Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



the past overcame another, or suspected that 

 some special virtue characterized a people. 

 The national claimant has been a scourge. 

 Englishmen have had the most absurd ideas of 

 the size, wisdom, valor and purity of Angles 

 and Saxons, ignoring the parts played by 

 Norman, Briton and yet earlier races. Welsh- 

 men, Scots and Irishmen will not listen if you 

 point to traces in their tongue, history and 

 legends of nationalities or races, at present 

 despised, who were in Great Britain and 

 Ireland before the Kelts. They have, it is 

 true, classic models ; they but follow in the 

 footsteps of the Romans, who concocted a 

 past that was full of magnificence, although 

 their history and legends show that they 

 sprang from a mixture of shepherds, robbers 

 and outcasts. Perhaps, after all, yonder wood- 

 pecker is wiser than we know, I pondered. 

 His droll gestures and bright eye seem to say 

 that he is aware how human beings have made 

 a thunder-bird of him. That may be the rea- 

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