Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



before going out, in order not to hear the 

 cuckoo on an empty stomach." Perhaps this 

 testifies more powerfully than the legends of 

 cuckoo heroes to the vast background of 

 belief in bird magic and bird prophecy, a faint 

 sketch of which I am trying to trace. 



The Egyptians, too, had their stories which 

 point to the cuckoo as their visible starting- 

 point. There is that of Osiris and his sister 

 Isis, whose son was the hawk Horus. Osiris 

 is cut to pieces like Lemminkainen, and his 

 scattered limbs are found and collected by 

 his sister-wife, as Lemminkainen's by his 

 mother. 



"It is this, the beneficent, the avenger of 

 her brother " says the Hymn to Osiris trans- 

 lated from the stele in the Bibliotheque Na- 

 tionale by M. Chabas ; " she unrepiningly 

 sought him : she went the round of the world 

 lamenting him ; she stopped not till she found 

 him. She shadowed with her wings ; her wings 

 caused wind, making the invocation of her 

 ii8 



