CHILDREN'S ANIMALS, BIRDS, ETC.
My brother, the hare, ... my sisters, the doves.
--_St. Francis of Assisi._
Love of animals is inborn. The child that has had no pets is to
be pitied.--_G. Stanley Hall._
For what are the voices of birds--
Aye, and of beasts,--but words, our words,
Only so much more sweet?--_Browning._
I know not, little Ella, what the flowers
Said to you then, to make your cheek so pale;
And why the blackbird in our laurel bowers
Spoke to you, only: and the poor pink snail
Fear'd less your steps than those of the May-shower
It was not strange those creatures loved you so,
And told you all. 'Twas not so long ago
You were yourself a bird, or else a flower.
--_Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith)._
_Children and Young Animals._
The comparisons sometimes made of children with various of the lower
animals, such as monkeys, bears, pigs, etc., come more naturally to some
primitive peoples, who, as Ploss has pointed out, suckle at the breast
the young of certain animals simultaneously with their own offspring. In
this way, the infant in the Society Islands comes early into association
with puppies, as he does also among several of the native tribes of
Australia and America; so was it likewise in ancient Rome, and the
custom may yet be found among the tent-gypsies of Transylvania, in
Persia, and even within the present century has been met with in Naples
and Göttingen. The Maori mother, in like manner, suckles young pigs, the
Arawak Indian of Guiana young monkeys (as also do the Siamese), the
natives of Kamtschatka young bears. An old legend of the city of Breslau
has it that the fashion certain ladies have of carrying dogs around with
them originated in the fact that Duke Boleslau, in the last quarter of
the eleventh century, punished the women of Breslau, for some connubial
unfaithfulness, by taking away their suckling children and making them,
carry instead puppies at the breast (392. I. 61).
Of the Arekuna of Guiana, Schomburgk tells us:--"They bring up children
and monkeys together. The monkeys are members of the family, eat with
the other members, are suckled by the women, and have great affection
for their human nurses. Oftentimes a woman is to be seen with a child
and a monkey at the breast, the two nurselings quarrelling" (529. 13).
The young children of the less nomadic tribes grow up in close
association with the few domestic animals possessed by their parents,
tumbling about with the puppies on the wigwam-floor or racing with them
around the camp-stead.
The history of totemism and fetichism, primitive medicine, and the arts
connected therewith, their panaceas, talismans, and amulets, show early
association of the child with animals. In the village of Issapoo, on the
island of Fernando Po, in Western Africa, there is fastened to a pole in
the market-place a snake-skin, to touch which all infants born the
preceding year are brought by their mothers during an annual festival
(529. 32). In various parts of the world, novices and neophytes are put
to dream or fast in seclusion until they see some animal which becomes
their tutelary genius, and whose form is often tattooed upon their body.
Sir John Maundeville, the veracious mediaeval chronicler, reported that
in Sicily serpents were used to test the legitimacy of children; "if the
children be illegitimate, the serpents bite and kill them." Hartland
cites, on the authority of Thiele, "a story in which a wild stallion
colt is brought in to smell two babes, one of which is a changeling.
Every time he smells one he is quiet and licks it; but, on smelling the
other, he is invariably restive and strives to kick it. The latter,
therefore, is the changeling" (258. 111).
_Animal Nurses._
Akin to these practices are many of the forms of exposure and
abandonment all over the world. Shakespeare, in _The Winter's
Tale_, makes Antigonus say:--
"Come on (poor Babe).
Some powerful Spirit instruct the Kites and Ravens
To be thy Nurses. Wolves and Bears, they say
(Casting their savageness aside), have done
Like offices of pity."
An old Egyptian painting represents a child and a calf being suckled by
the same cow, and in Palestine and the Canary Islands, goats are used to
suckle children, especially if the mother of the little one has died
(125. II. 393). The story of Psammetichus and the legend of Romulus and
Remus find parallels in many lands. Gods, heroes, saints, are suckled
and cared for in their infancy by grateful beasts.
_Wild Children._
Doctor Tylor has discussed at some length the subject of "wild men and
beast children" (376), citing examples from many different parts of the
globe. Procopius, the chronicler of the Gothic invasion of Italy, states
(with the additional information that he saw the child in question
himself), that, after the barbarians had ravaged the country, "an
infant, left by its mother, was found by a she-goat, which suckled and
took care of it. When the survivors came back to their deserted homes,
they found the child living with its adopted mother, and called it
Aegisthus." Doctor Tylor calls attention to the prevalence of similar
stories in Germany after the destruction and devastation of the
Napoleonic wars; there appears to be record of several children wild or
animal-reared having, during this period, been received into Count von
Recke's asylum at Overdyke. Many of these tales we need not hesitate to
dismiss as purely fabulous, though there may be truth in some of the
rest. Among the best-known cases (some of which are evidently nothing
more than idiots, or poor wandering children) are: Peter, the "Wild Boy"
of Hameln (in 1724); the child reported in the Hessian Chronicle as
having been found by some hunters living with wolves in 1341; the child
reported by Bernard Connor as living with she-bears, and the child found
with bears at Grodno in Poland; the wolf-child of the Ardennes,
mentioned by Koenig, in his treatise on the subject; the Irish boy said
to feed on grass and hay, found living among the wild sheep; the girl
found living wild in Holland in 1717; the two goat-like boys of the
Pyrenees (in 1719); the amphibious wild girl of Châlons sur Marne (in
1731); the wild boy of Bamberg, who lowed like an ox; and, the most
renowned of all, Kaspar Hauser. This celebrated "wild boy" has recently
been made the subject of a monograph by the Duchess of Cleveland (208),
of which the first words are these: "The story of Kaspar Hauser is both
curious and instructive. It shows on how commonplace and unpromising a
foundation a myth of European celebrity may rest." Sir William Sleeman
has something to say of "beast-children" in the Kingdom of Oude (183),
and Mr. Ball, who writes of wolf-reared children in India, calls
attention to the fact that in that country there seems to have been no
instance of a wolf-reared girl (183. 474).
In the _Kathâ sarit sâgara_ ("Ocean of the River of Story"), a work
belonging to the twelfth century, there is the story of the immoral
union of a _yaksha_, or _jin_, and the daughter of a holy man,
who was bathing in the Granges. The relatives of the girl by magic
changed the two guilty persons into a lion and a lioness. The latter
soon died, but gave birth to a human child, which the lion-father made
the other lionesses suckle. The baby grew up and became "the
world-ruling king, Satavahana" (376. 29). Another Hindu story tells how
the daughter of a Brahman, giving birth to a child while on a journey,
was forced to leave it in a wood, where it was suckled and nursed by
female jackals until rescued by merchants who happened to pass by.
Herodotus repeats the tales that Cyrus was nursed and suckled by a
bitch; Zeus figures as suckled by a goat; Romulus and Remus, the
founders of Rome according to the ancient legend, were nursed by a
she-wolf; and others of the heroes and gods of old were suckled by
animals whose primitive kinship with the race of man the folk had not
forgotten.
Professor Rauber of Dorpat, in his essay on "Homo Sapiens Ferus" (335),
discusses in detail sixteen cases of wild children (including most of
those treated by Tylor) as follows: the two Hessian wolf-children, boys
(1341-1344); the Bamberg boy, who grew up among the cattle (at the close
of the sixteenth century); Hans of Liège; the Irish boy brought up by
sheep; the three Lithuanian bear-boys (1657, 1669, 1694); the girl of
Oranienburg (1717); the two Pyrenæan boys (1719); Peter, the wild boy of
Hameln (1724); the girl of Songi in Champagne (1731); the Hungarian
bear-girl (1767); the wild man of Cronstadt (end of eighteenth century);
the boy of Aveyron (1795). It will be noticed that in this list of
sixteen cases but two girls figure.
As a result of his studies Professor Rauber concludes: "What we are wont
to call reason does not belong to man as such; in himself he is without
it. The appellation _Homo sapiens_ does not then refer to man as
such, but to the ability under certain conditions of becoming possessed
of reason. It is the same with language and culture of every sort. The
title _Homo sapiens ferus_ (Linnæus) is in a strict sense
unjustifiable and a contradiction in itself." To prehistoric man these
wild children are like, but they are not the same as he; they resemble
him, but cannot be looked upon as one and the same with him. From the
stand-point of pedagogy, Professor Rauber, from the consideration of
these children, feels compelled to declare that "the ABC-school must be
replaced by the culture-school." In other words: "The ABC is not, as so
many believe, the beginning of all wisdom. In order to be able to
admeasure this sufficiently, prehistoric studies are advisable, nay,
necessary. Writing is a very late acquisition of man. In the arrangement
of a curriculum for the first years of the culture-school, reading and
writing are to be placed at the end of the second school year, but never
are they to begin the course ... Manual training ought also to be taken
up in the schools; it is demanded by considerations of culture-history"
(335.133).
_Animal Stories._
Professor W. H. Brewer of New Haven, discussing the "instinctive
interest of children in bear and wolf stories," observes (192): "The
children of European races take more interest in bear and wolf stories
than in stories relating to any other wild animals. Their interest in
bears is greater than that in wolves, and in the plays of children bears
have a much more conspicuous part. There is a sort of fascination in
everything relating to these animals that attracts the child's attention
from a very early age, and 'Tell me a bear story' is a common request
long before it learns to read." After rejecting, as unsatisfactory, the
theory that would make it a matter of education with each child,--"the
conservative traditions of children have preserved more stories about
bears and wolves, parents and nurses talk more about them, these animals
have a larger place in the literature for children; hence the special
interest,"--Professor Brewer expresses his own belief that "the special
interest our children show towards these two animals is instinctive, and
it is of the nature of an inherited memory, vague, to be sure, yet
strong enough to give a bend to the natural inclinations." He points out
that the bear and the wolf are the two animals "which have been and
still are the most destructive to human life (and particularly to
children) in our latitude and climate," and that "several of the large
breeds of dogs,--the wolf-hound proper, the mastiff (particularly the
Spanish mastiff), and even the St. Bernard,--were originally evolved as
wolf-dogs for the protection of sheep and children." His general
conclusion is: "The fear inspired by these animals during the long ages
of the childhood of our civilization, and the education of the many
successive generations of our ancestors in this fear, descends to us as
an inherited memory, or, in other words, an instinct. While not strong,
it is of sufficient force to create that kind of fascination which
stories of bears and wolves have in children before the instincts are
covered up and obscured by intellectual education. The great shaggy bear
appeals more strongly to the imagination of children, hence its superior
value to play 'boo' with."
_Rabbit and Hare._
The rabbit and the hare figure in many mythologies, and around them,
both in the Old World and the New, has grown up a vast amount of
folk-lore. The rabbit and the child are associated in the old
nursery-rhyme:--
"Bye, bye, Baby Bunting,
Papa's gone a-hunting,
To get a rabbit-skin,
To wrap Baby Bunting in,"
which reminds us at once of the Chinook Indians and the Flat Heads of
the Columbia, with whom "the child is wrapped in rabbit-skins and placed
in this little coffin-like cradle, from which it is not in some
instances taken out for several weeks" (306.174).
An Irish belief explains hare-lip as having been caused, before the
birth of the child, by the mother seeing a hare. The Chinese think that
"a hare or a rabbit sits at the foot of the cassia-tree in the moon,
pounding the drugs out of which the elixir of immortality is compounded"
(401. 155).
The Ungava Eskimo, according to Turner, have a legend that the hare was
once a little child, abused by its elders; "it ran away to dwell by
itself. The hare has no tail, because as a child he had none; and he
lays back his ears, when he hears a shout, because he thinks people are
talking about him" (544. 263).
In a myth of the Menomoni Indians, reported by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, we
read that Manabush [the great culture-hero] and a twin brother were born
the sons of the virgin daughter of an old woman named Nokómis. His
brother and mother died. Nokómis wrapped Manabush in dry, soft grass,
and placed a wooden bowl over him. After four days a noise proceeded
from the bowl, and, upon removing it, she saw "a little white rabbit
with quivering ears." Afterwards, when grown up, and mourning for the
death of his brother, Manabush is said to have hid himself in a large
rock near Mackinaw, where he was visited by the people for many years.
When he did not wish to see them in his human form, he appeared to them
as "a little white rabbit with trembling ears" (389. (1890) 246). Of the
white rabbit, the Great Hare, Manabush, Naniboju, etc., more must be
read in the mythological essays of Dr. Brinton.
Among the tales of the Ainu of Yezo, Japan, recorded by Professor B. H.
Chamberlain, is the following concerning the Hare-god:--
"Suddenly there was a large house on top of a hill, wherein were six
persons beautifully arrayed, but constantly quarrelling. Whence they
came was not known. Thereupon [the god] Okikurumi came, and said: 'Oh,
you bad hares! you wicked hares! Who should not know your origin? The
children in the sky were pelting each other with snowballs, and the
snowballs fell into this world of men. As it would have been a pity to
waste heaven's snow, the snowballs were turned into hares, and those
hares are you. You who live in this world of mine, this world of human
beings, must be quiet. What is it that you are brawling about?' With
these words, Okikurumi seized a fire-brand, and beat each of the six
with it in turn. Thereupon all the hares ran away. This is the origin of
the hare-god, and for this reason the body of the hare is white, because
made of snow, while its ears, which are the part which was charred by
the fire, are black" (471. 486).
The Mayas of Yucatan have a legend of a town of hares under the earth
(411. 179).
In Germany we meet with the "Easter-Hare" (Oster-Hase). In many parts of
that country the custom prevails at or about Easter-tide of hiding in
the garden, or in the house, eggs, which, the children are told, have
been laid by the "Easter-hare." Another curious term met with in
northeastern Germany is "hare-bread" (Hasenbrod). In Quedlinburg this
name is given to bread (previously placed there intentionally by the
parents) picked up by children when out walking with their parents or
elders. In Lüneburg it is applied to dry bread given a hungry child with
an exhortation to patience. In the first case, the little one is told
that the hare has lost it, and in the second, that it has been taken
away from him. The name "hare-bread" is also given to bread brought home
by the parents or elders, when returning from a journey, the children
being told that it has been taken away from the hare.
In the shadow-pictures made on the wall for the amusement of children
the rabbit again appears, and the hare figures also in children's games.
_Squirrel._
According to the belief of certain Indians of Vancouver Island, there
once lived "a monstrous old woman with wolfish teeth, and finger-nails
like claws." She used to entice away little children whom she afterwards
ate up. One day a mother, who was about to lose her child thus, cried
out to the spirits to save her child in any way or form. Her prayer was
answered, and "The Great Good Father, looking down upon the Red Mother,
pities her; lo! the child's soft brown skin turns to fur, and there
slides from the ogress's grip, no child, but the happiest, liveliest,
merriest little squirrel of all the West,--but bearing, as its
descendants still bear, those four dark lines along the back that show
where the cruel claws ploughed into it escaping" (396. III. 52-54).
Elsewhere, also, the squirrel is associated with childhood. Familiar is
the passage in Longfellow's _Hiawatha,_ where the hero speaks to
the squirrel, who has helped him out of a great difficulty:--
"Take the thanks of Hiawatha,
And the name which now he gives you;
For hereafter, and forever,
Boys shall call you _adjidaumo,
Tail in air_ the boys shall call you."
_Seals._
Those noble and indefatigable missionaries, the Moravians, have more
than once been harshly criticised in certain quarters, because, in their
versions of the Bible, in the Eskimo language, they saw fit to
substitute for some of the figurative expressions employed in our
rendering, others more intelligible to the aborigines. In the New
Testament Christ is termed the "Lamb of God," but since, in the Arctic
home of the Innuit, shepherds and sheep are alike unknown, the
translators, by a most felicitous turn of language, rendered the phrase
by "little seal of God," a figure that appealed at once to every Eskimo,
young and old, men and women; for what sheep were to the dwellers on the
Palestinian hillsides, seals are to this northernmost of human races.
Rink tells us that the Eskimo mother "reserves the finest furs for her
new-born infant," while the father keeps for it "the daintiest morsels
from the chase," and, "to make its eyes beautiful, limpid, and bright, he
gives it seal's eyes to eat" (523. 37).
_Fish._
Mrs. Bramhall tells us how in Japan the little children, playing about
the temples, feed the pet fishes of the priests in the temple-lake. At
the temple of the Mikado, at Kioto, she saw "six or eight little boys
and girls ... lying at full length on the bank of the pretty lake." The
fishes were called up by whistling, and the children fed them by holding
over the water their open hands full of crumbs (189. 65). Other
inhabitants of the sea and the waters of the earth are brought into
early relation with children.
_Crabs and Crawfishes._
Among the Yeddavanad, of the Congo, a mother tells her children
concerning three kinds of crabs: "Eat _kallali,_ and you will
become a clever man; eat _hullali,_ and you will become as brave as
a tiger; eat _mandalli,_ and you will become master of the house"
(449. 297).
In the Chippeway tale of the "Raccoon and the Crawfish," after the
former, by pretending to be dead, has first attracted to him and then
eaten all the crawfish, we are told:--
"While he was engaged with the broken limbs, a little female crawfish,
carrying her infant sister on her back, came up seeking her relations.
Finding they had all been devoured by the raccoon, she resolved not to
survive the destruction of her kindred, but went boldly up to the enemy,
and said: 'Here, Aissibun (Raccoon), you behold me and my little sister.
We are all alone. You have eaten up our parents and all our friends. Eat
us, too!' And she continued to say: 'Eat us, too! _Aissibun amoon,
Aissibun amoon!'_ The raccoon was ashamed. 'No!' said he,' I have
banqueted on the largest and fattest; I will not dishonour myself with
such little prey.' At this moment, Manabozbo [the culture-hero or
demi-god of these Indians] happened to pass by. _'Tyau,'_ said he
to the raccoon, 'thou art a thief and an unmerciful dog. Get thee up
into trees, lest I change thee into one of these same worm-fish; for
thou wast thyself a shell-fish originally, and I transformed thee.'
Manabozho then took up the little supplicant crawfish and her infant
sister, and cast them into the stream. 'There,' said he, 'you may dwell.
Hide yourselves under the stones; and hereafter you shall be playthings
for little children'" (440. 411, 412).
_Games._
The imitation of animals, their movements, habits, and peculiarities in
games and dances, also makes the child acquainted at an early age with
these creatures.
In the section on "Bird and Beast," appropriately headed by the words of
the good St. Francis of Assisi--"My brother, the hare, ... my sisters,
the doves,"--Mr. Newell notices some of the children's games in which
the actions, cries, etc., of animals are imitated. Such are "My
Household," "Frog-Pond," "Bloody Tom," "Blue-birds and Yellow-birds,"
"Ducks fly" (313. 115).
_Doves._
Not at Dodona and in Arcadia alone has the dove been associated with
religion, its oracles, its mysteries, and its symbolism. In the
childhood of the world, according to the great Hebrew cosmologist, "the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," and a later bard and
seer of our own race reanimated the ancient figure of his predecessor in
all its pristine strength, when in, the story of Paradise lost and found
again, he told how, at the beginning, the creative spirit
"Dove-like sat brooding o'er the vast abyss."
In the childhood of the race, it was a dove that bore to the few
survivors of the great flood the branch of olive, token that the anger
of Jahveh was abated, and that the waters no longer covered the whole
earth. In the childhood of Christianity, when its founder was baptized
of John in the river Jordan, "Lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and
the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and lighted on Him,"--and the
"Heavenly Dove" Still beautifies the imagery of oratory and song, the
art and symbolism of the great churches, its inheritors. In the
childhood of man the individual, the dove has also found warm welcome.
At the moment of the birth of St. Austrebertha (630-704 A.D.), as the
quaint legend tells, "the chamber was filled with a heavenly odour, and
a white dove, which hovered awhile above the house, flew into the
chamber and settled on the head of the infant," and when Catherine of
Racconigi (1486-1547 A.D.) was only five years old "a dove, white as
snow, flew into her chamber and lighted on her shoulder"; strange to
relate, however, the infant first took the bird for a tool of Satan, not
a messenger of God. When St. Briocus of Cardigan, a Welsh saint of the
sixth century, "was receiving the communion for the first time, a dove,
white as snow, settled on his head, and the abbot knew that the young
boy was a chosen vessel of honour" (191. 107, 108).
In a Swedish mother's hymn occurs the following beautiful thought:--
"There sitteth a dove so white and fair,
All on the lily spray,
And she listeneth how to Jesus Christ
The little children pray.
"Lightly she spreads her friendly wings,
And to Heaven's gate hath sped,
And unto the Father in Heaven she bears
The prayers which the children have said.
"And back she comes from Heaven's gate,
And brings, that dove so mild,
From the Father in Heaven, who hears her speak,
A blessing on every child.
"Then, children, lift up a pious prayer!
It hears whatever you say;
That heavenly dove so white and fair,
All on the lily spray" (379. 255).
The bird-messenger of childhood finds its analogue in the beliefs of
some primitive tribes that certain birds have access to the spirit-land,
and are the bearers of tidings from the departed. Into the same category
fall the ancient practice of releasing a dove (or some other winged
creature) at the moment of death of a human being, as a means of
transport of his soul to the Elysian fields, and the belief that the
soul itself took its flight in the form and semblance of a dove (509.
257).
The Haida Indians, of British Columbia, think that, "in the land of
light, children often transform themselves into bears, seals, and
birds," and wonderful tales are told of their adventures.
Hartley Coleridge found for the guardian angel of infancy, no apter
figure than that of the dove:--
"Sweet infant, whom thy brooding parents love
For what thou art, and what they hope to see thee,
Unhallow'd sprites, and earth-born phantoms flee thee;
Thy soft simplicity, a hovering dove,
That still keeps watch from blight and bane to free thee,
With its weak wings, in peaceful care outspread,
Fanning invisibly thy pillow'd head,
Strikes evil powers with reverential dread,
Beyond the sulphurous bolts of fabled Jove,
Or whatsoe'er of amulet or charm
Fond ignorance devised to save poor souls from harm."
Perhaps the sweetest touch of childhood in all Latin literature is that
charming passage in Horace (_Carm._ Lib. III. 4):--
"Me fabulosæ Vulture in Apulo,
Nutrices extra limen Apuliæ,
Ludo fatigatoque somno
Fronde nova puerum palumbes
Texere,"
which Milman thus translates:--
"The vagrant infant on Mount Vultur's side,
Beyond my childhood's nurse, Apulia's bounds,
By play fatigued and sleep,
Did the poetic doves
With young leaves cover."
The amativeness of the dove has lent much to the figurative language of
that second golden age, that other Eden where love is over all.
Shenstone, in his beautiful pastoral, says:--
"I have found out a gift for my fair;
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed,"
and the "love of the turtle," "billing and cooing," are now transferred
to human affection. Venus, the goddess of love, and the boy-god Cupid
ride in a chariot drawn by doves, which birds were sacred to the
sea-born child of Uranus. In the springtime, when "the voice of the
turtle is heard in the land," then "a young man's fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love." If, from the sacred oaks of Dodona, to the first
Greeks, the doves disclosed the oracles of Jove, so has "the moan of
doves in immemorial elms" divulged to generation after generation of
lovers the mission of his son of the bow and quiver.
_Robin._
What the wood-pigeon was to Horace, the robin-redbreast has been to the
children of old England. In the celebrated ballad of the "Children in
the Wood", we are told that, after their murder by the cruel uncle,--
"No burial these pretty babes
Of any man receives,
Till Robin Redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves."
The poet Thomson speaks of "the redbreast sacred to the household gods,"
and Gray, in a stanza which, since the edition of 1753, has been omitted
from the _Elegy_, wrote:--
"There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are frequent violets found;
The robin loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."
Dr. Robert Fletcher (447) has shown to what extent the redbreast figures
in early English poetry, and the belief in his pious care for the dead
and for children is found in Germany, Brittany, and other parts of the
continent of Europe. In England the robin is the children's favourite
bird, and rhymes and stories in his honour abound,--most famous is the
nursery song, "Who killed Cock Robin?"
A sweet legend of the Greek Church tells us that "Our Lord used to feed
the robins round his mother's door, when a boy; moreover, that the robin
never left the sepulchre till the Resurrection, and, at the Ascension,
joined in the angels' song." The popular imagination, before which the
robin appears as "the pious bird with the scarlet breast," found no
difficulty in assigning a cause for the colour of its plumage. One
legend, current amongst Catholic peoples, has it that "the robin was
commissioned by the Deity to carry a drop of water to the souls of
unbaptized infants in hell, and its breast was singed in piercing the
flames." In his poem _The Robin_, Whittier has versified the story
from a Welsh source. An old Welsh lady thus reproves her grandson, who
had tossed a stone at the robin hopping about in the apple-tree:--
"'Nay!' said the grandmother; 'have you not heard,
My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit,
And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird
Carries the water that quenches it?
"'He brings cool dew in his little bill,
And lets it fall on the souls of sin;
You can see the mark on his red breast still
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.'"
Another popular story, however, relates that when Christ was on His way
to Calvary, toiling beneath the burden of the cross, the robin, in its
kindness, plucked a thorn from the crown that oppressed His brow, and
the blood of the divine martyr dyed the breast of the bird, which ever
since has borne the insignia of its charity. A variant of the same
legend makes the thorn wound the bird itself and its own blood dye its
breast.
According to a curious legend of the Chippeway Indians, a stern father
once made his young son undergo the fasting necessary to obtain a
powerful guardian spirit. After bravely holding out for nine days, he
appealed to his father to allow him to give up, but the latter would not
hear of it, and by the eleventh day the boy lay as one dead. At dawn the
next morning, the father came with the promised food. Looking through a
hole in the lodge, he saw that his son had painted his breast and
shoulders as far as he could reach with his hands. When he went into the
lodge, he saw him change into a beautiful bird and fly away. Such was
the origin of the first robin-redbreast (440. 210). Whittier, in his
poem, _How the Robin Came_, has turned the tale of the Red Men into
song. As the father gazed about him, he saw that on the lodge-top--
"Sat a bird, unknown before,
And, as if with human tongue,
'Mourn me not,' it said, or sung;
'I, a bird, am still your son,
Happier than if hunter fleet,
Or a brave before your feet
Laying scalps in battle won.
Friend of man, my song shall cheer
Lodge and corn-land; hovering near,
To each wigwam I shall bring
Tidings of the coming spring;
Every child my voice shall know
In the moon of melting snow
When the maple's red bud swells,
And the wind-flower lifts its bells.
As their fond companion
Men shall henceforth own your son,
And my song shall testify
That of human kin am I.'"
_Stork._
The _Lieblingsvogel_ of German children is the stork, who, as
parents say, brings them their little brothers and sisters, and who is
remembered in countless folk and children's rhymes. The mass of
child-literature in which the stork figures is enormous. Ploss has a
good deal to say of this famous bird, and Carstens has made it the
subject of a brief special study,--"The Stork as a Sacred Bird in
Folk-Speech and Child-Song" (198). The latter says: "It is with a sort
of awe (_Ehrfurcht_) that the child looks upon this sacred bird,
when, returning with the spring he settles down on the roof, throwing
back his beak and greeting the new home with a flap of his wings; or
when, standing now on one foot, now on the other, he looks so solemnly
at things, that one would think he was devoutly meditating over
something or other; or, again, when, on his long stilt-like legs, he
gravely strides over the meadows. With great attention we listened as
children to the strange tales and songs which related to this sacred
bird, as our mother told them to us and then added with solemn mien,
'where he keeps himself during the winter is not really known,' or, 'he
flies away over the _Lebermeer_, whither no human being can
follow.' 'Storks are enchanted (_verwünscht_) men,' my mother used
to say, and in corroboration told the following story: 'Once upon a time
a stork broke a leg. The owner of the house upon which the stork had its
nest, interested himself in the unfortunate creature, took care of it
and attended to it, and soon the broken leg was well again. Some years
later, it happened that the kind-hearted man, who was a mariner, was
riding at anchor near the North Sea Coast, and the anchor stuck fast to
the bottom, so that nothing remained but for the sailor to dive into the
depths of the sea. This he did, and lo! he found the anchor clinging to
a sunken church-steeple. He set it free, but, out of curiosity, went
down still deeper, and far down below came to a magnificent place, the
inhabitants of which made him heartily welcome. An old man addressed him
and informed him that he had been the stork whose leg the sailor had
once made well, and that the latter was now in the real home of the
storks.'" Carstens compares this story with that of Frau Holle, whose
servant the stork, who brings the little children out of the
child-fountain of the Götterburg, would seem to be. In North Germany
generally the storks are believed to be human beings in magical
metamorphosis, and hence no harm must be done them. Between the
household, upon whose roof the stork takes up his abode, and the family
of the bird, a close relation is thought to subsist. If his young ones
die, so will the children of the house; if no eggs are laid, no children
will be born that year; if a stork is seen to light upon a house, it is
regarded by the Wends of Lusatia as an indication that a child will be
born there the same year; in Switzerland the peasant woman about to give
birth to a child chants a brief appeal to the stork for aid. A great
variety of domestic, meteorological, and other superstitions are
connected with the bird, its actions, and mode of life. The common Low
German name of the stork, _Adebar_, is said to mean "luck-bringer";
in Dutch, he is called _ole vaer,_ "old father." After him the
wood-anemone is called in Low German _Hannoterblume,_
"stork's-flower." An interesting tale is "The Storks," in Hans Christian
Andersen.
_Bird-Language._
In the Golden Age, as the story runs, men were able to hold converse
with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, nor had a
diversity of dialects yet sprung up among them. In Eden of old the whole
world was of one tongue and one speech; nay more, men talked with the
gods and with God. Many legends of primitive peoples there are telling
how confusion first arose,--every continent has its Babel-myth,--and how
men came at last to be unable to comprehend each other's speech. The
Indians of Nova Scotia say that this occurred when Gluskap, the
culture-hero of the Micmacs, after giving a parting banquet to all
creatures of earth, sea, and air, "entered his canoe in the Basin of
Minas, and, sailing westward in the moonlight, disappeared. Then the
wolves, bears, and beavers, who had before been brothers, lost the gift
of common language, and birds and beasts, hating one another, fled into
the distant forests, where, to this day, the wolf howls and the loon
utters its sad notes of woe" (418. 185).
The Mexican legend of the deluge states that the vessel in which were
Coxcox,--the Mexican Noah,--and his wife, Xochiquetzal, stranded on a
peak of Colhuacan. To them were born fifteen sons, who, however, all
came into the world dumb, but a dove gave them fifteen tongues, and
thence are descended the fifteen languages and tribes of Anahuac (509.
517).
In later ages, among other peoples, the knowledge of the forgotten
speech of the lower creation was possessed by priests and seers alone,
or ascribed to innocent little children,--some of the power and wisdom
of the bygone Golden Age of the race is held yet to linger with the
golden age of childhood. In the beautiful lines,--
"O du Kindermund, o du Kindermund,
Unbewuszter Weisheit froh,
Vogelsprachekund, vogelsprachekund,
Wie Salamo!"
the poet Rückert attributes to the child that knowledge of the language
of birds, which the popular belief of the East made part of the lore of
the wise King Solomon. Weil (547. 191) gives the Mussulman version of
the original legend:--
"In him [Solomon] David placed implicit confidence, and was guided by
him in the most difficult questions, for he had heard, in the night of
his [Solomon's] birth, the angel Gabriel exclaim, 'Satan's dominion is
drawing to its close, for this night a child is born, to whom Iblis and
all his hosts, together with all his descendants, shall be subject. The
earth, air, and water with all the creatures that live therein, shall be
his servants. He shall be gifted with nine-tenths of all the wisdom and
knowledge which Allah has granted to mankind, and understand not only
the languages of men, but those also of beasts and birds.'" Some
recollection of this appears in Ecclesiastes (x. 20), where we read,
"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings
shall tell the matter," and in our own familiar saying "a little bird
told me," as well as in the Bulbul-hezar or talking bird of the
_Arabian Nights_, and its imitation "the little green bird who
tells everything," in the _Fairy Tales_ of the Comtesse d'Aunoy.
The interpretation of the cries of birds and animals into human speech
has also some light thrown upon it from this source. Various aspects of
this subject have been considered by Hopf (474), Swainson (539),
Treichel (372), Brunk, Grimm (462). The use of certain birds as oracles
by children is well known. A classical example is the question of the
Low German child:--
"Kukuk van Hewen,
"Wi lank sail ik lewen?'
["Cuckoo of Heaven,
How long am I to live?"]
Of King Solomon we are told: "He conversed longest with the birds, both
on account of their delicious language, which he knew as well as his
own, as also for the beautiful proverbs that are current among them."
The interpretation of the songs of the various birds is given as
follows:--
The cook: "Ye thoughtless men, remember your Creator."
The dove: "All things pass away; Allah alone is eternal."
The eagle: "Let our life be ever so long, yet it must end in death."
The hoopoo: "He that shows no mercy, shall not obtain mercy."
The kata: "Whosoever can keep silence goes through life most securely."
The nightingale: "Contentment is the greatest happiness."
The peacock: "As thou judgest, so shalt thou be judged."
The pelican: "Blessed be Allah in Heaven and Earth."
The raven: "The farther from mankind, the pleasanter."
The swallow: "Do good, for you shall be rewarded hereafter."
The syrdak: "Turn to Allah, O ye sinners."
The turtle-dove: "It were better for many a creature had it never been
born."
The King, it appears, chose the hoopoo and the cock for his companions,
and appointed the doves to dwell in the temple which he was to erect
(547. 200, 201). In fairy-tale and folk-lore bird-speech constantly
appears. A good example is the story "Wat man warm kann, wenn man blot
de Vageln richti verstan deit," included by Klaus Groth in his
_Quickborn_.
In the Micmac legend of the _Animal Tamers_, by collecting the
"horns" of the various animals a youthful hero comes to understand their
language (521. 347).
Longfellow, in his account of "Hiawatha's Childhood," has not forgotten
to make use of the Indian tradition of the lore of language of bird and
of beast possessed by the child:--
"Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How they built their nests in summer,
Where they hid themselves in winter,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them 'Hiawatha's Chickens.'
"Of all the beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How the beavers built their lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them 'Hiawatha's Brothers.'"
In the Middle Ages the understanding of the language of birds, their
_Latin_, as it was called, ranked as the highest achievement of
human learning, the goal of wisdom and knowledge, and the thousand
rhyming questions asked of birds by children to-day are evidence of a
time when communication with them was deemed possible. Some remembrance
of this also lingers in not a few of the lullabies and nursery-songs of
a type corresponding to the following from Schleswig-Holstein:--
"Hör mal, lütje Kind
Wo düt lütje Vagel singt
Baben in de Hai!
Loop, lüt Kind, un hal mi dat lüt Ei."
Among the child-loving Eskimo we find many tales in which children and
animals are associated; very common are stories of children
metamorphosed into birds and beasts. Turner has obtained several legends
of this sort from the Eskimo of the Ungava district in Labrador. In one
of these, wolves are the gaunt and hungry children of a woman who had
not wherewithal to feed her numerous progeny, and so they were turned
into ravening beasts of prey; in another the raven and the loon were
children, whom their father sought to paint, and the loon's spots are
evidence of the attempt to this day; in a third the sea-pigeons or
guillemots are children who were changed into these birds for having
scared away some seals. The prettiest story, however, is that of the
origin of the swallows: Once there were some children who were
wonderfully wise, so wise indeed that they came to be called
_zulugagnak_, "like the raven," a bird that knows the past and the
future. One day they were playing on the edge of a cliff near the
village, and building toy-houses, when they were changed into birds.
They did not forget their childish occupation, however, and, even to
this day, the swallows come to the cliff to build their nests or houses
of mud,--"even the raven does not molest them, and Eskimo children love
to watch them" (544. 262, 263). From time immemorial have the life and
actions of the brute creation been associated with the first steps of
education and learning in the child.