Bird Myths
by Kitty Felde
In Episode 7 of The Fina Mendoza Mysteries, Fina’s sister Gabby suggests that she do some bird research at the website of the Audubon Society. Fina stumbles upon an article about bird superstitions and reads:
“Fina: If a bird poops on your head, it’s supposed to be good luck. That should be good news for the president, even if he doesn’t think so.”
She also discovers:
“Fina: ‘When a bird flies into a house, you should expect an important message.’ The same thing Monica said about Chickcharney! But maybe that message wasn’t for Monica. Or even for me. Maybe it was for the president. I wonder what it is?”
This is the Facts Behind the Fiction blog, but today I guess you could say we're looking at the fiction in the fiction of bird myths.
The venerable BBC also collected some bird myths:
Robins are messengers from the spirit world. To the Inuit, puffins have the power to change weather and ward off storms. In Hinduism, swans are compared to those saintly people who live in the world, but don’t get attached to it. What's the connection? The feathers of a swan stays dry even in water.
My favorite swan story is the tale of the Children of Lir who are changed into swans by their stepmother. (it’s always evil stepmothers in myths, for some reason.) After 900 years of swandom, the kids return to their earthly form as very old people, and die. Yikes.
That Audubon Society list that Fina discovered also includes this dire warning: “If you see 5 crows, sickness will follow; see 6 crows and death will follow.” Cheerful news.
Apparently, a trio of seagulls overhead are also a warning of death to come. It’s also bad luck to tip your hat to a magpie, but good luck if a blackbird builds a nest on your house. And if you don’t want to drown, make sure there’s a wren in the vicinity.
According to the Natural History Society of Maryland, cardinals are a symbol of positivity in the midst of trouble. And should one show up in your back yard, it will be carrying the spirit of a beloved lost one. Or so the saying goes, “Cardinals appear when Angels are near.”
Why do we human beings embrace myths? According to the PBS show Myths and Heroes, myths help us mere mortals understand the big questions of life. “The subjects of myths reflect the universal concerns of mankind throughout history: birth, death, the afterlife, the origin of man and the world, good and evil and the nature of man himself.” Or herself.
Fina, who is still recovering from the loss of her mother, looks to myths to help explain the unexplainable in her world. Just like us.
