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CUCKOO. 679
they imagine that lie never sings before the 3rd of April, and
never after Midsummer :
am dretta Abarella
moss der gugger griiena haber schnella ;
but he cannot sing till he has eaten a bird s egg. If you have
money in your pouch when you hear him. sing the first time, you
will be well off all that year, if not, you will be short the whole
year (Sup. I, 374) ; and if you were fasting, you will be hungry
all the year. When the cuckoo has eaten his fill of cherries three
times, he leaves off singing. As the cuckoo s song falls silent at
Midsummer, vulgar opinion holds that from that time he turns
into a hawk. Reusch, N. pr. prov. bl. 5, 338-9.
The Poles call the bird zezula, the Bohemians ezhule (both
fern.). The 0. Pol. chronicle of Prokosz, 1
p. 113 of the Lat. ed.,
has a remarkable account of the worship of a Slavic god Zyvie :
(
divinitati Zywie fanum exstrueturn erat in monte ab ejusdem
nomine Zywiec dicto, ubi primis diebus mensis Maji innumerus
populus pie conveniens precabatur ab ea, quae vitae 3 auctor habe-
tamen ei
batur, longam et prosperam valetudinem. Praecipue
litabatur ab iis qui primum cantum cuculi audivissent, ominantes
superstitiose tot annos se victuros quoties vocem repetiisset. Opinabantur
enim supremum hunc universi moderatorem transfigurari
in cuculum ut ipsis annuntiaret vitae tempora : unde crimini
ducebatur, capitalique poena a magistratibus afficiebatur, qui
cuculum occidisset/ Here the oracular bird is a god in meta
morphosis, just as that Saxon rhyme called him kukuk vam
haven/
To the Servian haiduks it betokens evil when the huJcawtsa
comes too soon, and cries out of the black (leafless) forest ; and
good luck when it sings from the green wood, Yuk sub v.
In the Eddie Grotta-song the quern-maids are only allowed to
rest and sleep while the cuckoo is silent .
(enn gaukrinn }>ag$i)
The cuckoo can prophesy both good and ill in ; dealing with
him (as with other birds of enchantment, owls, magpies) you
1 Kronika polska przez Prodosza, Warsz. 1825, and in Latin Chronicon
Slavosarmaticum Procosii, Varsav. 1827 ; professedly of the 10th cent. It is not
so old as that, yet Dobrowsky (Wien. jahrb. 32, 7780) goes too far in pronouncing
it a pure fabrication ; it is at any rate founded on old traditions.
2
zywy, alive ; zywic, to sustain life, nourish.
II.
B