All Hail!
Another forebisening (=example) of those things now overlooked (see last post), is the folk-rhyme that beginneth “one for sorrow...” and so on, with some unlikenesses (=differences) in the tellings (=versions) that have come down to us; yet all are understood to be about that fowl which is called the magpie.
Something of this folk-rhyme is first marked about 1780 in John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities from Lincolnshire (“One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for a funeral. And four for birth”). This is almost matched by that to be found in the The Peasant Speech of Devon by Sarah Hewett, Elliot Stock, 62 Paternoster Row, London 1892, under “Devon Superstitions and Customs”, “magpies” leaf (=page) 26.
“to see-
wan is vur zorrow.
tü is vur mirth.
dree is vur a wedding.
vowr is vur death.”
The Denham tracts; a collection of folklore, reprinted from the original tracts and pamphlets printed by (Michael) Denham between 1846 and 1859 outlaid (=edited) by James Hardy, London 1895, deal II, lvs. 19 to 20, hath :
One for sorrow,
Two for luck (varia mirth)
Three for a wedding,
Four for a death (varia birth)
Five for silver (varia rich)
Six for gold (varia poor)
Seven for a secret
Not to be told;
Eight for heaven,
Nine for H[ell],
Ten for the devill's awn sell!
From “West Dorset” John Symonds Udal Dorsetshire Folklore 1922 third outlaying (=edition) Dorset Books, Exeter 1981, lf. 240:
One for sorrow;
Two for mirth;
Three for a wedding;
Four for a birth;
Five for silver;
Six for gold;
Seven for secrets
never to be told.
Which I believe is almost like the one that is often met with today, and it is witterly (=certainly) the one I grew up with:
One for sorrow;
Two for joy;
Three for a girl;
Four for a boy;
Five for silver;
Six for gold;
Seven for a secret
never to be told.
Now although the rhyme with only four is seemingly the older one, I do not think it is in its true shape like this. The rhyme reckoning ten may well be the true shape, yet those reckoning only seven still have the main deal (=part) of this. All reckonings broadly thwear (=agree), but stand in need of a higher wisdom to unlock their true meaning. Might we not see the sevenfold stightling (=arrangement) at the root of all these rhymes as having something to do with the old gods who bestowed their names upon the days of the week?
- one for sorrow = Sǽtere whence Sǽtresdæȝ/ Sǽter(es)dæȝ now Saturday, he is evened with the Romans' Saturnus
- two for mirth/luck/joy = Þunor/Þūr whence Þunresdæȝ/ Þūresdæȝ now Thursday, he is evened with the Romans' Iuppiter
- three for wedding/funeral/girl = Frīȝ whence Frīȝedæȝ now Friday, she is evened with the Romans' Venus
- four for death/birth/boy = Tīw/Tīȝ whence Tīȝesdæȝ/ Tīwesdæȝ now Tuesday, he is evened with the Romans' Mars
- five for silver/rich = Mōna whence Mōn(an)dæȝ now Monday
- six for gold/poor = Sunne whence Sun(nan)dæȝ now Sunday
- seven for a secret... = Wōden whence Wōdnesdæȝ now Wednesday, evened with the Romans' Mercurius
- Eight for heaven = the heaven of stars beyond the foregoing
- nine for hell = hell
- ten for the devil = needeth no outfolding by me I think
Beyond this furthermore, we have a rhyme that is about the foreshowing of things to come from the flight of fowls. Now such things were forbidden under that newer belief which is uppermost among us. Yet these things were still done nevertheless. It is worthwhile here to mark the following from the Gesta Henrici Quinti Regis Angliæ (The Deeds of Henry the Fifth) Capitulum tertium, outlaid by Benjamin Williams, London 1850 lf.13:
“Et dum ora insulæ Vectæ post terga reliquimus, visi sunt cygni natantes infra navigium, qui praesagire dicebantur in opinione omnium felicia auspicia operis intentati.”
“And when they were leaving the shore of the island of Wight behind their backs, swans were seen swimming beneath the ship, who were said to forebode, in the weening (=opinion) of all, a happy foreboding about the work undertaken.”
In William Shakespeare's Macbeth Act III, scene IV we find this:
“It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?”
“Magot-pies” are what are now called magpies.
And there is nothing to stop this kind of thing having been done since at least Tacitus's time (about 98 in the mean reckoning (=CE.)) De origine moribus et situ Germanorum (The Germania) :
“10. Auspicia sortesque, ut qui maxime, observant. Sortium consuetudo simplex: …Si prohibuerunt, nulla de eadem re in eundem diem consultatio; sin permissum, auspiciorum adhuc fides exigitur. Et illud quidem etiam hic notum, avium voces volatusque interrogare: ...”
“Augury and divination by lot no people practise more diligently. The use of the lots is simple. … If they prove unfavourable, there is no further consultation that day about the matter; if they sanction it, the confirmation of augury is still required. For they are also familiar with the practice of consulting the notes and the flight of birds. ...”.
From The Works of Tacitus awent. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb and thrutched (=published) by Macmillan in London in a series of outlayings between 1864 and 1877 Germany Book 1.
The magpie was well fitted to the work of foreboding as the Rev. Charles Swainson, M.A., in his The Folk Lore and Provincial Names Of British Birds, Elliot Stock, London 1886, lvs, 75 to 81 marketh that this fowl, although widely misliked, was nevertheless often thought of as being wise. And although Swainson doth mark it, I nevertheless will give the reader what Benjamin Thorpe writeth in his Northern Mythology, Deal II, Edward Lumley, London, 1851, Swedish Traditions, from Arvid Afzelius, Svenska Folkets Sago-Häfder, Mystic Animals lf.84:
“The magpie—like others of the raven or crow family— is also a mystic bird, a downright witches' bird, belonging to the devil and the other hidden powers of night. When the witches, on Walpurgis night, ride to the Blåkulle, they turn themselves into magpies. When they are moulting in summer, and become bald about the neck, the country people say they have been to the Blåkulle, and helped the evil one to get his hay in, and that the yoke has rubbed their feathers off.”
The
Blåkulle is a well-known stead for a gathering of witches first
marked as such by Olaus Magnus, in his Historia de gentibus
septentrionalibus (1555) bk. 2, chap. 23. It is a small island
rising some 282 feet above the sea in the Kalmar Strait, between
Småland and Öland. It is however, mostly spoken of as Blå
Jungfrun (“blue maiden”), which, as Magnus writeth, is done to
ward off the evil foreboding which the true name giveth rise to in
some.
The Northerners have Bokmål skjære, Nynorsk skjor, Icelandish skjór all of which are oddly shared by the Ostfälisch speech spoken in south-east Lower Saxony about Hanover where Schare is meant to be found. The Swedish skata and Danish skade look like they go back to skaði.
But to my mind the bestowing of a woman's name - “Mag” or “Magot” - upon this fowl is a most fyrwit (=curious) thing. Swainson telleth us this fowl was sometimes called “Mag” “Madge” “Marget” or in full “Margaret”. The French also at times called it “Margot” whence the English have belike borrowed it. Is this the name of a chattering woman given to the bird from its wone of chattering, hence its Norfolk name of Chatter Pie? This would seemingly tie up the loose ends but is it right?
R. C. A. Prior, M.D., On the Popular Names Of British Plants, Being An Explanation of the Origin and Meaning of the Names of Our Indigenous and Most Commonly Cultivated Species, williams And Norgate, London 1870, under Maghet on lf.142 we will read:
“See MAITHES, MARGUERITE, MATHER, MAUDLIN, MAYDWEED, MAYWEED, and MOONWORT. These plants were, in ancient times,... dedicated to the virgin goddess of the night, the theos ton katharmaton, or Diana; but in Christian times have been transferred to the two saints, who in this particular replace her, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Margaret.”
Farewell.
