Folk-Lore of West and Mid-WalesDavies, Jonathan Ceredig
History
Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales
Davies, Jonathan Ceredig
Folklore -- Wales; Wales -- Social life and customs
When you hear the cuckoo for the first time in the season it is very
important to have money in your pocket in order to secure good luck
for the coming year. People turn the money in their pockets with
their hands, and sometimes toss a piece into the air. It is also
considered very lucky to hear this bird for the first time when you
are standing on green grass; but if you are on the road or on bare
ground, it is otherwise.
I have met people who do not like to hear the cuckoo for the first time
before they get up from bed in the morning. To see the bird coming to
the door is also regarded as an evil omen by some. A woman in North
Cardiganshire informed me that a cuckoo came to the door before her
father died. The cuckoo is supposed to be accompanied by the wryneck
known in Welsh as Gwas-y-Gwcw.
If we are to believe an old legend, the cuckoo in former times used
to begin to sing at Nevern, in Pembrokeshire, on the 7th of April,
patron day of that parish; and George Owen of Henllys, who lived in
the time of Queen Elizabeth, says, "I might well here omit an old
report as yet fresh, of this odious bird, that in the old world the
parish priest of the Church would not begin mass until this bird,
called the citizen's ambassador, had first appeared and began her
note, on a stone called St. Byrnach's Stone, being curiously wrought
with sundry sorts of knots, standing upright in the Church-yard of
the parish, and one year staying very long, and the priest and the
people expecting her accustomed coming (for I account this bird of
the feminine gender) came at last, lighting on the said stone, her
accustomed preaching place, and being scarce able once to sound the
note, presently fell dead."
According to another old legend, this stone upon which the cuckoo
began her note, was at first intended by St. David for Llanddewi
Brefi, but St. Brynach prevailed upon him to leave it at Nevern. The
Rev. J. T. Evans, Rector of Stow, gives this legend in "The Church
Plate of Pembrokeshire."
THE SWALLOW--Y WENNOL.
Many superstitions which cluster round the Swallow, have descended to
us from remote antiquity; and among the Romans this bird was sacred to
the household gods and the family. In Wales, it was formerly believed
that the swallow, like the cuckoo, slept through the winter. This
bird is also supposed to bring good fortune to the house upon which
it builds its nest. If, however, the bird forsakes its old nest on a
house, it is considered a sign of ill-luck. It is also most unlucky
to break a swallow's nest.
"Y neb a doro nyth y wenol
Ni wel fwyniant yn dragwyddol."
(Whoever breaks a swallow's nest,
Never, never shall be blest.)
ROBIN REDBREAST.
"Cursed is the man who kills a Robin," and ill-luck follows those
who take the eggs of this little bird.
The following Carmarthenshire story about the robin appeared in Bye
Gones, vol. 1. p. 173:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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