FABLE AND FOLKLORE 97 



Now it is all well enough to find this information in the 

 writings of Pliny senior, who alleges that these "eagle- 

 stones" (in fact natural hollow nodules of iron-impreg- 

 nated clay) were transported by nesting eagles to their 

 domiciles to assist them in ovulation, whence by analogy — 

 recognizing unwittingly the kinship of men and animals — 

 they would aid women in travail, and to smile over it with 

 the shrewd editor of Vulgar Errors, 33 but it is odd to find 

 such an absurdity recommended by a modern clergyman 

 as "profitable" material for sermons. 



Let me round out this chapter with that recognition of 

 bird-migration in the custom among the Vikings of the 

 8th and 9th centuries of saying as they embarked upon 

 some raid upon the coasts south of them that they were 

 "following the swan's path." 



