Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



and the United States — one may guess what 

 early men thought of a creature that was so 

 easily the king of birds. It was enough to see 

 a bearded eagle beat a chamois from the clifF 

 in order to feast on its carcass, or the golden 

 eagle rob the osprey of its fish. Who has ever 

 seen an eagle decrepit with old age, or found 

 an eagle's bones? No one. Well, then, the 

 story must be true. After a few hundred years 

 spent in domineering over the feathered and 

 furry tribes, the eagle merely ascends at mid- 

 day his spiral stair of air, until lost in the efful- 

 gence of the sun, whence he plunges down to 

 the sea a rejuvenated creature. Like Herakles 

 he Cx ^ers a second life through the purifying 

 effects of fire. 



That is why in the Middle Ages the Welsh 

 bards wrote dialogues between the eagle and 

 King Arthur; why Charlemagne had above 

 his palace at Aachen a bronze eagle whose beak 

 was turned toward the nation about to be con- 

 quered ; why an eagle was pictured as one of 



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