Black Cats and Evil Eyes (5 page)

These tales have travelled down to us in more and more diluted forms until the accepted wisdom became that crossing any bridge after dark, or being the first to cross a bridge at any time of
day, meant running a gauntlet of evil sprites, trolls (incorporating the Norwegian fairytale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff) or the Devil himself. In Marie Trevelyan’s
Folk Lore of
Wales
published in 1909 she writes: ‘Very old people always spat thrice on the ground before crossing water after dark, to avert the evil influences of spirits and witches.’ It
became tradition to send an animal over a new bridge before the first human crossed and bridge builders would often leave placatory gifts of money bricked into the stonework. Even today it is still
common for a new bridge to be officially ‘opened’ by an important figure in the community and for a bottle of wine to be smashed against its side to ‘bless’ all those who
cross it.

To the ancient Greeks, the owl was revered for its link to Athena, goddess of wisdom, justice and philosophy. Archaic art often shows the goddess with an owl called the Owl of
Athena, or, under Roman rule, the Owl of Minerva perched on her head and according to Theophrastus, writing circa 319
BC
, ‘If an owl is startled by him in his walk, he
will exclaim “Glory be to Athene!” before he proceeds.’ We still associate owls with wisdom for this reason, although their wisdom also made them a creature to be feared for their
prophetic powers.

Roman historian Pliny the Elder, writing in
AD
77, believed they always brought bad news and described the bird as ‘most execrable and accursed’. To hear one screeching is described
as a portent of doom in works by Chaucer and Shakespeare, as well as in songs and poems passed on by word of mouth. One old rhyme from the southern United States is specific about the nature of the
threat ahead:

The owl’s perceived ability to foretell a death stems from the fact that as nocturnal birds, they were associated with night and the sinister spirits that were thought to roam the earth in
the hours of darkness. Seeing an owl in daylight is thought to be especially bad luck and if one flies around and around the house it is a sure sign of the imminent demise of someone living
within.

There are regional variations in our interpretation of the owl’s call however; according to Welsh legend an owl hooting is a sign that a local woman has just lost her virginity. In
Germany, if an owl’s call is heard during childbirth then the child will be cursed with an unhappy life, while in France, a pregnant woman hearing an owl will know that her baby is a
girl.

Whatever intelligence they bring, any bad luck associated with hearing or seeing an owl could be counteracted in the Middle Ages by thrusting irons (such as the shovel mentioned in the rhyme
quoted above) into a fire or taking your clothes off and turning them inside out before swiftly dressing again. To ensure longer-term protection against the curse of hearing their hoot you could
throw salt or vinegar into the fire to give the owl a sore tongue and silence it forever.

The robin redbreast, or European robin to give it its official title, is among the most beloved of gardener’s companions. Sociable and bold, they seem unafraid of human
contact and are easily tamed, which makes it easy to see why killing one is regarded as wrong. However, our concern for their welfare has roots in Christian folklore. Legend has it that as well as
singing with all the other birds to soothe Jesus as he suffered on the cross, the robin also tried to remove the thorns from his head and its feathers became stained with Christ’s blood as it
did so. An alternative version of the origins of the red breast tells how a robin present in the stable where Jesus was born noticed that as Mary and her baby lay sleeping, the fire that was
keeping them warm almost died out. The robin rekindled the flames by fanning them with its wings and was rewarded with its red breast by Mary when she woke, in recognition of its devotion.

Both versions cast the robin as good-hearted and
selfless and secured the bird its place as a folklore favourite. A rhyme featuring the robin from a collection of poems,
songs and fables for children,
A Poetical Description of Songbirds
published in the US in 1773, sums up the esteem in which they were held: ‘The robin and the jenny wren, are God
Almighty’s little cock and hen.’ A similar sentiment is conveyed in William Blake’s
Auguries of Innocence
by the familiar lines ‘A robin redbreast in a cage,/Puts all heaven
in a rage.’

Fear of ‘heaven’s rage’ meant that most country people regarded it as extremely unlucky to kill a robin, even by accident. The repercussions for doing so vary from place to
place but all are severe; some say the hand that snuffs out a robin’s life will shake forever after, in Irish folklore a large, painful lump is said to appear on the right hand of anyone
guilty of the sin, while in Yorkshire, it is thought that if a farmer is responsible for a robin’s death, the milk his cows produce will turn the colour of blood.

In the suburban areas of modern towns, swallows are often regarded as a nuisance. In Britain, swallows and their nests are fully protected under the Wildlife and Countryside
Act of 1981, which makes it an offence to intentionally kill, injure or take any wild bird. Nonetheless, their clusters of mud nests can damage walls and eaves and numerous ‘pest
control’ services make it their business to get rid of them once the birds have migrated. However, according to folklore, it is incredibly bad luck to kill a swallow. The English author
Thomas Browne put his finger on the problem in 1650 in the fifth edition of his popular book
Vulgar Errors
, which addressed the superstitions of his day: ‘Though useless unto us and rather of
molestation, we commonly refrain from killing swallows, and esteem it unlucky to destroy them.’

Belief in the sanctity of the swallow stems from the fact that they were sacred to the Penates, or house gods of the ancient Romans, who watched over the home and store
cupboard with some sources stating that they were thought to be the embodiment of these gods. The bird’s perpetual flight fuelled the perception of them as spiritual creatures,
especially during the Middle Ages, when the fact that they were never seen to land led many people to believe that they had no feet.

The birds are also important in Danish folklore, where they are known as the
svale
, the bird of consolation, a name given to them because they were said to have tried to comfort Jesus on the
Cross by hovering above him and singing ‘
svale, svale!
’, which translates as ‘cheer up, cheer up!’

In rural areas it’s seen as lucky if a swallow makes its home in your roof as it is thought to confer protection from fire and storm damage. This particular belief probably originates from
the observation that homes in which swallows nested were rarely harmed by the weather, as swallows seek out nesting spots that are naturally well protected from the elements. It is thought to be
even luckier if one flies in through your door, though you should be wary if it abandons its home in a hurry, since misfortune is likely to be on the way. Farmers across Europe take particular care
not to disturb swallows, believing that if they kill one the milk yield from their cows will suffer, or, if they disturb a nest, their harvest will be poor.

Milk was an important ingredient in the food of the Middle Ages, but because there was no refrigeration it didn’t stay fresh for long. People kept only as much as they
knew they would need, which naturally meant that it was seen as bad luck to let milk boil over and go to waste. The superstition has deeper roots than the need for frugality. There is evidence that
since prehistoric times, tribal communities have believed in sympathetic magic – the idea that like produces like, so a yellow fruit might cure jaundice, and that two things which were once
connected retain their connection, even after they have been physically separated.

These notions were first described by influential Scottish social anthropologist James Frazer in his book
The Golden Bough
, published in 1890, which compared mythology and religion across the
world. The idea of the interconnectedness of two things can be most easily explained with an example: anything done to the milk of
a cow, for instance, might be felt by the
animal itself. In societies where the health and productivity of livestock determined the health and indeed the survival of the people who kept them, every precaution against an animal being harmed
or falling ill was taken. Where the causes of death and disease weren’t understood, they were often blamed on people’s failure to adhere to the customs dictated by such superstitions.
In the Europe of the Middle Ages this might have influenced people’s anxiety about letting the milk boil over, while in many African tribes, including the Masai and Baganda of East Africa and
the majority of tribes in Sierra Leone, it meant not boiling milk at all in case it hurt the cow and stopped it from producing.