146 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



after death. The fact was true, of course of all birds, 

 but it was most noticeable in this gaudy stranger from the 

 land of sunrise; and, in addition, a belief was borrowed 

 from the phenix that its flesh was incorruptible. Thus 

 the peacock became in early Christian art a symbol of im- 

 mortality. 



In the general mental lethargy that marked the Middle 

 Ages this elevated idealism was degraded ; yet that some- 

 what of the bird's traditional sacredness remained is 

 shown by the fact that among the customs of chivalry, 

 knights and squires took oath on the king's peacock, 

 which, stuffed and brought ceremoniously to the table, 

 was a feature in various solemnities. Critics trace to 

 this the Shakespearian oath "By cock and pye!" — to my 

 mind a dubious gloss. "It is said of Pythagoras," De 

 Gubernatis 54 notes, "that he believed himself to have once 

 been a peacock, that the peacock's soul entered into 

 Euphorbus, a Homeric Trojan hero, that of Euphorbus 

 into Homer, and that of Homer into him." Those who 

 are familiar with classic literature may be able to con- 

 tinue the history of this literary metempsychosis down to 

 the present. Hehn and Stallybrass elaborate their history 

 of the peacock in custom and myth in exhaustive detail in 

 their Wanderings of Plants and Animals. 



A quaint relic of ancient ideas survives in the prevalent 

 notion that the beautiful tail-plumes of the peacock are 

 unlucky or worse, for it is widely feared that illness and 

 death speedily follow putting them into a house, especially 

 as affecting the health of youngsters. It occurred to me 

 that this superstition, as foolish as it is baleful, was prob- 

 ably connected with the far-reaching dread of the Evil 

 Eye, having in mind the gleaming ocellse that decorate 

 these splendid feathers, but Elworthy's exhaustive 



