314 THE MAGPIE 



so runs the saying, "La crfye [pancake] a la 

 pie."* 



Throughout Scandinavia, as I have shown, the 

 magpie is a universal favourite, a bird of good 

 omen, and all but a member of the family. A 

 sheaf of corn is tied to the top of every house 

 or outhouses at Christmas, that she may share in 

 the festivities of the season. A story told in the 

 Standard of the 26th of January 1877, a d quoted by 

 Mr Thiselton-Dyer, shows, better perhaps than any- 

 thing else, the queer insight and the quaint revenge 

 which popular belief attributes to this eerie bird. 

 A lady, then still living near Carlstadt, in Sweden, 

 had insulted a Finn woman, who had entered the 

 court of her house to ask for food, by telling her to 

 take the magpie, which was hanging in a cage, and 

 " eat that." The Finn, after casting an evil eye at 

 the lady, who had managed to throw scorn at once 

 upon her own well-known magical powers and those 

 of the "magician" bird, took it away with her and 

 disappeared. The incident seemed closed. The 

 lady had all but forgotten what had happened. 



* Cf. Ornithological Mythology, by Angelo de Gubernatis, 

 ii. 254 sq. Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, ii. 675. Brand's 

 Popular Antiquities, iii. 215. Thiselton-Dyer's English Folk- 

 Lore, p. 8 i sq. 



