Simon Wein
Petach Tikvah, Israel

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its region
—William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”

Years ago, as a hemato-oncology registrar, we had a patient with extensive lymphoma who was jaundiced. The patient was ethnically Jewish, and her family wanted to use a traditional therapy for jaundice. The procedure required taking a pigeon, placing it over the patient’s belly, then squeezing the bird, often resulting in its death. The jaundice would be drawn up and cure the patient. This “worked” with self-limiting hepatitis. In our case, the patient died with the pigeons.¹

There are many folk tales in which birds influence humans, a tribute to birds’ majesty and mystery. In Chinese mythology, cranes are a symbol of longevity. They are often depicted at weddings because cranes tend to mate for life. It is a Chinese custom to give a picture of a crane to elderly people on their birthdays as it symbolizes good health and longevity. In East Asian cultures, the red-crowned crane is a symbol of happiness, long life, and marital bliss.

In other cultures, such as Celtic and indigenous American, birds like crows, owls, and ravens were viewed as bad omens. For instance, a bird tapping on a window or a hooting owl near a home was taken as an omen of impending illness or death.

Another belief casts birds, especially migratory ones, as “soul carriers,” bringing the soul at birth and escorting it away upon death. The mythical story of the stork carrying the newborn baby is well known and loved. Curiously, the belief about birds and souls is found all over the world. One supposes that the ephemeral nature of the air in which birds fly is likened to the soul.

The swallow, the fighter-jet of birds, migrates each year and its return signals spring. There is a curious proverb that “a single swallow does not a summer make.” Swallows are symbols of hope and rejuvenation.

Swedish folklore considers the black jackdaw (or raven) a bird of warning. Many jackdaws appearing at the same time heralds war, plague, or other epidemics.

In maritime mythology, an albatross flying alongside a ship is a sign of good fortune. However, if an albatross is injured or killed, a devastating curse will befall the ship. In his poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge told of the Ancient Mariner who killed the albatross and was made to wear the dead bird around his neck.² The poem is filled with symbolism and mysticism. In this vein, the dead albatross could serve as a metaphor for Christ who bore his cross.

Epidemiologically, birds are known to spread diseases to humans. These are called zoonoses. Examples include salmonella, psittacosis, and avian bird flu.

Thus are birds soul, spirit, longevity, and luck, and sometimes sickness and misfortune. Birds are important to our well-being. Birdsong lifts our spirit, and a bird in flight is majestic. For these reasons, folklorists have long honored birds through myth and metaphor.

However, above and beyond all this is the beauty and wonder of birds. Their ability to fly and migrate thousands of kilometers; their singing at the joy of life, if not in actual prayer, and their wondrous nest-building ability. And with all this to realize they are descendants of the dinosaurs.

Sitting on the veranda late one evening in a northern clime, we hear the songbirds making the most of late spring and soon to be short summer. The birds sing their hearts out from dawn to dusk, some twenty hours. Tonight each bird is singing their own tune, clashing and discordant, a cacophony, like a Beethoven Late String Quartet. The cuckoo chimes alongside as the metronome. By the time the days have shortened and cooled, the birds will have procreated, eaten their fill, and filled out, before turning south for their arduous journey.

This gives thought-filled reflection on the passage of time, the cycle of life, and an empty nest as we pass the autumn of our lives.

References

1. Tauber AI. On pigeons, physicians and placebos. The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, June 1991;84:328-331.
2. Coleridge ST. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of 1834). Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834.