The cuckoo is a merry bird, sings as she flies.
She brings us good tidings and tells us no lies.
She picks up the dirt in the spring of the year,
And sucks little birds’ eggs to make her voice clear.
The piece of slander in the last line is firmly believed by the Sussex peasant, who also maintains that the cuckoo is finally metamorphosed into a hawk,—an ancient fable refuted by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago. I have been accustomed in the North to the first half alone of this verse, in the following form:
The cuckoo is a bonnie bird,
She whistles as she flees,
She brings us all good tidings,
And never tells no lees.
But in truth rhymes about this bird abound through our whole island, and many portents are drawn from it. In some places children say:
Cuckoo, cherry tree,
Good bird, tell me
How many years before I dee?
and listen for an answer in the repetitions of the bird’s cry. In Sweden the question is, “In how many years shall I be married?” It is considered lucky in Scotland to be walking when one first hears the cuckoo:
Gang and hear the gowk yell,
Sit and see the swallow flee,
See the foal before its mother’s ’ee,
’T will a thriving year wi’ thee.
But it is unlucky to have no money in your pocket, and you must without fail turn the money when you hear the bird for the first time in the season.
Sussex cottagers tell their children of a scolding old woman who has charge of all the cuckoos. In the early spring she fills her apron with them, and, if she is in a good humour, allows several to take flight, but if cross, only one or two. A poor
