INDIAN PEAFOWL 179 



by the income of sixty thousand sesterces, or about twenty-seven hundred dollars, which 

 he made by this means. 



In the fourteenth century the Peacock was still a very rare bird in England, France 

 and Germany. In the Middle Ages, in France and elsewhere, the Vow of the Peacock 

 was a recognized ritual. This was pronounced at table, and was a solemn vow to take 

 up arms or enter upon some big enterprise. The hand was held extended above a 

 platter on which rested a Peacock roasted in his feathers. Before carving, the knight 

 would stand up and thus pledge himself perhaps to be the first to plant his standard 

 upon the town they had determined to besiege. The sacramental formula was: "I 

 vow to God, to the Virgin-saint, to the Ladies and to the Peacock," to do such and 

 such a thing. Then each in his turn would receive a piece of the flesh. His failure 

 to accomplish this would be considered a blot on his escutcheon. In those days 

 Peacock plumes were widely used as ornaments on helmets and the bird was often 

 incorporated in crests and coats-of-arms. It is said at one time to have been made 

 into cloth, the warp being of silk and the woof of feathers, and it was probably such 

 a coat which was sent by the Pope Paul III. to King Pepin. 



The English barons of the Middle Ages, Forest tells us, gave proof of their wealth 

 by serving a roasted Peacock at their formal banquets, surrounded by prunes, which 

 were then very rare. The use of the eyed feathers as ornaments was gradually usurped 

 by ostrich plumes, although Marie Antoinette made them again fashionable for a time. 



Throughout all these centuries, and in fact in the literature of the Greeks, Romans, 

 Arabs and Jews, we find nothing but commendation of the Peacock and unqualified 

 admiration of its beauty. No adverse comments or superstitions are recorded. But 

 at present the silly superstition of the ill-luck brought by the " evil eye " of the peacock's 

 feather is widespread in the United States, England, France and Germany. There is 

 no evidence of this in India or China. V^e have absolutely no explanation of the origin 

 or spread of this superstition except in the following vague tale. 



When God created the Peacock, the seven Deadly Sins gazed with envy at the 

 splendid plumage of the bird and complained of the injustice of the Creator. "Verily, 

 I have been unjust," said he, "because I have already bestowed too much on you. 

 The Deadly Sins should be as black as Night, who covers them with her veil." And 

 taking the yellow eye of Envy, the red eye of Murder, the green eye of Jealousy, and 

 so on, he set them on the feathers of the Peacock and gave the bird its liberty. The 

 bird departed, and the Sins, thus despoiled, follow ever in its track, trying in vain to 

 recover their lost eyes. So when a man decks himself with a peacock feather, the 

 Deadly Sins dog his steps and assail him each in its turn. 



There is no need to enlarge upon this well-known theme. The superstition has 

 an especially strong hold upon the theatre, and many a play has been broken up both 

 by the objection of the players and the audience to the introduction of a Peacock on 

 the stage. 



Through all the later centuries we find the Peacock entering into the folk-lore of 

 widely separated peoples. It has shared equal fame with the eagle, owl and swan, 

 accredited not with fierceness, wisdom or purity, but given homage for its magnificent 

 train. While this is naturally confined chiefly to Asiatic and adjacent races, yet the 

 unusual beauty of the plumes was admired by all mankind. In the tomb of a Viking 



