KELTIE KING. 135 



KINGFISHER [No. 208]. Literally the chief of the fishers ; 

 from A. Sax cyning, a king or chief of the tribe, and fisher. 

 The name occurs in Turner (1544) as " kynges fissher " ; 

 in Merrett (1667) as " Kings-fisher " and in Willughby as 

 " Kingfisher," as also in most succeeding authors. A 

 celebrated belief among the ancients was that the Halcyon 

 or Kingfisher made its nest of fish-bones and launched it 

 upon the sea, and it was while brooding thus upon its young 

 that the fabled halcyon days were enjoyed, when " God 

 has ordered that the whole ocean should be stayed," as 

 Montaigne gravely observed. This author (Essay Lxvm, 

 on " Cruelty ") has given some account of the belief. Pliny 

 remarks that " they breed in winter, at the season called 

 the Halcyon days, wherein the sea is calm and fit for navi- 

 gation, the Sicilian sea particularly so," and that they 

 " build their nests in the seven days before the winter 

 solstice and hatch out their young in the seven following." 

 Drayton writes : 



Then came the halcyon whom the sea obeys, 



When she her nest upon the water lays. 



He makes use of the belief five times, viz. in Noah's Flood, 

 the Elegy upon Lady Aston's departure from Spain, 

 England's Heroical Epistles, and twice in the Polyolbion. 

 It is also alluded to by Milton in the " Hymn on Christ's 

 Nativity," and by Dryden. A common belief in England 

 was that a dead Kingfisher, hung by a string, would always 

 turn its bill in the direction from whence the wind blew. 

 Shakespeare (King Lear, act n, sc. 1) alludes to this belief 

 in the words : 



. . . turn their halcyon beaks 

 With every gale and vary of their masters. 



Marlow also, in his " Jew of Malta," 1633, says : 

 But how now stands the wind ? 

 Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill ? 



That the belief has lingered to recent times is shown by the 



fact that a dead Kingfisher thus suspended may still 



occasionally, it is said, be met with in country cottages. 



Another country belief sometimes encountered is that when 



a Kingfisher is seen it is a sign of rain. 

 KINGFISHER : The DIPPER is so called in the Highlands and 



in parts of Ireland, its flight being supposed to resemble 



that of the KINGFISHER, Also applied to the COMMON 



TERN at Lough Neagh. 

 KING HARRY or KING HARRY REDCAP. A provincial name 



for the GOLDFINCH. (Suffolk, Shropshire, north and 



east Yorkshire.) 



