Bird Legends. 



239 



all inhabitants of the isle — which is named 

 after the heroine of Sophocles — should be. 

 The tameness of the birds is not limited to 

 the Island of Prinkipo, All through the 

 mosques and groves and walls and gardens 

 of the old city of Stamboul you hear a uni- 

 versal twitter and the fluttering of wings, 

 which indicate the life of the birds. The 

 sparrows fly in and out of the houses. The 

 swallows, which seem partial to my pres- 

 ence, fix their nests in every convenient 

 arch in and out of the bazaars. The 

 pigeons are maintained by many and have 



Samuel 



a mosque of their own named after them. 

 The gulls rival in number the turtle doves, 

 the one having dominion of the air, and the 

 other of the woods and cemeteries. The 

 halcyons fly in long ranks up and down 

 the Bosphorus, as if restlessly intent on 

 some very earnest business; while the grave 

 and dignified stork sits upon the towers of 

 Anatolia and Roumelia and upon the cupo- 

 las of the grand mausoleum. The Turk 

 never harms these birds. Every bird has 

 a little office of trust which it executes for 

 this wild, reckless and sanguinary Turk. 

 S. Cox, in '■'■The Isles of the Princess." 



BIRD LEGENDS. 



IN Norway, the woodpecker is called 

 "Gertrude's bird," from the following 

 legend: "One day our Lord was walking 

 with St. Peter, when they fell in with a 

 woman named Gertrude, who wore a red 

 cap and was busy baking. Our Lord, being 

 tired and hungry, begged for a piece of 

 cake. Accordingly, the woman took a little 

 dough and set it in the oven, but it rose up 

 so high that it filled the whole pan. Then 

 she thought the cake was too large for an 

 alms, and taking less dough, she recom- 

 menced baking. Again the cake rose up 

 to its former dimensions, and was again re- 

 fused to the weary wayfarers. When the 

 same thing happened at the third attempt, 

 Gertrude said: ' Ye must e'en go your ways 

 without alms, for all my cakes are too large 

 for beggars.' Thereupon, our Lord replied: 

 'As thou wilt give me naught, thou shalt be 

 punished by being changed into a little bird, 

 thou shalt seek thy scanty food in the bark 

 of trees, and thou shalt only drink when it 

 rains.' " 



Scarcely had these words been spoken, 

 when the woman was transformed into the 

 " Gertrude's bird," and flew out by the 

 chimney. Up to the present day she wears 



her red cap, but the rest of her body is black 

 from the soot of the chimney. She is always 

 pecking the bark of the trees and screaming 

 for rainy weather, because she is always tor- 

 mented by perpetual thirst. 



The turtle dove is a sacred bird. Swabian 

 peasants call it "God's bird," and say that 

 the house where doves are kept cannot be 

 struck by lightning. If there is a sick per- 

 son in the house, the turtle dove grieves 

 and will not coo. Sometimes it mourns for 

 years over a death. People who suffer from 

 erysipelas generally keep doves, declaring 

 that they draw the illness to themselves, and 

 as a proof of this the bird's feet become 

 scarlet. 



The quail has the gift of prophecy. In 

 some parts of Tyrol the number of his calls 

 is believed to denote the price of corn, 

 each call signifying a gulden. In other 

 parts, if he calls six times, the year will be 

 a bad one; if eight times, it will be toler- 

 ably prosperous; but should he call ten 

 times, or beyond that number, everything 

 will flourish. 



Sparrows, on the contrary, have no spe- 

 cial virtues, and whoever eats them will 

 have St. Vitus's dance. 



