Volume Ii Part 23 (1/2)

In the same way as the ancients used to make quails fight against each other, so they made c.o.c.ks; hence the c.o.c.k was called son of Mars (Areos neottos). We already know that the c.o.c.k's crest terrifies the maned lion; the crest and the mane are equivalent; and we have also seen what heroic virtue was attributed to the _lapillus alectorius_.

Plutarch writes that the Lacedaemonians sacrificed the c.o.c.k to Mars to obtain victory in the battles which they fought in the open air.

Pallas wore the c.o.c.k upon her helmet, Idomeneus upon his s.h.i.+eld.

Plutarch says, moreover, that the inhabitants of Caria used to carry a c.o.c.k on the end of their lances, and refers the origin of this custom to Artaxerxes; but it appears to be much more ancient, for the Carians wore crested helmets as far back as the time of Herodotus, for which reason the Persians gave the Carians the name of c.o.c.ks. c.o.c.kfights, which became so popular in England, are also common in India. Philon, the Hebrew, relates of Miltiades, that before the battle of Marathon he inflamed the ardour of his soldiers by exhibiting c.o.c.kfights; the same, according to aelianos, was done by Themistocles. John Goropius (who gives the extravagant etymologies of _danen_ and _alanen_ from _de hahnen_ and _all hahnen_) relates that the Danes were accustomed to carry two c.o.c.ks to war, one to tell the hours and the other to excite the soldiers to battle. Du Cange informs us that duels between c.o.c.ks were also the custom in France in the seventeenth century, and gives some fragments of mediaeval writings in which these are prohibited as a superst.i.tious custom and one which was objectionable.

It is well known that the ancient Romans, before engaging in battle, took auguries from c.o.c.ks and fowls, although this custom sometimes gave occasion to derision. Of Publius Claudius, for instance, it is said that, being about to engage in a naval battle in the first Punic war, he consulted the auguries in order not to offend against the customs of his country; but that when the augurs announced that the fowls would not eat, he ordered them to be taken and thrown into the sea, saying, ”If they will not eat, then let them drink.”

Part of the wors.h.i.+p which was offered to the c.o.c.k and to the hen was also rendered to the egg: the Latin proverb, ”Gallus in sterquilinio suo plurimum potest,” shows the great value of the egg. The pearl which the fowl searches for in the dunghill is nought else but its own egg; and the egg of the hen in the sky is the sun itself. During the night the celestial hen is black, but it becomes white in the morning; and being white, on account of the snow, it is the hen of winter. The white hen is propitious on account of the golden chickens hatched by it. In the Monferrato it is believed that the eggs of a white hen laid on Ascension Day, in a new nest, are a good remedy for pains in the stomach, head, and ears, and that, when taken into a cornfield, they prevent the blight, or black evil, from entering amongst the crops, or when taken into a vineyard, they save it from hail. The eggs which are eaten at Easter and concerning which, accompanied sometimes by songs and proverbs, so many popular customs, mythologically in accordance, are current in the various countries of Europe, celebrate the resurrection of the celestial egg, a symbol of abundance,[432] the sun of spring. The hen of the fable and the fairy tales, which lays golden eggs, is the mythical hen (the earth or the sky) which gives birth every day to the sun. The golden egg is the beginning of life in Orphic and Hindoo cosmogony; by the golden egg the world begins to move, and movement is the principle of good. The golden egg brings forth the luminous, laborious, and beneficent day. Hence it is an excellent augury to begin with the egg, which represents the principle of good, whence the equivocal Latin proverb, ”Ab ovo ad malum,” which signified ”from good to evil,” but which properly meant, ”from the egg to the apple,” the Latins being accustomed to begin their dinners with hard-boiled eggs and to end them with apples (a custom which is still preserved among numerous Italian families).[433]

But to begin _ab ovo_ also means to begin at the beginning. Horace says that he does not begin from the twin eggs the description of the Trojan war--

”Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur _ab ovo_,”

alluding to the egg of Leda, to which the Greek proverb, ”Come out of the egg” (ex oou exelthen), also alludes, said of a very handsome man, and referring to fair Helen and her two luminous brothers the Dioskuroi. But here the white c.o.c.k has became a white swan, of which we shall speak in the following chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[421] i. 49.

[422] Ma no vadhir indra ma para da ma na? priya bho?anani pra mos.h.i.+?

a??a ma no maghavan chakra nir bhen ma na? patra bhet saha?a.n.u.sha?i; _?igv._ i. 104, 8.

[423] Der Vogel der den Namen Parodars fuhrt, o heiliger Zarathustra, den die ubelredenden Menschen mit den Namen Kahrkatac belegen, dieser Vogel erhebt seine Stimme bei jeder gottlichen Morgenrothe: Stehet auf, ihr Menschen, preiset die beste Reinheit, vertreibet die Daeva; _Vendidad_, xviii. 34-38, Spiegel's version.--The c.o.c.k Parodars chases away with his cry especially the demon Bushya?cta, who oppresses men with sleep, and he returns again in a fragment of the _Khorda-Avesta_ (x.x.xix.): ”'Da, vor dem Kommen der Morgenrothe, spricht dieser Vogel Parodars, der Vogel der mit Messern verwundet, Worte gegen das Feuers aus. Bei seinem Sprechen lauft Bushya?cta mit langen Handen herzu von der nordlichen Gegend, von den nordlichen Gegenden, also sprechen, also sagend: ”Schlafet o Menschen, schlafet, sundlich Lebende, schlafet, die ihr ein sundiges Leben fuhrt.” As in the song of Prudentius, the idea of sleep and that of sin are a.s.sociated together; the song of Prudentius suggests the idea that it was written by some one who was initiated in the solar mysteries of the wors.h.i.+p of Mithras.

[424] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v._--And the same Du Cange, in the article _gallina_, quotes an old mediaeval glossary in which _gallina_ is said to mean Christ, wisdom, and soul.--The c.o.c.k of the Gospel announces, reveals, betrays Christ three times, in the three watches of the night, to which sometimes correspond the three sons of the legends.

[425] According to a legend of St James, an old father and mother go with their young son on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. On the way, in an inn at San Domingo de la Calzada, the innkeeper's daughter offers her favours to the young man, who rejects them; the girl avenges herself upon him by putting a silver plate in his sack, for which he is arrested and impaled as a thief. The old parents continue their journey to Santiago; St James has pity upon them, and works a miracle which is only known to be his afterwards.

The old couple return to their country, pa.s.sing by San Domingo; here they find their son alive, whom they had seen impaled, for which they there and then offer solemn thanks to St James. All are astonished.

The prefect of the place is at dinner when the news is brought to him; he refuses to believe it, and says that the young man is no more alive than the roasted fowl which is being set upon the table; no sooner has he uttered the words, than the c.o.c.k begins to crow, resumes its feathers, jumps out of the plate and flies away. The innkeeper's daughter is condemned; and in honour of the miracle, the c.o.c.k is revered as a sacred animal, and at San Domingo the houses are ornamented with c.o.c.k's feathers. A similar wonder is said, by Sigonio, to have taken place in the eleventh century in the Bolognese; but instead of St James, Christ and St Peter appear to perform miracles.--Cfr. also the relations.h.i.+p of St Elias (and of the Russian hero Ilya) feasted on the 21st of July, when the sun enters the sign of the lion, with Helios, the h.e.l.lenic sun.

[426]

La gallina cantatura Nun si vinni, ne si duna, Si la mancia la patruna.

[427] Cfr. _Afana.s.sieff_, i. 3, ii. 30; sometimes, instead of the hen's feet we have the dog's paws; cfr. v. 28.

[428] Concerning this subject I can add an unpublished story which Signor S. M. Greco sends me from Cosenza in Calabria:--A poor girl is alone in the fields; she plucks a rampion, sees a stair, goes down, and comes to the palace of the fairies, who at sight of her are smitten with love. She asks to be allowed to go back to her mother, and obtains permission; she tells her mother that she hears a noise every night, without seeing anything, and is advised to light a candle and she will see. Next evening the girl does so, and sees a youth of great beauty with a looking-gla.s.s on his breast. The third evening she does the same, but a drop of wax falls upon the looking-gla.s.s and wakens the youth, who cries out lamentably, ”Thou shalt go hence.” The girl wishes to go away; the fairies give her a full clew of thread, with the advice that she must go to the top of the highest mountain and leave the clew to itself; where it goes, thither must she follow.

She obeys, and arrives at a town which is in mourning on account of the absence of the prince; the queen sees the girl from the window and makes her come in. After some time she gives birth to a handsome son, and a shoemaker, who works by night, begins to sing--

”Sleep, sleep, my son; If your mother knew some day That you are my son, In a golden cradle she would put you to sleep, And in golden swaddling-clothes.

Sleep, sleep, my son.”

The queen then learns from the girl, that he who sings thus is the prince, who is destined to stay far from the palace until the sun rises without him perceiving it. Orders are then given to kill all the fowls in the town, and to cover all the windows with a black veil scattered over with diamonds, in order that the prince may believe it is still night and may not perceive the rising of the sun. The prince is deceived, and marries the maiden who is the fairies' favourite, and they lived happy and contented,

Whilst I, if you will believe me, Found myself with a thorn in my foot.

[429] Die schlaue Alte brachte bald heraus, was der Dorfhahn hinter ihrem Rucken der jungsten Tochter ins Ohr gekraht hatte; Kreutzwald u.