egyptian hieroglyphics a bird signified the soul of man; and
the German name for stork, writes Grimm, is literally child, or
soul-bringer. Hence the belief that the advent of infants is presided
over by this bird, which obtains so wide a credence in Denmark and
Germany.[101]
The idea of the bird as a 'soul bringer' probably gave rise to the
popular belief that it is unlucky when a bird hovers near the window of
a sick-room, a superstition to which Mrs. Hemans has prettily alluded:
Say not 'tis vain! I tell thee some
Are warned by a meteor's light,
Or a pale bird flitting calls them home,
Or a voice on the winds by night.
There are various stories told of mysterious birds appearing at such a
time in different localities. In Devonshire the appearance of a white
breasted bird has long been considered a presage of death, a notion
which is said to have originated in a tragic occurrence that happened
to one of the Oxenham family. A local ballad tells how on the bridal
eve of Margaret, heiress of Sir James Oxenham, a silver-breasted bird
flew over the wedding guests just as Sir James stood up to thank them
for good wishes. The next day she was slain by a discarded lover, and
the ballad records how--
Round her hovering flies,
The phantom-bird, for her last breath,
To bear it to the skies.
In Yorkshire, Berry Well was supposed to be haunted by a bogie in
the form of a white goose, and the Rev. S. Baring-Gould informs us
how Lew Trenchard House is haunted by a white lady who goes by the
name of Madame Gould, and is supposed to be the spirit of a lady who
died there, April 10, 1795. 'A stone is shown on the "ramps" of Lew
Slate Quarry, where seven parsons met to lay the old madame, and some
say that the white owl, which nightly flits to and fro in front of
Lew House, is the spirit of the lady conjured by the parsons into a
bird.'[102]
Similarly, whenever the white owls are seen perched on the family
mansion of the noble family of Arundel of Wardour, it is regarded as
a certain indication that one of its members will shortly be summoned
out of the world. In Count Montalembert's 'Vie de Ste. Elizabeth' it
is related how 'Duke Louis of Thuringia, the husband of Ste. Elizabeth
of Hungary, being on the point of expiring, said to those around him,
"Do you see those doves more white than snow?" His attendants supposed
him to be a prey to visions; but a little while afterwards he said to
them, "I must fly away with those brilliant doves." Having said this
he fell asleep in peace. Then his almoner, Berthold, perceived doves
flying away to the east, and followed them along with his eyes.' We
may compare a similar story told of the most beautiful woman of the
Knistenaux, named 'Foot of the Fawn,' who died in her childbirth, and
her babe with her. Soon afterwards two doves appeared, one full grown,
and the other a little one. They were the spirits of the mother and
child, and the Indians would gather about the tree on which they were
perched with reverential love, and worship them as the spirit of
the woman and child.[103] There is Lord Lyttelton's well-known ghost
story, and the belief of the Duchess of Kendal that George I. flew
into her window in the shape of a raven. Another well-known case was
that of the Duchess of St. Albans, who, on her death-bed, remarked
to her step-daughter, Lady Guilford, 'I am so happy to day because
your father's spirit is breathing upon me; he has taken the shape of
a little bird singing at my window.' Kelly relates an anecdote of
a credulous individual who believed that the departing soul of his
brother-in-law, in the form of a bird, tapped at his window at the
time of his death;[104] and in FitzPatrick's 'Life of Bishop Doyle' it
is related, in allusion to his death, that, 'considering the season
was midsummer, and not winter, the visit of two robin redbreasts to
the sick-room may be noticed as interesting. They remained fluttering
round, and sometimes perching on the uncurtained bed. The priests,
struck by the novelty of the circumstance, made no effort to expel
the little visitors, and the robins hung lovingly over the bishop's
head until death released him.' A singular instance of this belief
was the extraordinary whim of a Worcester lady, who, imagining her
daughter to exist in the shape of a singing-bird, literally furnished
her pew in the Cathedral with cages full of the kind; and we are told
in Lord Oxford's letters that, as she was rich, and a benefactress in
beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 118.
[93] Quoted by Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_, 1872, ii. pp. 254,
255.
[94] Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco, _Study of Folk-songs_ p. 10;
Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, i. p. 289.
[95] Henderson's _Folk-lore of Northern Counties_, p. 126; Thorpe's
Northern Mythology, ii. p. 211.
[96] See Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, pp. 48, 49.
[97] Jones' _Credulities, Past and Present_, p. 376.
[98] See Dasent's _Tales of the Norse_, 1859, p. 230.
[99] Jones' _Credulities, Past and Present_, p. 373.
[100] Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, pp. 255, 256.
[101] Hardwick's _Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore_, 1872
p. 243; Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, i. p. 289. See Kelly's
_Indo-European Folk-lore_, p. 103.
[102] See Henderson's _Folk-lore of Northern Counties_, pp. 331-335.
[103] Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, p. 255.
[104] _Indo-European Folk-lore_, pp. 104, 105.