Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



believe them survivals from a common stock, 

 belonging to a race whose language and ideas 

 at one time ruled Europe, and whose dialects, 

 where they happened to survive, differed at 

 that remote epoch comparatively little the one 

 from the other. Fionas cuckoo traits are seen 

 in the adventure of Oisin's captivity in a cave. 

 Oisin the son of Fion is caught by fairies in 

 a cave ; but he snips off a piece from the shaft 

 of his spear each day and casts it into a stream. 

 Fion, searching for his boy, sees the chip and 

 rescues him. This is the cuckoo reared in a 

 nest from which it cannot escape. 



The Slavic nations, with whom in the past 

 as in the present Finns and Esths have been 

 in closest contact, were great favorers of the 

 cuckoo. The Poles called him Zezula ; in 

 heathen times they had a goddess Zywie 

 with a temple on Mount Zywiec, where they 

 prayed for health and long life. It recalls 

 the cuckoo-mount near Mases in Corinth 

 with its temple to Zeus, erected because Zeus 

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