Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



strength, lazy, but not good-for-nothing, fated 

 to misfortune, while yet a lawgiver and ruler 

 of his people. 



Throughout his life, at critical moments, 

 birds are ever at hand to warn and pilot him 

 through the dangers that beset him. As Scan- 

 dinavian Siegfried is led by birds, so is also 

 Kalev's boy ; as Siegfried has a wondersword 

 forged and kills the forge mas- 

 ter, so Kalev's boy, and he 

 kills the smith's son. But the 

 crime that the latter commits 

 with this sword, and the story 

 of the sword as the avenger on its own mas- 

 ter of that crime, are finer touches than any- 

 thing in Siegfried's tale. Again, the adventure 

 of Siegfried with the martial Brunhild, and that 

 of the prince in the fairy-tale with the sleeping 

 beauty, are echoes of the cuckoo myth based 

 on the heroic cuckoo that rouses the blossom 

 — that enchanted maid of spring — from her 

 long winter sleep. We shall find this idea, 



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