Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



Baltic, the Veneti of the Adriatic, and to many- 

 cities including Vienna (the Vindobona of the 

 Romans) and to Venice. Pan is not dead. 

 As Finn mac Cool he lives in the fairy stories 

 and tales of giants told in Ireland; and as 

 Vaino he is still much more than a name in 

 song among the Finns. 



We have seen that the eagle and the cuckoo 

 are birds that are often associated with Vaino 

 and doubtless these are the birds that the 

 earliest beliefs gave to him. But at a very 

 early period the splendor of the exotic peacock 

 made the ancient inhabitants of Greece asso- 

 ciate that bird with a representative of the 

 sun, such as Pan was. Later he had to part 

 with his eagle to Zeus and his peacock to 

 Hera ; but we can guess that the peacock 

 was first assigned to him, because in Europe, 

 with few exceptions, its name is a variant 

 on that of Pan and generally keeps the ini- 

 tial P, even when, as in Latin pavo, Esthonian 

 pabu, it drops the n, Catalonian has an odd 

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