subject: Keep Away From Half A Dozen Crows! [print this page] People that like the outdoors cannot help come across the odd folklore linked with flora and fauna and particularly the Corvids or Crow family. A friend of mine cannot rest assured unless he says Good Morning Mr Magpie to the very first magpie he spots every day and I have noticed a number of instances when land owners will frequently hang dead magpies (in fact other creatures also for instance moles) in a line along a fence. Curious I started a thread on a rambling blog and discovered that it is done for a pair of reasons.
Firstly, it is hoped that this should keep other magpies (or moles) away and as well it was a way of gamekeepers showing their competencies at pest control and hence claim their charge. In fact one commenter on the blog site explained that he had seen birds of prey hung this way in the past, because they were, obviously, hunted as vermin as they were considered to be threats to the game bird population that, of course, the gamekeeper is trying to defend. By way of additional exploration I uncovered the following.
The best way to avert bad luck when you pass by a magpie is to doff your hat. It was the only bird not to go onto the Ark, deciding to remain on its own outside. It is furthermore held in awe as it is one of the very few wild creatures which is coloured black and white - a blend of Satan's colour and the sacred or holy colour of white. In England, magpies are additionally numbered, 'One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy, five for sorrow, six for gold, seven is a secret never to be told, eight is a wish, nine is a kiss and ten is the bird you must not miss.
If that is the magpie, how about other Corvids. Certainly be on the lookout for six crows - One's bad, Two's luck, Three's health, Four's wealth, Five's sickness, Six is death. The jackdaw, alternatively, is a combo of good and bad; 1 of them perching on a house is a signal of tragedy, but if a whole group does so then both an addition to the family members and an increase in its financial success are on their way.
A Raven is an ill-omened bird, able to foretell the future, specifically death. If the Ravens in the Tower of London were to be killed or fly off then the Royal Family would die and The british isles would fall to an enemy. For the American Indian the raven is 'the foreteller of death' and has a really developed sense of smell which can smell the smell of rotting flesh from some distance. The ominous nature of this bird is described in Edgar Allan Poe's poem 'The Raven'. To kill a raven is to injure the spirit of King Arthur who comes to the world in the guise of a raven.
Finally the superstitions concerning rooks is, should a group of them abandon an area where they have been living then a person linked with that land is about to die. They are an omen of the summer weather to come: should they be high up it will be wonderful, but low down and it will probably be cold and damp.
