Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



The amount of this bird worship was so 

 great and its existence so universal that it 

 seems illogical to suppose the transfer of a 

 bird myth from Greece to Italy, or from Italy 

 to Finland or Ireland, because we find the 

 same framework of the myth in those several 

 lands. Why could not the same story have 

 grown in each ? It is more logical to deduce 

 from such resemblances a similarity of race and 

 cultivation in prehistoric times, especially if 

 other proofs exist that in remote epochs there 

 was far less diversity among the populations 

 of Europe than in later days. 



The Finns, now for the most part Russian 

 subjects, live on the Baltic north and east of 

 the gulf of Finland; while their cousins the 

 Esthonians, also Russian, dwell to the south of 

 the gulf. The Lapps to the northward have 

 always seemed to supply the Finns with an 

 ideal of what magicians, wind-wise sooth- 

 sayers and conjurers should be ; but, for the 

 Esths, the Finns were quite good enough in 



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