Some Folk-Lore and Legends of Birds

Canon J. W. Horsley

Description

This charming volume aimed at children explores the folklore that surrounds some of the more common birds, including the sparrow, owl, and magpie. Profusely-illustrated and written in simple, plain language, "Some Folk-Lore and Legends of Birds" is ideal for children with an interest in birds and nature, and it would make for a worthy addition to any family collection. Contents include: "Robin Redbreast", "Nightingale", "The Wren", "The Swallow", "The Sparrow", "The Cross-bill", "The Magpie", "The Raven", "The Woodpecker", "The Kingfisher", "The Hoopoe", "The Cuckoo", "The Owl", "The Golden Plover", "The Peewit", "The Wood-pigeon", etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality addition complete with the original text and artwork.

Sujets

• Social Science
• Juvenile Nonfiction
• Mythology
• Folklore

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 29 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473344105
• Langue: English

Extrait

SOME FOLK-LORE
AND
LEGENDS OF BIRDS
WRITTEN MAINLY FOR CHILDREN
BY
CANON J. W. HORSLEY
VICAR OF DETLING, NEAR MAIDSTONE
T HE R AVEN .
[ p . 34
Contents
FOREWORD
SOME FOLK-LORE AND LEGENDS OF BIRDS
FOREWORD
O NE of God s good gifts to man is the power of imagination, which is as much a treasure as is memory, or reason, or foresight. Memory recalls to us that which has been, reason helps us to understand what is real in the present, and foresight enables us to guess what may happen in the future. Imagination, however, deals rather with what may be or might have been than with actual facts. History tells us what men did: a novel is a work of imagination, telling us what men might do or say in certain circumstances. By one power of our mind we understand something about the visible world, of which alone our five senses can teach us; by another, imagination, we can create an unseen world and bring before the ears and eyes of our mind what the ears and eyes of our body cannot see or hear. The power of imagination is, as far as we can tell, not given to our lesser brethren, the animals and birds and other still lower fellow-creatures. A dog can see a man or a tree as well as we can; but cannot in winter imagine what it will look like when clothed with leaves in spring or bright with fruit in autumn. They live in the present and for the present, and have little power, if any, of living, as we often do, in the past or in the future by special powers of our mind.
So there never has been found any race of men, however savage or uncivilized, however their idea or way of life seems confined to the needs of the body, which has not some imagination of the real existence of beings whom they cannot see, of states of life after death of which they have no personal experience. They believe in some great Spirit unseen but living and having something to do with themselves: they have some vision, not connected with their bodily eyes, of how they may live in spite of death seeming to end their life; and they generally people even the world in which they live with unseen beings, good and evil spirits, who are their friends or foes. Generally, the lower races of man have thought more of Power than of Goodness when dwelling on the relation a Great Spirit, or lesser spirits controlled by Him, bore to men. The idea of the Great Spirit as an All-Father and of His agents as kindly angels, is a sort of second and better thought to races of men who have yet much to learn before they rise much above the level of the savage.
There is a remarkable passage in Bishop Wordsworth s introduction to the Gospel according to St. Luke (which Gospel has amongst other names, those of the Gospel for the Gentiles and the Gospel of Angels), which bears on this point. It says: Christianity proclaimed to the Greeks that there is but one God; and though there be many that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, yet to us there is but one God the Father. This declaration announced to them the forfeiture of what was most dear and fair in their eyes. The mountains and woods, the streams and fountains of their native land, were peopled by their imaginations with beautiful visions of unseen beings, who were worshipped by them as patrons of their cities, and as the benefactors and protectors of their country; and whose ideal forms, sculptured by the hands of the most accomplished masters of statuary, met their eyes in consecrated groves and magnificent temples in the sequestered glens of their hills and valleys, and in the streets and fortresses of their cities.
It must have required a severe effort of self-denial and self-sacrifice on the part of such a people as that of Greece, gifted with a lively fancy, a fervid imagination, and a retentive memory; and clinging with patriotic pride to all the local and historical traditions of their native land, to surrender at once their faith in the existence of those deities, which they had hitherto regarded with reverence, and which had been endeared to them by national and social recollections, and had seemed to impart a sanctity to the soil of Greece, and to the elements themselves, and had inspired those beautiful creations which the art of Greece had been enabled to produce.
It must therefore have been an unspeakable consolation to such a people as this, to learn from the preachers of the gospel that when Christianity demolished the fabric of the pagan Pantheon, and swept away all its ideal associations, it did not substitute a blank in the place of this fair imagery. It must have been a joyful thing for them to hear, that while there is but one God, yet around the Throne of that one God there are myriads of heavenly beings, far more pure and beautiful than any creation of man s art or device; and that these heavenly beings are messengers of God, and are sent by Him from heaven on embassies of love to man. This glorious truth is declared with special fulness and clearness by St. Luke, the Evangelist of Greece, both in his Gospel and in his Acts of Apostles; and doubtless such a revelation as this would commend those writings to the thankful acceptance of the heathen world.
But though imagination rises highest when it is the handmaid of Faith, and is concerned with the highest things, yet also it has its place and its work and its value in minor matters. Imagination, like every other power, is a gift, a gift to be used, and one for whose right use we are responsible. Wild imaginations, evil imaginations, there are, and for such as well as the evil, and even the idle, word we must give account: but the mental life from which imagination is banished is not what it might be. If an unfortunate child is, in the supposed interests of truth, not allowed to romance or to make-believe, to be told fairytales, or to read works of fiction, that child s mentality is maimed to a certain extent, its power of enjoying life, or even of acquiring full knowledge, is curtailed. It has been caused to suffer from what in the mind is like what colour-blindness is in the sight. All of which poetry is the chief exponent is to it an unknown land. Naturally, the child will imagine.