BIRD SACRIFICE
The custom of slaying the wren is widespread in France also. But the
chants that deal with it dwell, not like ours, on the actual hunt, but
on the sacrificial plucking and dividing up of the bird. Moreover, the
French chants depend for their consistency not on repetition like ours,
but are set in cumulative form. Both in contents and in form they seem
to represent the same idea in a later development.
At Entraigues, in Vaucluse, men and boys hunted the wren on Christmas
Eve, and when they caught a bird alive they gave it to the priest, who
set it free in church. At Mirabeau the hunted bird was blessed by the
priest, and the curious detail is preserved that if the first bird was
secured by a woman, this gave the sex the right to jeer at and insult
the men, and to blacken their faces with mud and soot if they caught
them. At Carcassonne, on the first Sunday of December, the young people
who dwelt in the street of Saint-Jean went out of the town armed with
sticks and stones to engage in the hunt. The first person who struck the
bird was hailed king, and carried the bird home in procession. On the
last of December he was solemnly introduced to his office as king; on
Twelfth Day he attended mass in church, and then, crowned and girt about
with a cloak, he visited the various dignitaries of the place, including
the bishop and the mayor, in a procession of mock solemnity. This was
done as late as 1819.[67] This identification of the bird and the men
explains the hiring of a cart or waggon to convey "the bird" in our own
custom-rhymes.
[67] Rolland, loc. cit., II, 295 ff.; Frazer, loc. cit., II, 445 ff.
The Breton chant on "plucking the wren," _Plumer le roitelet_ begins:--
Nin' ziblus bec al laouenanic
Rac henès a zo bihanic | _bis._ (L., I, p. 72.)
"We will pluck the beak of the wren, for he is very small," and
continues, "We will pluck the left eye of the wren, for he is very
small".
and then enumerates right eye, left ear, right ear, head, neck, chest,
back, belly, left wing, right wing, left buttock, right buttock, left
thigh, right thigh, left leg, right leg, left foot, right foot, first
claw of left foot and every claw in succession of this and of the other
foot. The last sentence is "We will pluck the tail of the wren," and
then sentence after sentence is repeated to the first, "We will pluck
the beak of the wren because he is very small, we have plucked him
altogether."
Another poem preserved in Breton relates how the wren was caught and
caged and fed till the butcher and his comrades came and slew it, when
the revelry began (L., I, p. 7).
I have often wondered at the cruel sport of confining singing birds in
cages. Possibly this goes back to a custom of fattening a victim that
was sacrificially slain. For the wren is tabu in Brittany as among
ourselves, and in popular belief the nestlings of each brood assemble
with the parent birds in the nest on Twelfth Night, and must on no
account be disturbed. This reflects the belief that the creature that is
slain during the winter solstice, at its close starts on a new lease of
life.
The wren is not the only bird that was sacrificially eaten in France,
judging from the chants that are recorded. A chant on "plucking the
lark," _Plumer l'alouette_, is current in the north of France which
begins:--
Nous la plumerons, l'alouette,
Nous la plumerons, tout de long. (D. B., p. 124.)
"We will pluck the lark, we will pluck it altogether."
And it enumerates the bird's beak, eyes, head, throat, back, wings,
tail, legs, feet, claws.
A variation of the same chant is sung in Languedoc, where it is called
_L'alouette plumée_, "the plucked lark," and is described as a game (M.
L., p. 457).
Again, the dividing up of the thrush forms the subject of a chant which
is sung in Brittany in the north (L., I, p. 81), and in Languedoc in the
south. It is called _Dépecer le merle_, and preserves the further
peculiarity that the bird, although it is divided up, persists in
singing. The version current in Languedoc begins:--
Le merle n'a perdut le bec, le merle n'a perdut le bec,
Comment fra-t-il, le merle, comment pourra-t-il chanter?
Emai encaro canto, le pauvre merle, merle,
Emai encaro canto, le pauvre merlatou. (M. L., p. 458.)
"The thrush has lost his beak, how will he manage to sing, and yet
he sings, the poor thrush, yet he goes on singing."
The chant then enumerates the bird's tongue, one eye, two eyes, head,
neck, one wing, two wings, one foot, two feet, body, back, feathers,
tail; always returning to the statement that the bird, although it is
divided up, persists in singing.
The French word _merle_ stands both for thrush and for blackbird. The
blackbird is held in reverence among ourselves in Salop and
Montgomeryshire, and blackbird-pie was eaten in Cornwall on Twelfth
Night.[68] But there is no reference to the sacrificial slaying of the
bird, as far as I am aware. In the French chant the bird continues to
sing although it is killed. The same idea finds expression in our
nursery song of _Sing a Song of Sixpence_. This piece, taken in
conjunction with the eating of blackbird-pie in Cornwall and the French
chants, seems to preserve the remembrance of the ancient bird sacrifice.
The first verse of this rhyme appears in the collection of 1744, in
which "naughty boys" stands for blackbirds. In other collections the
piece runs as follows:--
Sing a song of sixpence, a bagful of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pye
And when the pye was open'd, the birds began to sing;
Was not this a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his parlour counting out his money,
The queen was in the kitchen eating bread and honey,
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
Up came a magpie and bit off her nose. (_c._ 1783, p. 26.)
[68] Thomas, N. W., "Animal Superstitions" in _Folk-Lore_,
September, 1900, p. 227.
The magpie is "a little blackbird" in the version of Halliwell, which
continues:--
Jenny was so mad, she didn't know what to do,
She put her finger in her ear and cracked it right in two.
Halliwell (1842, p. 62) noted that in the book called _Empulario or the
Italian Banquet_ of 1589, there is a receipt "to make pies so that the
birds may be alive in them and fly out when it is cut up," a mere
device, live birds being introduced after the pie is made. One cannot
but wonder if the device was a mere sport of fancy, or if it originated
from the desire to give substance to an ancient belief.
Again, the robin redbreast was sacrificially eaten in France at Le
Charme, Loiret, on Candlemas, that is on February the first (Ro., II,
264). There are no chants on the sacrifice of the robin in France, as
far as I know. Among ourselves, on the other hand, where no hunting of
the robin is recorded, a piece printed both by Herd[69] and Chambers
suggests his sacrifice. The piece is called by Chambers _The Robin's
Testament_, and it describes how the bird, on the approach of death,
made a bequest of his several parts, which he enumerated exactly in the
way of the sacrificial bird-chants current in France. They were his neb,
feathers of his neb, right leg, other leg, feathers of his tail, and
feathers of his breast, to each of which he attributed a mystic
significance. The piece in the combined versions stands as follows:--
[69] Herd, David, loc. cit., II, 166.
Guid-day now, bonnie Robin
How lang have you been here?
I've been bird about this bush,
This mair than twenty year!
_Chorus_: Teetle ell ell, teetle ell ell.
Tee, tee, tee, tee, tee, tee, tee,
Tee, tee, tee, teetle eldie.
But now I am the sickest bird
That ever sat on brier;
And I wad make my testament,
Guidman, if ye wad hear.
"Gar tak this bonnie _neb_ o' mine,
That picks upon the corn,
And gie 't to the Duke o' Hamilton
To be a hunting horn.
"Gar tak these bonnie feathers o' mine,
_The feathers o' my neb_,
And gie to the Lady o' Hamilton
To fill a feather-bed.
"Gar tak this guid _right leg_ o' mine
And mend the brig o' Tay;
It will be a post and pillar guid,
It will neither ban nor gae.
"And tak this _other leg_ o' mine
And mend the brig o'er Weir;
It will be a post and pillar guid,
It'll neither ban nor steer.
(_Herd only_).
"Gar tak these bonnie feathers o' mine
The feathers o' my tail,
And gie to the Lady o' Hamilton
To be a barn-flail.
"Gar tak these bonnie feathers o' mine
The _feathers o' my breast_,
And gie to ony bonnie lad
That'll bring me to a priest."
Now in there came my Lady Wren
With mony a sigh and groan;
"O what care I for a' the lads
If my wee lad be gone?"
Then robin turned him round about
E'en like a little king,
"Go, pack ye out at my chamber door,
Ye little cutty quean."
(_Chambers only_).
Robin made his testament
Upon a coll of hay
And by came a greedy gled
And snapt him a' away. (1870, p. 40.)
_The Robin's Testament_ should be compared with the French piece called
_Le Testament de l'Ane_, "the testament of the ass," of which a number
of variations have been collected. The "testament of the ass" was
recited outside the church on the so-called _Fête de l'Ane_, "the feast
of the ass," which was kept in many cities of France till a
comparatively recent date. In Douai it was celebrated as late as the
year 1668. On this occasion an ass was brought into church, and an
office was recited in Latin, which enlarged on the ass that carried the
Holy Family into Egypt, the ass which bore Christ into Jerusalem, the
ass of Balaam, and so forth. Its chorus consisted of braying, in which
the assembled canons joined. This service in church was preceded by a
recitation outside the holy edifice, which was in the vernacular, and
which, in dialogue form, enlarged on the several parts of the ass.[70]
[70] Clémént, Madame, _Histoire des fêtes civiles et religieuses du
Nord_, 1834, p. 184. Also, Du Cange, Glossarium, _Festum Asinorum_.
One of these dialogue pieces, current in Franche-Comté, describes how
the she-ass, conscious of the approach of death, bequeathed her feet and
ears to her son, her skin to the drummer, her tail to the priest to make
an aspergill, and her hole to the notary to make an inkpot (B., p. 61).
Another version, at greater length, is in the form of instruction which
is given by the priest to the child, whose answers are set in cumulative
form.
"The feast of the ass," in the words of Bujeaud, "must have been very
popular, since I have often heard the children of Angoumais and Poitou
recite the following piece ":--
Le prêtre: Que signifient les deux oreilles de l'âne?
L'enfant: Les deux oreilles de l'âne signifient les deux grands
saints, patrons de notre ville.
Le prêtre: Que signifie la tête de l'âne?
L'enfant: La tête de l'âne signifie la grosse cloche et la langue
fait le battant de cette grosse cloche qui est dans le clocher de la
cathédrale des saints patrons de notre ville. (B. I., p. 65.)
"The priest: What do the ears of the ass stand for?--The child: The
ears of the ass stand for the two great patron saints of our
city.--The priest: What does the head stand for?--The head stands
for the great bell, and the tongue for the clapper of the great bell
which is in the belfry of the cathedral of the holy saints, the
patrons of our city."
We then read of the throat which stands for the entrance to the
cathedral--the body for the cathedral itself--the four legs, its
pillars--the heart and liver, its great lamps--the belly, its
alms-box--the tail which stands for the aspergill--the hide which
stands for the cope of the priest--and the hole which stands for the
holy-water stoup.
This chant on the parts of the ass is among the most curious survivals.
At first one feels inclined to look upon it as intended to convey
ridicule, but this idea is precluded by the existence of _The Robin's
Testament_, and by the numerous pieces which enumerate the several parts
of the bird in connection with the bird sacrifice. Again in this case we
are led to look upon the piece as a garbled survival of some heathen
form of ritual. The ass, however, was not known in Western Europe till a
comparatively late period in history. It has no common Aryan name, and
the question therefore arises how it can have come to be associated with
what is obviously a heathen form of ritual.
Mannhardt, with regard to German folk-lore, pointed out that the ass was
substituted in many places for the hare, which was tabu, and with which
it shared the peculiarity of having long ears. This substitution was
favoured by their likeness of name: _heselîn_, _heselken_. (M., p.
412.)
We are led to inquire if the ass in Western Europe can have taken the
place of another animal also, and we find ourselves confronted with the
following facts:--
_Dicky_ among ourselves is applied to a bird, especially to a caged (?
perhaps a sacrificial) bird; the word Dicky is also widely applied to an
ass, properly to a he-ass.[1] The ass is often called by nicknames
exactly like the small wild birds: Jack-ass, Betty-ass, Jenny-ass, in
form closely correspond to Jack-daw, Magpie, and Jenny Wren of the
feathered tribe. The word Jack-ass moreover is applied both to the
four-footed beast and to a member of the feathered tribe. Nicknames
probably originated in the desire to conceal a creature's true identity.
In Scotland the word _cuddy_ again stands both for an ass and for some
kinds of bird, including the hedge-sparrow and the moor-hen.[71] The
word cuddy is said to be short for Cuthbert, but it seems to be related
also to cutty, an adjective applied to the wren (cf. above, p. 176,
193), the derivation and meaning of which are uncertain.
[71] Murray's Dictionary: _Dicky_, _cuddy_, _ass_, _Jackass_.
The same overlapping of terms exists in France, where the ass is
popularly called Martin (Ro., IV, 206, 223, 233), while the feathered
martins include the _martin pêcheur_, kingfisher, the _martin rose_,
goatsucker, and the _martinets_ (Ro., II, p. 70). In Germany also, where
no bird-chants are recorded, as far as I am aware, the expression
_Martinsvogel_ is applied to a bird of augury of uncertain identity,
sometimes to the redbreast (Gr., p. 946). And a current proverb has it,
_Es ist mehr als ein Esel der Martin heisst_, "he is more than an ass
who is called Martin." (Ro., IV, 233.) In Barmen boys parade the streets
on the eve of St. Martin's Day, asking for contributions, and, if they
receive nothing, they sing:--
Mäten ist ein Esel, der zieht die Kuh am Besel. (B., p. 363.)
"Martin is an ass, he pulls the cow by the tail," that is, "he has
no money in his purse."
These various survivals support the view that the ass in Western Europe
somehow got mixed up with the birds. When and how this came about is
difficult to tell. The representatives of Christianity were in a
position to accept the feast of the ass, since the ass figured largely
in the Old and the New Testaments. But we do not know if they
consciously did so, and introduced the ass in the place of another
animal, or if they took over an animal which had before their time been
accepted in the place of a bird.