152 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



of the night calls on men to repent. Another tradition 

 is that some early pope ordered that the weathervane on 

 churches be in that form in order to remind the clergy of 

 the necessity of watchfulness — a second reference to 

 Mark, iii, 35. 



Ragozin tells us that in the Vendida, the "Bible" of the 

 ancient Medes, great credit is given to the cock as the 

 messenger who calls men to the performance of their 

 religious duties: "Arise, O men! Whichever first gets 

 up shall enter paradise!" A Hebrew legendary saying 

 is that when a cock crows before dawn it warns: "Re- 

 member thy Creator, O thoughtless man!" Finally 

 Drayton sings of — 



The cock, the country horologe that rings 

 The cheerful warning to the sun's awake. 



Nowadays, if chanticleer calls to mind anything in 

 particular, except wrath at his too early rising to adore 

 the god of day, it is the spirit of boastfulness and "cock- 

 sureness"; while his humble mate represents maternal 

 cares carried to the extreme of fussiness. 



The names of a good many birds serve as synonyms of 

 prevailing ideas, or become figures of speech, without 

 having a special myth or story behind them. Thus the 

 words eagle and falcon convey to the listener the notion 

 of nobility in power, while hawk simply means fierceness, 

 with somewhat of prying, detective skill. Old provokes 

 in the imagination a rather smiling picture of solemn 

 pretence of wisdom — a reputation, by the way, almost 

 wholly due to the little European screech-owl's accidental 

 association with Pallas Athene. Swallow suggests spring 

 all over the world; goose and gull connote easy credulity 

 and foolishness; vulture and raven, rapine and cruelty; 



