The robin and the wren
Are God Almighty’s cock and hen;
Him that harries their nest,
Never shall his soul have rest,
add—
The martin and the swallow
Are God Almighty’s bow and arrow;
or, as it runs in some of our midland counties,—
The martin and the swallow
Are God Almighty’s birds to hollow.
The Lancashire version is—
The robin and wren
Are God’s cock and hen.
The spink and the sparrow
Are the deil’s bow and arrow.
Archbishop Whately tells us, however, that in Ireland the swallow is called the “devil’s bird” by the vulgar, who hold that there is a certain hair on every one’s head, which if a swallow can pick off, the man is doomed to eternal perdition. In Scotland, on the other hand, the pretty little yellow-hammer is called the “devil’s bird,” and a superstitious dislike to it extends as far south as Northumberland. My friend the vicar of Stamfordham tells me that when the boys of his parish find its nest they destroy it, saying:
Half a paddock, half a toad,
Half a drop of de’il’s blood.
Horrid yellow yowling!
A cock crowing on the threshold or a humblebee entering a house are in Buckinghamshire deemed omens of a visitor. To turn the bee out is a most inhospitable action.
As to the robin redbreast, it is invested with a sacred character all Christendom over, though various reasons are assigned for it in different countries. In Brittany it is reverenced for an act of devotion to the Crucified Saviour, in extracting one thorn from
