Perhaps the German name of the Virgin Mary’s Dove is merely a variant of the Swedish folk-legend concerning the lapwing. The tale goes that this bird was once one of Mary’s handmaidens, but lost place and honour because of her theft of a pair of scissors. The punishment was transformation into a bird with a forked scissor-tail, and to go out across the fjords and above all the meadows and pastures and keep crying incessantly _Tyvit-Tyvit-Tyvit_ (_i.e._, I stole them! I stole them!). I think, however, I have heard or read the same story in connection with the wagtail. In his interesting book on the _Manners and Customs of the Russian People_, Mr. Ralston has the following Slavonic plover-legend. When God had created the earth, and wished to supply it with seas and lakes and rivers, He ordered the birds to convey the waters to their appointed places. All obeyed except the lapwing, whose reason for this indolence and impiety was that it had no need of seas, lakes, or rivers, to slake its thirst. At that the Lord waxed wroth, and forbade it and its posterity ever to approach a sea or stream, and that it might quench its thirst only with that water which remains in hollows and among stones after rain. So from that time this sorrowful plover has never ceased its wailing cry of _Peet-peet!_ (_i.e._, Drink! Drink!). In another northern book (Thiel’s _Danish Traditions_, vol. ii.) there are two lapwing-legends not less homely than the Russian and the Swedish. When Christ, says one, was a bairn, He took a walk one day and came to an old crone who was busy baking. She said she would give Him a new cake for His trouble, if He would go and split her a little wood for the oven. Christ did as she wanted, and the old wife put aside a small bit of dough for the promised cake. When the batch was drawn from the oven, however, she saw to her surprise and chagrin that the wee bit cake was equally large with the rest. So again she broke off a small bit of dough; but again the same thing happened. Hereupon she broke out with, ‘That’s a vast oure-muckle cake for the likes o’ you; thee’s get thy cake anither time.’ At this injustice Christ was angered, so He said to the old crone, ‘I split your wood as you asked me, and you would not give me the little cake you promised. Now you in turn shall go and cleave wood, and that, too, as long as the world shall last!’ And with that Our Lord turned her into a _vipa_ (a weep). ‘So the weep fares betwixt heaven and earth as long as the world lasts; and fare where she will she says no other words than _Klyf ved! Klyf ved!_’ (_i.e._, Cleave wood! Cleave wood!).