imputed to him. Either it was thought that he could give the best intelligence concerning its nature, or perhaps the original intention of his capture was that he might be forced to bring it down innocuously. This latter supposition appears the more probable, because the springwort (a vegetable embodiment of the lightning, of which more hereafter) was known to the Romans as well as to the Germans, and was believed by both to be at the command of the picus or woodpecker.

It was the custom at Rome, as soon as a child was born, to strew a couch for Pilumnus and Picumnus, who were supposed to remain in the house until it was ascertained that the babe, for whom they had brought the fire of life, was likely to live. Pilumnus, the brother of Picus, who seems to be only his double, had his name from pilum, which means both javelin and pestle, and is in either case equivalent to the thunderbolt. Pilum in the sense of pestle, and the sound made by the bill of the picus rapping at the trees, combined to make Pilumnus the god of the bakers; for in old times the baker and the miller or corn-brayer were one, and pistor, the Latin for baker, means also the person who plies the pîlum or pis-lum.*

In

*There were no bakers in Rome down to the time of the Persian

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GERTRUDE'S BIRD.

Norway the black red-crested woodpecker is called Gertrude's bird, and a Norse tale, in which the names alone are Christian and all the rest purely heathen, makes the bird a transformed baker.

"In those days when our Lord and St. Peter wandered upon earth, they came once to an old wife's house who sat baking.

Her name was

Gertrude, and she had a red mutch on her head. They had walked a long way and were both hungry, and our Lord begged hard for a bannock to stay their hunger. Yes, they should have it. So she took a little tiny piece of dough and rolled it out, but as she rolled it, it grew till it covered the whole griddle.

"Nay, that was too big; they couldn't have that. So she took a tinier bit still; but when that was rolled out, it covered the whole griddle just the same, and that bannock was too big, she said; they couldn't have that either.

"The third time she took a still tinier bit-so tiny you could scarce see it; but it was the same story over again—the bannock was too big.

war, more than 580 years after the foundation of the city. The citizens made their own bread, and that was the work of the women, as it is still among most nations." Plin. Hist. Nat. xviii. 11, 28. In the Western Islands of Scotland to this day each household prepares its own barley meal by pounding the corn in a large stone mortar.

GERTRUDE'S BIRD.

87

"Well,' said Gertrude, 'I can't give you anything; you must just go without, for all these bannocks are too big.'

"Then our Lord waxed wroth and said, 'Since you loved me so little as to grudge me a morsel of food, you shall have this punishment,-you shall become a bird, and seek your food between bark and bole, and never get a drop to drink save when it rains,'

"He had scarce said the last word before she was turned into a great black woodpecker, or Gertrude's bird, and flew from her kneading-trough right up the chimney; and till this very day you may see her flying about, with her red mutch on her head, and her body all black, because of the soot in the chimney; and so she hacks and taps away at the trees for her food, and whistles when rain is coming, for she is ever athirst, and then she looks for a drop to cool her tongue."

The curse pronounced upon the woodpecker in this story, that it shall "never get a drop to drink save when it rains," accords with the supposed intimate connection between the bird and the clouds, and points, perhaps, to the reason which first suggested that mythic relation, The green

* Dasent, "Popular Tales from the Norse," p. 230.

woodpecker is the best known of its genus in England, and is widely spread on the continent of Europe. Its loud cry, when frequently uttered, is commonly supposed to foretell the approach of rainy weather. Hence one of its English provincial names is Rainbird.

Tales like that of Gertrude's bird are told of the cuckoo, and "They say the owl was a baker's daughter."* The cuckoo was a baker's or miller's man, and that is why his feathers are dusted with meal. He robbed poor people of their dough in hard times, and when the dough swelled by God's blessing in the oven, he drew it out and nipped off a portion of it, crying out each time, "gukuk” (look! look!). To punish him, God turned him into a bird of prey that is everlastingly repeating the same cry. According to another legend, our Lord passed by a baker's shop, from which there came a pleasant smell of fresh bread, and sent his disciples in to beg for a loaf. The baker refused it, but his wife, who was looking on from a distance with her six daughters, gave it in secret. For this she and her daughters were placed in heaven as the Seven Stars (the Pleiades; English, hen with her chickens), but the baker was turned into a

*

Hamlet, iv. 5.

+ D. M. 641.

CUCKOO. STORK.

89

cuckoo; and so long as his cry is heard in the spring, from St. Tiburt's to St. John's day, the Seven Stars are visible in the heavens.* The cuckoo's connection with storms and tempests is not clearly determined, but the owl's is indisputable. Its cry is believed in England to foretell rain and hail, the latter of which is usually accompanied with lightning, and the practice of nailing it to the barn door, to avert the lightning, is common throughout Europe, and is mentioned by Palladius in his treatise on Agriculture.+

The stork, which in Holland, Denmark, and North Germany is everywhere a welcome guest, is known there universally as a fire-fowl and baby-bringer. There are obvious reasons why these offices should have been assigned to him. He is a bird of passage coming with the storms, departing with them; he is the attendant and messenger of the goddess, with whom he arrives in spring after her winter enchantment or banishment, and his red legs mark him also as a servant of the fire-god. In Hesse a wagon-wheel (emblem of the sun) is laid upon the roof for the stork to build his nest on. The house on which he builds is safe from fire, even though the neighbourhood be burned down. He must not De re rusticâ, I. 35.

* D.M. 691.