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SWALLOW. STOEK. WOODPECKEE. 673
babies. If, beside the OS. partic. odan, AS. eaden, ON.
(genitus), we could produce a subst. 6d, ead (proles), all would be
straight. The prose word, OHG. storah, AS. store, ON. storkr,
may be just as old. In Frisian superstition there occur meta
morphoses of storks into men, and of men into storks. A lay
of Wolfram 5, 21 declares that storks never hurt the crops (see
Suppl.).
The woodpecker was held sacred by ancient peoples of Italy,
and ranked as the bird of Mars, "Apeos opvis : wooden pillar (eVt KLOVO?
perched on a
l-v\tvov) he prophesied to the Sabines
in the grove by Matiena (or Matiera, Dion. hal. 1, 14. Reiske
p. 40) ; he had once guided them on their way, wp^v-rai ol
TliKevrlvoi Spvo/co\d7rrov rrjv 6$bv fyeaafievov, Strabo v, p. 240.
And he purveyed for Romulus and Remus when the wolf s milk
did not suffice them, Ov. Fasti 3, 37. 54 ; conf. Niebuhr 1, 245.
Ace. to Virg. Aen. 7, 189 and Ov. Met. 14, 321 Picus was the
son of Saturn and father of Faunus, 1 and was changed into the
bird. The apparent relationship of this Picus to our poem of
Beowulf (bee-hunter, i.e. woodpecker), was pointed out p. 369.
In Norway the red-hooded blackpecker is called Gertrude s fowl,
and a story in Asbiornsen and Moe (no. 2) explains its origin :
When our Lord walked upon earth with Peter, they came to a
woman that sat baking, her name was Gertrude, and she wore a
red cap on her head. Faint and hungry from his long journey,
our Lord asked her for a little cake. She took a little dough
and set it on, but it rose so high that it filled the pan. She
thought it too large for an alms, took less dough and began
to bake it, but this grew just as big, and again she refused to
and when the
give it. The third time she took still less dough,
cake still swelled to the same size,
( Ye must go without said
Gertrude, all that I bake becomes too big for you/ Then
was the Lord angry, and said :
(
Since thou hast grudged to
give me aught, thy doom is that thou be a little bird, seek thy
scanty sustenance twixt wood and bark, and only drink as oft as
it shall rain/ No sooner were these words spoken, than the
woman was changed into Gertrude s fowl, and flew up the kitchen
1 When the Swiss call the black-pecker merzajulli (March-foal, Staid. 2, 199.
Tobler 316 a ), the simplest explan.is from picusmartius ; yet fiillimay be for vogeli,
and so March-fowl or Martin s fowl ;
see more in Chap. XXXV., Path-crossing.