Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



The best known of these is Juno or Hera, 

 whom we have already spoken of as cuckoo- 

 like in her relation to Zeus. Her proud 

 chariot is drawn by peacocks, birds whose 

 introduction into Greece from India is as- 

 cribed to Alexander the Great, though their 

 attribution to Hera shows that they must have 

 been highly prized long before. Indeed Solo- 

 mon, that ruler of the demons and birds as 

 Mohammedans know him, imported peacocks 

 from India. If we place Solomon about 950 

 before Christ, the date is not far removed from 

 that at which, according to Terrien de la 

 Couperie, the Chinese first saw the Indian 

 bird. What store the Chinese set by its 

 feather we all know; its presence in a cap sig- 

 nifies a high rank. Europe must have had 

 plenty of time in which to have made certain 

 changes of fashion in the birds attached to cer- 

 tain deities before the Greeks arrived in 

 Greece, and, learning the use of the alphabet 

 from the Phoenicians, set down the attributes 

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