Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/150

 128 across his path. He drew up his horse, paused a moment, and turned homewards, resolving to defer his journey till the next day. That day, however, the bank failed, and it only remained for the gentleman to congratulate himself on his prudent attention to the magpie’s warning. From another Yorkshire lady I have received the following verse, which she informs me she used to repeat as a child on seeing this bird, making at the same time the sign of the cross:

It is prudent also to look out at once for a crow, as the sight of that bird disperses the ill-luck which the magpie may have brought.

Now, all this is very curious when viewed in connection with ancient pagan mythology. Auguries drawn from the flight and action of birds formed a part of its complex system, from the days when Themistocles was assured of victory at Artemisium by the crowing of a cock, or Romulus claimed to be King of Rome from the appearance of vultures. The Greeks made a science of these auguries and their interpretation, and called it Ornithomancy. Is it not marvellous to find traces of such direct heathenism among even the upper classes of a country Christianised so many ages back? Eleven hundred years ago, efforts were made by doctors of the Church to root them out, but here they are still. We find Alcuin, who was born at York about A.D. 735, the friend of Charlemagne, and one of the glories of Anglo-Saxon times, writing thus to a bishop, evidently a Saxon one: “Prognostics also, and cries of birds, and sneezings, are altogether to be shunned, because they are of no force except to those who believe in them, so that it may happen unto them according to their faith. For it is permitted to the evil spirit, for the deceiving of persons who observe these things, to cause that in some degree prognostics should often foretell the truth.” In another place Alcuin defines augurs as “those who pay attention to prognostics, and to the flight and voice of birds.”