Mythmaking

It's a rare occurrence for me to look onto my garden and not see at least one magpie. Like other members of the Corvidae family, the magpie appears frequently in folklore and is surrounded by much superstition. Groups of magpies have long been used to foretell the future, albeit rather broadly. One variation of the ubiquitous rhyme states:

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.

And another:

One for sorrow, two for mirth,
Three for a wedding, four for a birth,
Five for silver, six for gold,
Seven for a secret not to be told.

There are a variety of ways to counteract the misfortune brought by the 'one for sorrow'. Talking to magpies is one of my family traditions; one of those traditions that you believe everyone practices until you're in company and announce, upon spotting a solitary magpie, "Good morning (or afternoon, or evening) Mr Magpie! How are you and all your sons?", only to be met with puzzled gazes and accusations of lunacy. In fact, saluting the lone magpie in order to avoid the bad luck it supposedly causes is a widespread belief with many variations:

• address the Magpie with a respectful greeting such as 'Good morning/evening sir.'
• make a cross in the air
• cross your thumbs and say: 'I cross the magpie, the magpie crosses me, bad luck to the magpie, and good luck to me.'
• remove your hat and bow politely
• remove your hat, spit in the direction of the magpie and say: 'Devil, devil, I defy thee.' or repeat 'I defy thee' seven times
• pinch the person you are walking with or, if alone, pinch yourself
• spit over your shoulder and say: 'Clean birds by sevens, unclean by twos, the dove in the heavens, is the one I choose.'
• look round for a crow, as the sight of it neutralises the bad luck of the magpie
• ask: 'Hello Mr Magpie! How is your wife/where is your wife?' or 'Hello Mr Magpie! How are all your little ones?'

There are also many superstitions specific to what the bird is doing at the time it is seen:

• a single magpie seen flying around a house denotes bad luck
• to see a magpie perched atop a house means you should rearrange a journey
• a single magpie seen on the way to church indicates that death is present
• a magpie on a windowsill warns of an immediate death
• if a flock of magpies suddenly abandon a nesting area, hard times are ahead
• a single magpie denotes foul weather (presumably arising from the fact that pairs of magpies only forage together when the weather is fine)
• a chattering magpie denotes the arrival of a stranger

There seems to be an east-west divide in the nature of the magpies' luck. The east regard it as a good omen: in China, the magpie is a symbol of happiness and its song foretells prosperity; in Korea, it delivers good news and in Mongolia, it's a clever creature that controls the weather.

As is common with many prevalent modern superstitions, the most popular explanation for the dislike of the magpie is connected to Christianity, as C.A. Swainson explains in The Folklore and Provincial Names of British Birds:

"When the Blessed Saviour was hanging in agony upon the Cross, two birds perched upon it. One was a magpie, which at that time had the gayest plumage of all the feathered race. A tuft adorned her head, and her tail rivalled the peacock's in brilliancy. But alas her beauty was only equalled by her wickedness, and the evil creature insulted the Redeemer while suffering His last agony.

The other was a tiny bird of dusky hue, who timidly approached the Cross, uttering plaintive chirps of sorrow: with her wings she wiped away the tears that flowed from the Saviour's eyes, while with her beak she plucked out the thorns which pierced His brow. A drop of blood fell from His forehead on her breast and tinged with scarlet its dull brown feathers.

'Blessed be thou,' said the Lord to her, 'thou sharer in my sufferings. Wherever thou goest happiness and joy shall follow thee; blue as the heaven shall be thy eggs and from henceforth thou shalt be the Bird of God, the bearer of good tidings. But thou,' and He addressed the magpie, 'thou art cursed. No longer shall the brilliant tuft and bright feathers, of which thou art so proud and at the same time so unworthy, adorn thee; thy colour shall be sad and sombre, thy life a hard one; ever, too, shall thy nest be open to the storm.'"

And indeed, on closer inspection the magpies' distinctive black and white plumage reveals a sheen of blue across its wings and emerald green down the length of its tail. Another explanation for its black and white colouring states that the magpie is the offspring of the raven and the dove, conceived when Noah sent the birds out from the Ark at the end of the great flood (which puts a rather different slant on the dove's purity!).


In Scottish folklore, as noted by Walter Gregor in Superstitions in the North East of Scotland, the magpie was named the devil's bird and was known for carrying a drop of the devil's blood under its tongue. It was believed that the magpie could receive the gift of speech if its tongue was scratched and a drop of blood from a human tongue inserted into the wound.

The historic disapproval of the magpie has been maintained fairly steadily to the present day, not helped by the common misconception that it is solely responsible for the decline of the song bird in Britain, most notably the thrush. Whilst it is true that they will feed on the eggs and young of other birds, these form far too small a percentage of the magpies' diet to have made any lasting impact on the thrush population. Detailed census work carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology over the last twenty years has found that there has been no major decline in the populations of small birds that can be attributed to magpies. Instead, the BTO believe that the decrease in numbers is due to habitat changes, severe weathers and predation by domestic cats, squirrels or rats.

Labels: folklore, magpies, superstition