Thread by @UrsulaV

I am reading a book of Irish folklore about birds, and like half of them were apparently real jerks at the Crucifixion.

The wren narcs Jesus out to the Romans and the lapwing flies around the cross shouting “Let him suffer!” I don’t think there’s a moral here, other than folklore is weird.

Christ takes shelter under a hen, but the hen picks at him. The duck doesn’t, so he blesses the duck to be waterproof. I really think where fantasy writing falls down is that our stories make way too much coherent sense.

There is a LOT of fairy lore around roosters. You want one born in March, they’re the best at keeping away misfortune.

Lots of saints cursing roosters for crowing at the wrong time. Which, in fairness, I also do, but nothing mystical comes of it.

Hey @NeolithicSheep, according to Irish lore, if swallows take your hair clippings for their nest, you’ll have a headache all year.

...I shudder to think what this means about the whippoorwills.

The skylark is blessed, and the three spots on her tongue are three curses for the one who disturbs her nest. Now that’s the stuff!

Oh, more swallows—if a farmer harms a swallow, his cows start to give bloody milk. Not good.

Back to the Crucifixion, the swallow removes the crown of thorns and his breast is stained red. I wanna say the robin did this too? Joint effort, I guess.

Ok, so the dove perched near the cross and wails to alleviate the pain of Christ’s final moments. Which, uh. I suppose that...might...help? The doves I’m used to, I can’t say I’d appreciate that, but sure, why not.

Pretty much no bird can perch on the house or somebody’s gonna die. Swallows are sort of ok, unless there’s a bunch of them, and then they’re discussing who will die next. The moral of these folktales seem to be that birds really want you dead.

Here we have a man enchanted by a Druid into the shape of a blackbird until he could eat “three bites of fat from the entrails of Fionn Mac Cumhaill.” So the bird just follows him around until he gets disemboweled, eats three bites, then heals him.

The Tuatha De Danann kept a flock of blackbirds with fiery beaks and would release them to land on their enemies. Useful to have around, I guess.

I was about to complain that every single bird seems to foretell rain, but then I remembered what the weather in Ireland was like. Objection withdrawn.

Ah, back to Jesus! The curlew walked behind him, covering his footprints on the sand so that he could escape his enemies, and in return, Jesus granted that no man would ever find the curlew’s nest.

Swans are the spirits of dead virgins. No wonder they’re so angry.

A folk remedy for “many ailments” is to place the open mouth of a goose into the mouth of a sick person so that they could inhale the goose’s breath.

...I suspect the speed at which the sick person bolted out of bed was damn near miraculous.

I have developed a respect for geese for what they are, a wary animal that dislikes novelty. I cannot imagine they would enjoy the novelty of having their heads jammed into somebody’s mouth.

The magpie has a drop of the Devil’s blood upon its tongue. It was as beautiful as a peacock, but it mocked Jesus on the cross and was stripped of its plumage.

Apparently Calvary was just wall to wall birds.