404 . Miscellaneous. 



after it is questioned, so many years has he who asks the question 

 to live. In other places the saying is as follows : — 



Kukuk, beckenknecht, 



Sag mir recht, 



Wie viel jahr ich leben soil ? 



Cuckoo, baker-boy, 



Tell me true. 



How many years shall I live ? 



The bird is said to be a bewitched baker- or miller-boy, and thus 

 has pale or meal-coloured feathers. In a dear season he robbed poor 

 folks of their dough, and when God blessed the dough in the oven, 

 drew it out, plucked some off, and every time cried out as he did so, 

 ' Gukuk !' (Look, look!) God therefore punished him, and turned 

 him into a thievish bird, who continually repeats this cry. This 

 legend, which is of great antiquity, and resembles that of the wood- 

 pecker, may at an earlier period have been otherwise told ; and con- 

 nected with it may be the notion that the cry of the cuckoo, if heard 

 after St. John's day, betokens scarcity. 



In Sweden he prophesies to unmarried lasses how many years they 

 shall remain single. 



Gok^ Gok, sitt p?i quist, &c. 

 Cuckoo, cuckoo, that sits on a bough, &c. 

 If he cries oftener than ten times, they say that he sits upon a silly 

 bough, and give no heed to his prophecies. Much depends upon the 

 direction in which the cuckoo is first heard ; if from the north (that 

 is the unlucky side) you will have mourning during the year : from 

 the east or west his cry portends good fortune. 



In Goethe's ' Fruhlingsorakel ' the prophetic bird announces to a 

 pair of lovers their approaching marriage and the number of children. 



It is remarkable enough that our poets of the thirteenth century 

 do not mention the cuckoo as prophesying : the thing was doubtless 

 commonly known, for we find in Renner, 1 1 340, 



Daz weiz der gouch, der im fiir war 

 Hat gegutzet hundert jar. 



And we have a story related by the abbot Theobald of a certain no- 

 vice, who, assuring himself of living twenty-two years longer, from 

 having heard the cuckoo repeat its cry just so many times, concluded 

 that it was needless for him to pass so long a period in mortification, 

 and resolved to return and lead a jolly life for twenty years, think- 

 ing the remaining two quite enough for penitence*. 



From the regularity of the time of his appearancef, the cuckoo is 



* " Narravit nobis anno prseterito (?1221) Theobaldus abbas Eberba- 

 censis, quod quidam conversus, cum nescio quo tenderet, et avem quag cucu- 

 lus dicitur, a voce nomen habens, ci'ebrius cantantem audiret, vices interrup- 

 tioiiis numeravit, et viginti duas inveniens, easque quasi pro omine accipiens 

 pro annis totidem vices easdem sibi computavit : ' Eja,' inquit, *certe viginti 

 duobus annis adhuc vivam ; ut quid tanto tempore mortificem me in ordine? 

 Redibo ad seculum, et seculo deditus viginti annis fruar dehciis ejus; duo- 

 bus annis qui supersunt poenitebo.'" — C^sarius Heisterbac. 5. 17. 



f [So Logaii, in his beaufilul lines on the Cuckoo : 

 Hast thou a star to guide thy path, 

 Or mark the rolling year?] 



