Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



— a foible explained by the belief that the 

 mother cuckoo lays her eggs in another bird's 

 nest to hide their offspring from a cannibal 

 father. 



Picus son of Saturn is an exception ; he 

 marries a daughter of Janus named Canens, 

 whose name and whose fame for singing in- 

 dicate a bird. But here mythology distin- 

 guishes. The woodpecker cannot have the 

 character of a cuckoo. But when in this 

 genealogy we descend to Faunus the son of 

 PicuSj the cuckoo crime returns. He mar- 

 ried his own sister Fauna and was a sun and 

 forest god like Pan, bearing indeed a name 

 with the same root as Pan. 



The unlucky, awkward character attributed 

 to the cuckoo has left a trace in many lan- 

 guages. We have seen how gowk and gawk 

 come into English from the shorter name for 

 the bird ; to this we may add old English 

 " awke " " awkward " from the same word. 

 The hard g must have softened intoj)', as we 



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