[The halcyon, or king's fisher, a bird said to breed in the sea, and
that there is always a calm during her incubation; hence the adjective
figuratively signifies placid, quiet, still, peaceful: as Dryden
says,--
"Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be,
As halcyons brooding on a winter's sea."
"The halcyon," says Willsford, in his _Nature's Secrets_, p. 134., "at
the time of breeding, which is about fourteen days before the winter
solstice, foreshews a quiet and tranquil time, as it is observed about
the coast of Sicily, from whence the proverb is transported, the
halcyon days."]
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