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674 TREES AND ANIMALS.
chimney. And to this day we see her in her red cap, and the
rest of her body black, for the soot of the chimney blackened
her ; continually she hacks into the bark of trees for food, and
pipes before rain, because, being always thirsty, she then hopes
to drink. 1 The green-pecker has the alias giessvogel, Austr.
gissvogel (Stelzhamer s Lieder pp. 19. 177), goissvogel (Hofer 1,
306), Low G. giitvogel, gietvogel, giitfugel (Ehrentr. 1. 345), Engl.
rainbird, rainfowl, because his cry of geuss, giess, giet (pour !)
is said to augur a downpour of rain. About him there goes a
notable story : When
the Lord God at the creation of the world
ordered the beasts to dig a great well (or pond),
this bird
abstained from all work, for fear of soiling
his handsome plumage
(or yellow legs). Then God ordained that to all eternity he
should drink out of no well (pond) therefore we ;
always see him
sip laboriously out of hollow stones or cart-ruts where rainwater
has collected. But when no rain has fallen and there is drought,
he is sore athirst, and we hear unceasingly his pain-stricken
1
the good Lord takes pity, and pours down rain
giet ! And
(Reusch in Preuss. provinz. bl. 26, 536; from Samland). Fahlmann
in the Dorpater verhandl. 1, 42 gives an Esthonian myth :
God was having the Em-bach (-beck, -brook, p. 599n.) dug, and
set all the beasts to work ; but the Whitsun-fowl idly flew from
bough to bough, piping his song. Then the Lord asked him :
(
hast thou nought to do but to spruce thyself ? The bird
replied, f the work is dirty, I can t afford to spoil my golden-
yellow coat and silvery hose. Thou foolish fop/
the Lord
exclaimed, c from henceforth thou shalt wear black hose, and
never slake thy thirst at the brook, but pick the raindrops off the
leaves, and only then strike up thy song when other creatures
creep away from the coming storm/ Now that Norwegian
Gertrude s fowl, whose thirsty piping brings on rain, is evidently
identical, and very likely another story explains the rainbird as
the metamorphosis of a vain idle person. Sometimes it is not
the woodpecker at all that is meant by giessvogel, giesser, wasser-
vogel, pfingstvogel, regenpfeifer, but a snipe (Hofer 1, 306. 341),
whose cry likewise forebodes a storm (p. 184), or the curlew
(numenius arquata), Fr. pluvier (pluviarius) , Boh. Tcoliha, Pol.
1
RytchkoVs Journ. thro the Russ. Emp., trsl. by Hase, Riga 1114. p. 124.