Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



Here the crossbow means the bow above 

 the yoke and " bluebirds " are not the sweet 

 spring warblers known by that name in 

 America, but another designation for the 

 cuckoo. The repetition six and seven does 

 not indicate different objects, as one might 

 readily suppose ; it is a peculiarity of Finnish 

 poetry to repeat the same thing in successive 

 verses with a larger numeral in each verse. 

 " Golden " is the usual adjective for the 

 cuckoo, but " blue " is often added, the one 

 adjective being poetic exaggeration for the 

 bluish-brown back, the other for the gray 

 sides of the cuckoo. As the sleigh he orders 

 out is his " sledge of magic " and as he was 

 the Vulcan of the Finnic tribes, we must 

 suppose that these six or seven birds were 

 automata of metal that imitated the cuckoo's 

 voice like our clocks and sang when the 

 sleigh moved — a superior sort of sleighbells. 



The cuckoo was a marriage bird and yet 

 a sinister bird of crime ; he was addressed as 



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