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Science and Folk-Lore in The Owl and The Nightingale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Henry Barrett Hinckley
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Extract

A salient point of interest in The Owl and the Nightingale is the amount of knowledge, expressed or implied in the poem, concerning animal life which is correct and possibly due to direct personal observation. Master Nicholas of Guildford, whom, here as elsewhere, I assume to be the author, was not writing a scientific treatise, and is at no particular pains to avoid the acceptance of popular delusion. For example, from a literary point of view, the long account of how the hooting of the owl portends disaster is one of the most effective passages in the whole poem. Such scientific interest as the poem possesses is a byproduct of his purpose to enter into bird-life and set it before the reader. Indeed, had he purposed to write a scientific treatise it is quite conceivable that he would have busied himself collecting misinformation, whether from books or from word of mouth, and would have thought his own personal observations of too little moment to be worth recording. And we should have been tempted to regard him as a man of almost no observation at all, very much as the reader is apt to regard Alexander Neckam, or would regard Neckam but for that writer's remarks about the magnetic needle. Art is older than science, and was highly developed when science was still in its infancy. Master Nicholas, our poet, writing as an artist, was sometimes contented to tell us what he had himself seen and heard. Whether he was or was not a man of uncommon observation cannot, perhaps, be determined. What is incontestably true is that in an age when writers of natural history were blind leaders of the blind, he did some justice to such powers of observation as he possessed.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 1932, pp. 303 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 This does not, of course, mean to imply that Master Nicholas is to be in any sense identified with either the Owl or the Nightingale.

2 Owl, 773–788.

3 See note 88, on p. 312.

4 The American Screech-Owl is a totally different species, but our American White-Owl or Barn-Owl is probably the same species as Strix flammea L. Some naturalists hold that there is more than one species of Strix flammea.

5 Owl, 577–578.

6 Owl, 317–318.

7 See the article Owl in Encycl. Brit., Eleventh Edition, by Alfred Newton, and cf. Love's Labor Lost 5.2.905–906.

8 Owl, 74.

9 Owl, 607–608. Cf. Tennyson's The Owl:

Alone and warming his five wits
The white owl in the belfry sits.

Tennyson's second song The Owl is addressed to another species.

10 Owl, 1145–1164, 1189–1206.

11 Owl, 562.

12 Owl, 85–88.

13 Owl, 412, 481–484, 523–528, 533–540.

14 Owl, 615–624.

15 Owl, 237–252, 367–390.

16 In like manner I have heard one remark: “X is like the Mississippi River; his mouth is bigger than his head!”

17 Owl, 303–308. Pliny (10.3) mentions a certain type of eagle as inbellis et degener, ut quant verberet corvus.

18 Aristotle, Historia Animalium, 2.3. Enemies are .

19 Cf. Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 10.17: Noctuarum contra aves sollers dimicatio. maiore circumdatae multitudine resupinae pedibus repugnant, collectaeque in artum rostro et unguibus totae teguntur. auxiliatur accipiter collegio quodam naturae bellumque partitur. Albertus Magnus xxiii, Char. 239: si de die apparuerit [noctua] ab alijs avibus deplumatur: sed illa resupinata dorso rostro et unguibus se defendit quam propter similitudinem generis juvat accipiter si prope fuerit.

20 Owl, 1673–1688.

21 Recently there has been a tendency to emphasize the distinction rather than the resemblance, and recognize the owls as the superior group. See Newton, Dictionary of Birds, under Owl.

22 Owl, 323–330.

23 Naturalis Historia 10.21: Proxime gloriam sentiunt et hi nostri vigiles nocturni, quos excitandis in opera mortalibus rumpendoque somno natura genuit. norunt sidera, et ternas distinguunt horas interdiu cantu, cum sole eunt cubitum, quartaque castrensi vigilia ad curas laboremque revocant, nec solis ortum incautis patiuntur obrepere, diemque venientem nuntiant cantu, ipsum vero cantum plausu laterum.

24 Owl, 640–646.

25 Marie, No. 79.

26 Owl, 101–104.

27 Fabulae Aesopicae, ed. Halm, No. 198. Cf. Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 10.9: Coccyx videtur ex accipitre fieri … est autem neque aduncis unguibus solus accipitrum, sed capite similis illis neque alio quam colore, habitu columbi potius. Aristotle says (Historia Animalium 6.7.1): … etc.

28 Owl, 69–70.

29 Marie, No. 65.

30 Swainson, Provincial Names and Folk Lore of British Birds, p. 126.

31 Antiquitatum Iudaicarum, ed. Niese, 18.67. The story is told by Swainson.

32 Der Deutsche Aberglaube der Gegenwart, §274.

33 Owl, 1155, 1203. Pliny, 10.13, tells of an unnamed bird that sets fire to houses by carrying coals from altars; but this is a different matter.

34 Owl, 1157, 1199.

35 Wuttke, op. cit. §165. Cf. also Rolland, Faune Populaire de la France, ii, p. 43. 36 Wuttke, op. cit. §274.

Et uncta turpis ova ranae sanguine,
Plumamque nocturnae strigis.
Epodes, 5.19–20:

38 Mariana Monteiro, Legends and Popular Tales of the Basque People (London, Unwin, 1887), p. 28.

39 See Encycl. Brit., 11th Ed., under Nightingale. Besides his excellent articles on birds of various species in this Encyclopedia the reader may profitably consult Mr. Newton's admirable Dictionary of Birds.

40 Owl 585 ff.

41 Owl, 599–602.

42 Owl, 577–578.

43 Owl, 451–466.

44 Owl, 447.

45 Pliny Naturalis Historia 10.29: mox aestu aucto in totum alia vox fit, nec modulata aut varia. mutatur et color. Cf. Owl, 501–504.

46 Albertus Magnus xxiii. Char. 240: De hac ave [phylomena] plinius falsum dicit quod posteaquam coierit deponat vocem & mutet colorem: quod nos sepe vidimus earn canentem dum adhuc sederet in ovis.

47 Owl, 1470.

48 Historia Animalium 4.7.7: .

49 Leoprechting, Aus dem Lechrain. Zur Deutschen Sitten- und Sagenkunde, p. 79.

50 Pliny, Naturalis Historia 10.29: Lusciniis diebus ac noctibus continuis xv garrulus sine intermissu cantus densante se frondium germine.

51 Owl, 433–449.

52 Owl, 443–449.

53 See PMLA, xliv, pp. 357–360.

54 Owl, 711–742.

55 See Dümmler, Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, i, 274–275, No. lxi, a poem of 28 elegiac pentameter verses, of which I will give a few specimens:

Quid mirum, cherubim, seraphim si voce tonantem
Perpetua laudent, dum tua sic potuit?
Felix o nimium, dominum nocteque dieque
Qui studio tali semper in ore canit …
Hoc natura dedit, naturae et conditor almus,
Quem tu laudasti vocibus assiduis:
Ut nos instrueres vino somnoque sepultos,
Somnigeram mentis rumpere segniciem.

Dümmler compares Aeneid 2.265 somnoque vinoque sepultam with vino somnoque sepultos above. Atkins calls attention to this poem.

56 Owl, 256, 655.

57 Martial, Epigrams, 7.87, 14.75.

58 Cicero Ad Atticum, 12.9: . Evidently quoted from an older writer.

59 Owl, 1720–1722.

60 Owl, 1725–1726.

61 Luzel, Archives des Missions Scientifiques et Littéraires, 3e série, tome Ier, 1873, p. 24. Cited by Rolland, Faune Populaire, ii, pp. 298–299.

62 Owl, 1727–1734.

63 Aristotle, Historia Animalium 9.15.5.

64 Ibid., 8.3.5.

65 2.806 E.

66 Naturalis Historia, 10.74: Dissident … cornices atque noctua, aquilae et trochilus, si credimus quoniam rex apellatur avium, noctuae et ceterae minores aves.

67 Naturalis Historia, 8.25: parva avis, quae trochilos ibi [i.e., in Aegypto] vocatur, rex avium in Italia.

68 Wossidlo, Mecklenbürgische Volksüberlieferungen ii, 366. Rolland, Faune Populaire, ii, p. 293.

69 Dr. Johnson makes a reference to the story in Boswell. Speaking of Colley Cibber, he remarked: “I remember the following couplet in allusion to the King and himself:

'Perch'd on the eagle's soaring wing,
The lowly linnet loves to sing.'

Sir, he had heard something of the fabulous tale of the wren sitting upon the eagle's wing, and he had applied it to the linnet.“

70 See Swainson, op. cit. p. 3.

71 Owl, 1659.

72 See Skeat, Etymological Dictionary under wittol.

73 Owl, 1659.

74 Sounded.

75 Child's Ballads, i, p. 326.

76 Ibid., Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, 2.

77 See Swainson, p. 100.

78 Owl, 503–504.

79 Quoted by Atkins in locum.

80 Owl, 505–506.

81 Encycl. Brit. under Sparrow.

82 Owl, 1130.

83 Owl, 303–308.

84 Cf. Marie, No. 80, vv. 1–10. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 10.3, mentions an eagle which is inbellis et degener ut quam verberet corvus. Cf. also Pindar, Olympian 2.86–88 and the note in Sandys's edition of Pindar in the Loeb Library.

85 For the Falcon see Owl, 101, ff.; for the Cock see Owl, 1679–1680.

86 Owl, 1325–1328.

87 Owl, 773–788.

88 Cf. Owl, 783–784, with Twelfth Century Homilies (E.E.T.S.) p. 90 ll. 14–15: þurh þ gescead áne we beoÐ sæliзre þonne þa unscedwise nytene; and with Werner, Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sinnsprüche des Mittelalters a 123: Astu vincit homo, cuncta creata solo.

89 Cf. PMLA, xliv, pp. 340–341.

90 Owl, 945–950.

91 Ancren Riwle, ed. Morton, p. 118, ll. 7–3 from the bottom.

92 Ancren Riwle, ed. Morton, p. 120, ll. 3–4.

93 Tusc. Disp., 1.9.19.

94 , ed. Herscher, Leipsic, Teubner, vv. 297–298:

95 Cf. Owl, 686, 808.

96 Owl, 203–204:

& leof him were nihtegale,
& oþer wihte gente and smale.

97 See Mâle, L'art réligieux au treizième siècle en France, pp. 41–81.