The one bit of folklore about birds we all know in this country is why "the wran, the warn" is the king of all birds. But it is a fascinating trail to follow all the stories that collect around other birds. The barn owl, for example. It's there, all right, but you might be lucky to see one half-a-dozen times in your life - a huge, white, silent presence passing over you or crossing your path home at face level - always at dusk or in complete darkness. A new book tells us that witches were believed to depend greatly upon all owls, for no charm or potion would be effective without a bit of owl in its ingredients.
You'll remember the witches in Macbeth with their incantation and recipe: Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting/Lizard's leg and owlet's wing. And, of course, Double, double, toil and trouble etc. You'll remember it from your schooldays. And there used to be a custom in most parts of Europe of nailing an owl or part of one to a barn door, to avert the evil eye.
Swallows, well thought of in general, were also used medically. A broth of crushed swallow might cure epilepsy and stammering. The robin seems to be favoured almost everywhere. "There was a widespread belief that to harm a robin could bring all sorts of bad consequences on the evil-doer, sicknesses of one kind and another." These examples are from a new book by Francesca Greenoak. You possibly know her excellent Penguin All the Birds of the Air, which also delves into folklore and sayings and anecdotes. Now she has published British Birds; their Folklore, Names and Literature. Back to the robin for a minute: the author tells us that the first postmen in Britain wore bright vermilion waistcoats and were known as robins: and this, she says, is one of the reasons why robins appear so often on Christmas cards, and were even shown with a letter in beak for delivery. The robin on our current stamps bears no letter.
The most outlandish of all beliefs about birds concerns the woodcock. It used to be thought (and this belief lasted well into the 18th century), that the months of absence from these islands were spent on the moon! Migration to the moon - two months to travel there and two months on the way back. Whether he believed it or not Alexander Pope wrote a couplet: A bird of passage gone as soon as found/ Now in the moon, perhaps, now underground. Published by Christopher Helm, about £15 sterling.