Birds
The link of birds with the sky evoked the belief that they were in contact with divine beings living high up, or that they were even intermediaries between humans and gods, and that they knew secrets and wisdom, and could bring predictions and messages. The weather was often forecasted by their behaviour. Even more - the one who knew the language of birds could hear many secrets and indeed, advance in life with their help. Estonian lore often refers to birds as messengers. For example, according to records, a bird knocking on the window or the cuckooing of a cuckoo near the house was a death omen. Black birds such as ravens and crows bring bad messages, most often in regilaul songs they are related to war. However, these ideas do have a wider social and cultural background, for example, Celtic and Irish war goddesses were believed to appear in the shape of a raven or crow as these birds are scavengers and often gather on the battlefield. In another regilaul, a woman married to an evil man reproaches the birds that they did not warn her in time. In fairy tales about animals, birds usually signify wisdom and can deceive even a generally known-to-be smart animal such as the fox.
Estonians, being rural people, were very familiar with the lives and sounds of birds, but there was less knowledge of their migration, for which it was supposed some birds were in hibernation or transformation during winter.
Wild birds and their eggs were important in people’s diet but hunting them was organised by habits. Hunting too much or at a wrong time could be punished by the Forest Spirit as narrated by the lore. These are probably very ancient stories about the Forest Spirit appearing in a form of supernatural bird. On the other hand, the nesting places of birds were generally not disturbed in spring or summer as the forestry work period was in winter.
Bird’s eggs were attributed magic powers and were known as fertility symbols. The birth of a chick from a stone-like egg with a hard shell embodied one of the greatest miracles – the genesis of life out of an element to all appearances lifeless. In Estonia, as in many other countries, the painting of eggs is related to the spring feasts and awakening of nature and fertility. At Easter, girls brought painted eggs to the swing and offered them to boys. In Orthodox Setomaa, the eggs were rolled down slopes. This ritual was also known in other countries, in England for example.
The best-known magic spell in Estonia is for sending diseases to black birds: “Kiirmus, kaarmus, magpie, take a disease, crow, take a pain...”. The idea is based on the belief that the bad cannot be fully removed from the world, but it can be sent elsewhere. Considering that the scavengers clean the world of bacteria and infectious diseases, this figure contains a grain of truth.
The classification of birds
The wild birds are divided into groups, listed in the menu and published on separate subpages. Below, on the current page, there are folklore texts in which the main characters are birds of different types. Poultry is included in the other main topic, "Home".
The classification of birds, based on folklore, takes into account both the content and amount of texts.
Black birds: Corvidae – raven, crow, magpie, jackdaw, jay, nutcracker etc.
Water birds – geese, swans, ducks, barnacle geese, seagulls and others.
Crane and stork.
Songbirds – swallow, lark, nightingale, starling, blackbird and others. The term songbird is used in the popular sense here, because all Estonian passerines, including crows, are officially songbirds.
Cuckoo.
Wild Galliformes – grouses, partridge and common quail.
Raptors – eagles, hawks etc.
Other birds – woodpeckers, doves etc.
The texts featuring several birds
Just as they do in nature, several different types of birds can appear together in one folklore text – and such texts are gathered on this page. In particular, outwardly similar birds tend to appear together in folklore, for example, large waterfowl – geese, swans – together with storks, which are not waterfowl. In the same way, sometimes very different birds, such as a tall crane and a small partridge, come together in a tale; in another version of the same tale, the characters are the stork and the crane.
In several proverbs, birds are listed together with their association to the weathercast. Such proverbs usually indicate consecutive changes in nature during the birds' migration. The birds also can presage fate, depending on the time of their singing. The structure of these proverbs with several repetitions is similar to the parallelism of regilaul song where an idea is developed over the course of similar lines. Finnish folklorist Matti Kuusi (1956) considers this structure of repetitions to date back at least a thousand years, to Viking times.
The riddles usually reflect the overall structure and appearance of the object. Therefore, similar-looking birds might share the same riddles. In this case, what kind of bird was meant probably depended on the local tradition. Thus, in the wider context of Estonia, there may be several correct answers.
Taive Särg
The crane has long feet and he wants a rather small wife. He comes to the meadow to propose. "Hello!" he says to the partridge. "Could we get married? I came to propose to you."
The partridge looks at him from all sides and she finds him very big. "I am small, and I am used to the meadow. How am I going to walk in the marsh, for my feet are short."
The crane got upset that she talked like this and didn't accept his proposal. He went to the marsh and thought sadly: "I needed to get married! Whatever the wife would have been like. Fine, I won’t go to propose!"
The partridge on the meadow sees how the crane walks over the sods with his long legs. She is thinking: "I do need to get married, whatever the groom is like."
The crane sees that the partridge is coming closer. He looks over his left shoulder: "Aw, what kind of a wife would you be for me? Rolling like a potato, you can’t even get over a sod."
The partridge got upset and went back to the meadow.
The crane was thinking that it was fine, he may have any kind of wife. Let’s go to live in a more even place. "I will propose to her," he thinks. He comes to the meadow, and the partridge looks at him: "What kind of a husband would you be to me? You have long legs and you are shabbily dressed. You can’t be a fit man."
You see, one despises one, the other despises the other!
Kurg on pikkade jalgadega ja tahtis väiksemat sorti naist. Tuleb nurme peale nurmkanale kosja. "Tere, tere!" ütleb nurmkanale. "Kas võiksime paari minna? Ma tulin sulle kosja."
Nurmkana vaatab teda igast küljest ja näeb, et väga suur on. "Ma olen väikene, olen nurme peal harjunud, kuidas ma soos käima hakkan, lühikesed jalad."
Kurg sai pahaseks, et mispärast ta nii kõneleb ja kosje vastu ei võta. Läks sohu ja mõtles kurva meelega: "Vaja ju ära võtta! Saanud siis milline tahes, see naisekene. Olgu peale, ei võtagi!"
Nurmkana näeb nurme peal, kuidas ta astub üle mätaste oma pikkade jalgadega. Mõtleb: "On vaja mehele minna, olgu see kosilane milline tahes."
Kurg näeb, nurmkana tuleb, tuleb ligemale. Kurg vaatab üle pahema õla: "Võeh, mis naine sinust mulle küll saaks, – veereb nagu kartul, ei saa üle mätta."
Nurmkana vihastas ja läks minema nurme peale.
Kurg mõtleb, et olgu pealegi, saaks ikka mingisuguse naise. Läheksime tasasema koha peale elama. "Lähen võtan ära," mõtleb. Tuleb nurme peale.
Nurmkana vaatab: "Mis mees sinust mulle küll saaks: pikad jalad, närtsakad rõivad seljas. Ei saaks kabedat meest."
Vaat siis – üks põlgab ühte, teine teist!
A forester went to the wood with his two dogs called Musti and Krants. He walked and walked and at long last decided to have a rest under a fir tree. Then he heard hissing and whispering from the treetop and saw a snake there who begged him, “Dear man, help me down!”
The man replied, “I can’t take you down, you’ll bring me death.”
The snake said, “I am not a snake at all, but a man. A wicked witch cast a spell over me, turning me into a snake. If another human takes me down, I’ll become a man again. Help me and I’ll teach you all the birds’ tongues. But you must never tell anyone where you got the skill. If you tell, you’ll die right away.”
The forester put a pole by the trunk, the snake crawled down, turned into a man and disappeared in a blink.
The forester lay down under the fir tree again and heard Musti tell Krants, “Stay here and look after the master, I’ll go home, thieves are coming.” The man understood what the dogs were saying.
An old tree wheezed, “cro-cro-caaxt” and the man realised that the tree was asking the fir, “Come to my funeral, my days are over. There’s a pot of gold and silver under my roots and another where my top will fall.”
The fir replied “crawxt” and the man understood, “I can’t come, I have a guest visiting.” Then there was a loud “cro-cro-prantst” and the old tree fell down.
The man delved and dug under the roots, and yes indeed, he found a pot of gold and silver. Another pot of money came out of the spot where the treetop was lying. The forester took as much as he could carry and became a rich man.
He had been a bachelor so far, but then he married a lovely lass and they led a merry life. He did tell his wife where he got his riches from, but kept his mouth shut about who had led him to the treasure.
One day the man was looking out of the window and saw some sparrows pecking in the hemp. The mother-sparrow was at the top, and the nestlings down on the ground. The old bird twittered, “siu, siu, siu, siu”. And the man understood that she was saying, “You ninnies, come to the top, here you’ll find grain!” The man burst out laughing.
“What are you laughing about?” the wife demanded. The man replied, “It’s nothing.” But he had been chuckling by himself quite a few times when he had heard birds or beasts speak.
And the woman insisted, “Tell me what you were laughing about!” The man said, “I cannot say. If I tell, I’ll die.” But the wife didn’t let the matter rest and was persisting and press- ing, “Tell me, tell me.” The man said, “Do you really want me to die?” But the woman didn’t believe him.
The man readied himself to die, prepared a deathbed, covered it with a shroud, lay down and was about to tell his wife his secret.
That very moment, a rooster marched into the middle of the room and crowed, “kuk-kuk-kuu, kuk-kuk-kuu...” and flapped his wings.
The man understood that the rooster was saying, “Oh you fool, I can handle my thirty hens, you can’t manage your only wife. Give her a good thrashing!”
The man leapt up, grabbed the poker, struck his wife on the back and said, “Be off! Go milk the cows! I almost kicked the bucket because of you, you dull old hag!” From that time on, the wife was as meek as a lamb and they lived in harmony. They would still be living today if they hadn’t passed away.
Metsavaht läinud oma kahe peni – Musti ja Krantsiga – metsa. Kõndinud teine hea hulga aega metsa mööda ning heitnud ühe kuuse alla puhkama. Ülevalt kuuse otsast kuulnud mees visinat ja sosinat, vaadanud üles – üks uss üleval hakkas paluma: “Kulla mees, võta mind siit maha.”
Mees vastas: “Ma ei julge sind maha võtta, sa surmad mu ära.”
Siug vastu: “Ma ei ole uss, ma olen inimene. Üks kuri nõid on mind siia ussiks nõidunud. Kui keegi inimestest mind maha võtab, siis saan ma jälle inimeseks. Aita mind, ma õpetan sulle kõik linnukeeled selgeks. Aga sa ei tohi kellelegi ütelda, kust selle tarkuse said, ega sellest kellelegi isegi teada anda. Kui seda teed, siis sured ära.”
Mees ajanud siis ühe ridva kuuse najale üles, seda mööda tulnud siug maha ja saanud inimeseks. Kadunud silmapilk ära.
Metsavaht heitnud jälle kuuse alla pikali ja kuulnud, Musti ütleb Krantsile: „Jää sina siia peremeest valvama, mina lähen koju – vargad tulevad vargile.” Mees sai aru, mis koerad kõnelesid.
Nüüd teinud üks vana puu: „Kro-kro-kro-kääkst!” Mees mõistis, et puu palus kuuske: „Tule mu matusele, ma pean siit ilmast ära minema. Juure all on mul üks potitäis kulda ja hõbedat, ladva all on teine.”
Kuusk teinud vastu: „Kroookst!” Mees mõistis: „Ei või tulla, mul on külaline võõrusel.” Siis olnud veel üks „Kro-kro-kro-prantst!” – ja puu sadanudki maha.
Mees hakanud juurte all uuristama ja kaevama – tulnudki rahapott kulla ja hõbedaga välja. Kaevanud sealt, kuhu latv kukkus ja saanud teise potitäie raha. Vedanud koju nii palju kui jõudis ja oligi rikas mees valmis.
Metsavaht oli seni poissmees olnud. Nüüd võtnud ilusa nooriku ja nad elasid rõõmsalt. Ta seletanud naisele küll, kust oma rikkuse sai, aga seda ei ole ütelnud, kes juhatas.
Ükskord vaadanud mees aknast välja, näeb – varblased kanepis! Vana varblane ladvas, pojad all juurte juures. Vana varblane tegi: „Tsiu, tsiu, tsiu, tsiu!”’ Mees mõistis, et varblane ütles poegadele: „Ullikesed, tulge latva, siin on terad!” Mees naeris selle peale.
Naine hakkas nõudma: “Mis sa naerad?” Mees vabandama: “Ei midagi.” Aga mees oli varemgi mitu korda muhelenud, kui kuulnud, mis linnud või loomad kõnelesid.
Naine hakanud peale ajama, muudkui: „Ütle ära, mis sa naerad!” Mees küll vabandanud vastu: “Ei saa ütelda, ei saa seletada. Kui ära ütlen, siis ma suren.” – Aga kus nüüd naine rahule jätab, käib nagu luupainaja mehe peale, muudkui: “Ütle aga!” ja “Ütle aga!” Mees küsis: “Sa siis tahad, et ma suren?” Naine ei uskunud seda.
Nüüd tegi mees lautsi endale ilusasti valmis, laotas lina peale, heitis sinna selili ja mõtles hakata naisele oma saladust seletama – et siis kohe sinnasamasse ka sureb.
Just sel hetkel tuli kikas keset tare, tegi: „Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuu, kuk-kuk...” ja lõi tiibu kokku.
Mees saanud aru, et kikas ütleb: “Oi sa rumal mees! Mina saan oma kolmekümne kanaga hakkama, sina ei saa toime ühe naisega. Anna malka!”
Mees hüpanud üles, haaranud ahjuroobi, virutanud naisele mõne vopsu turja mööda ja ütelnud: “Kas saad lehmi lüpsma! Või sinu tühja pärast pean ma ära surema!” Sellest asjast peale olnud naine vagane kui lammas ja elanud rahulikult. Nad elavat nüüdki veel, kui ära ei ole surnud.