Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



hen crowing at a wedding augurs that the wife 

 will wear the breeches, swallows building on 

 a house bring good luck, gulls inland bode 

 a storm — we begin to realize what a body 

 of religious belief must have once existed in 

 Europe with respect to birds alone, since these 

 are merely fragments, survivals down to his- 

 torical times, remnants of a vast bird lore, 

 bird religion. Consider that in order to have 

 birds to augur from, as they picked up the 

 sacred food, or as they were slaughtered and 

 inspected, the Romans took the trouble to 

 carry pullets about with them in war (auguria 

 pullaria) and assigned them a special place in 

 their entrenched camps. The auspex (avi- 

 spex, bird seer) presided at the founding of 

 Rome, Latins and Sabines having found that 

 birds were interpreters of the future long before 

 Rome was. The Etruscans, whose mastery 

 in religion the Romans acknowledged, were 

 adepts in reading the signs of the bird and 

 annually furnished Rome with bird-readers. 



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