THE FOLK LORE OF BIRDS IN RELATION TO ESSEX. 67
thoughts and writings of folk that it would have been surprising
if birds had not come under its influence. Weather to a con-
siderable extent might have been placed under this head, but
the division assists the consideration of the subject. The
Raven is a notable example of this aspect, the belief in its
prophetic powers being very widely spread. In Scotland and
the North of England it was accepted that this bird was fore-
warned of deathbeds and funerals and often did he flap his wings
against door and window of hut when the unfortunate inmate
was in extremity, or, sitting on the heather thatch, croaked
horror into the dying dream. The northern imagination did
not stop there, for as the funeral wound its way to the mountain
cemetery the bird of ill omen, hovering aloft in the air or swooping
down to the bier, preceded the corpse like a sable saulie (i.e.
mourner). In Denmark its appearance in a village was taken
to foretell the speedy death of the parish priest. In Andalusia
the folk endowed the sable bird with more definite powers;
if its croaking was heard over the home an unlucky day was
expected ; thrice repeated, it presaged a fatality; if perching
high, croaking or turning, a corpse would soon appear from that
direction. In many parts of Germany it was believed that
Ravens carried the souls of the damned, in some cases to be
actually the devil. The Carrion-Crow and the Jackdaw, although
there is not much folk lore regarding the latter, were given similar
characters. The Crow always appeared as a bird of the worst
and most sinister character, representing death, night or winter.
In Hungary it was called the bird of death ; while in Sicily,
Germany and to the old Latin writers its call, especially if near
a house with a sick inmate, portended evil. In a work published
in 1583 it was recorded that the flight of many Crows on the left
side of the camp made the Romans expect bad luck. In
Lancashire it is accepted that if a Jackdaw alights on the window-
sill of a sick room it is an ill omen. In the North of England
if one flies down a chimney it is the sign of a death in the house
and in Gloucestershire the bird is said to be unlucky. It might
have been reasonable to have attributed these sinister reputations
to the dark coloured plumage of these birds, but, although this
may be so, we find that the similarly clad Rook has been
generally accepted as a bird of good omen. There are several