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A nice light read with some good snippets of superstition.
Georgia Garfield-White
Feb 19, 2021
Corvids as Symbols of Misfortune
Corvids, a genus of birds ranging across the world whose number include crows, ravens, and magpies, play significant roles in a variety of global religions. In Chinese Folklore, once a year flocks of magpies form a bridge to allow tragically separate lovers, Chang’e and Houyi to meet again for just one night. In some legends of the Russian Koryaks, the Raven-God Kutkh is responsible for creating the lands and rivers and lakes. Tales of the Lenape people say the Rainbow Crow once made an arduous journey into the heavens to beg fire from the gods in order to see his friends through a harsh winter. During the journey back, the soot of the fire stained the crows beautiful multicoloured feathers a stark black.
While these particular legends paint these birds as the heroic, selfless creatures completing arduous tasks for the wellbeing of others, or at least morally ambiguous (as was the case of Kutkh, who either willingly gave the world the sun and the moon or had to be tricked into releasing them depending on which version of the legend you read) there are many other legends that paint them in a far darker light.
In many cultures, ravens, crows, and magpies are most commonly associated with death, trickery, and misfortune. In Britain, the magpie is a creature of superstition, and to see a single magpie is to invite bad luck, as immortalised in the popular folk-rhyme ‘one for sorrow, two for joy.’ There are a variety of ways to allay this misfortune – tipping your hat, spinning three times, saluting, or saying the phrase ‘good morning, Mr Magpie, where’s your wife?’ indicating that there is a second magpie nearby. This is one of Britain’s most enduring superstitions, and there are still people, to this day, who are unable to see a magpie without saluting. Magpies often mate for life, so a single magpie is thought to be widowed, which may have led to the legends about its unluckiness.
In Christian lore, the magpie has a slew of other crimes to its name. It was said to have been the only creature not to enter Noah’s ark, instead sitting outside and chattering, as well as the only bird not to sing to comfort Jesus as he hung on the cross. The church also once stated that the magpie had a drop of the devil’s blood on its tongue. Victorians were encouraged to cut out a magpie’s tongue to release the blood, after which the magpie would be capable of human speech. This last one may not have been entirely ridiculous – magpies (along with some other corvids) are capable of mimicking human speech.
Continued:
https://www.mythosblog.org/post/corvids-as-symbols-of-misfortune
Georgia Garfield-White
Feb 19, 2021
Corvids as Symbols of Misfortune
Corvids, a genus of birds ranging across the world whose number include crows, ravens, and magpies, play significant roles in a variety of global religions. In Chinese Folklore, once a year flocks of magpies form a bridge to allow tragically separate lovers, Chang’e and Houyi to meet again for just one night. In some legends of the Russian Koryaks, the Raven-God Kutkh is responsible for creating the lands and rivers and lakes. Tales of the Lenape people say the Rainbow Crow once made an arduous journey into the heavens to beg fire from the gods in order to see his friends through a harsh winter. During the journey back, the soot of the fire stained the crows beautiful multicoloured feathers a stark black.
While these particular legends paint these birds as the heroic, selfless creatures completing arduous tasks for the wellbeing of others, or at least morally ambiguous (as was the case of Kutkh, who either willingly gave the world the sun and the moon or had to be tricked into releasing them depending on which version of the legend you read) there are many other legends that paint them in a far darker light.
In many cultures, ravens, crows, and magpies are most commonly associated with death, trickery, and misfortune. In Britain, the magpie is a creature of superstition, and to see a single magpie is to invite bad luck, as immortalised in the popular folk-rhyme ‘one for sorrow, two for joy.’ There are a variety of ways to allay this misfortune – tipping your hat, spinning three times, saluting, or saying the phrase ‘good morning, Mr Magpie, where’s your wife?’ indicating that there is a second magpie nearby. This is one of Britain’s most enduring superstitions, and there are still people, to this day, who are unable to see a magpie without saluting. Magpies often mate for life, so a single magpie is thought to be widowed, which may have led to the legends about its unluckiness.
In Christian lore, the magpie has a slew of other crimes to its name. It was said to have been the only creature not to enter Noah’s ark, instead sitting outside and chattering, as well as the only bird not to sing to comfort Jesus as he hung on the cross. The church also once stated that the magpie had a drop of the devil’s blood on its tongue. Victorians were encouraged to cut out a magpie’s tongue to release the blood, after which the magpie would be capable of human speech. This last one may not have been entirely ridiculous – magpies (along with some other corvids) are capable of mimicking human speech.
Continued:
https://www.mythosblog.org/post/corvids-as-symbols-of-misfortune
