Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



the son of Untamo, his mother being Untamo's 

 niece; he is the child of relatives in a pro- 

 hibited degree and as such is fated to the same 

 crime. In fact Kullervo, like Sigurd, Kalevi- 

 poeg and, as we shall see, Conchobar of Ire- 

 land, are variants of the same story, and that 

 story is drawn from the life of the cuckoo, the 

 bird whose young are brought up, not only 

 apart from each other, but, so it was hitherto 

 believed, unknown to their parents. 



Singular, how often this cuckoo trait ap- 

 pears in classical mythology ! Take the 

 ancestry and descendants of Picus, the Italiot 

 god, the woodpecker, which we have been 

 lately considering. Janus and Saturn, to 

 begin with ! Janus married his own sister 

 Camesa ; he was the old war god, god of the 

 year, the "janitor" or "opener" of the year, 

 after whom the month of January was named. 

 Saturn, a god of agriculture, supposed to have 

 come to Italy in Janus's age, married his own 

 sister Rhea and devoured his children by her 



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