Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



rails that hold dancing-parties, and those birds 

 that build bowers to sport in and deck them 

 with shining objects ; when one thinks of the 

 preternatural cunning of the magpie, and recol- 

 lects how prone birds are, even dull domestic 

 fowl, to make sudden, inexplicable calls and 

 rushes ; when one notes the clock-like regu- 

 larity of the return of migratory birds to their 

 old haunts and their supernatural gift of find- 

 ing a way by night and fog — it is no wonder 

 that not only poets, but tiresome, humdrum 

 persons believed in their magical power at 

 the earliest epochs. 



What schoolboy has not marvelled at that 

 strange story of Philomela and Procne, daugh- 

 ters of Pandion king of Athens ? According 

 to the legend Pandion's son-in-law Tereus was 

 changed to a hoopoe or a hawk, Philomela to a 

 nightingale, Procne to a swallow. The wicked 

 king of Thessaly who wooed and won Philo- 

 mela bears in his name (Tereus the piercer, 

 borer) the most notable trait of our little friend 



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