DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.638#0137
DEMONS AND GIANTS AND FAIRIES 75
She calls a cow, she hews down wood,
The man who lingers says, "Who calleth?"
O Aranyani will not harm
If one will not invade her dwelling,
When, having eaten luscious fruit,
At her sweet will she turns to slumber.
The singing birds are all singing spirits in India as
in Europe. The "language of birds " is the language of
spirits. When Siegfried, after eating of the dragon's
heart, understood the " language of birds", he heard
them warning him regarding his enemies. Our seafarers
whistle when they invoke the spirit of the wind. Sir
Walter Scott drew attention, in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border, to the belief that the speech of spirits was a kind
of whistling. As we have seen, the wives of Danavas
had voices like Cranes; Homer's ghosts twittered like
bats; Egyptian ghosts were hooting owls. In India the
croaking raven is still a bird of evil omen, as it is also in
the West. In the Scottish Highlands the spirits of the
dead sometimes appear as birds; so do fairies. The Irish
gods and the Celestial Rishis of India take the form of
swans, like the " swan maidens", when they visit man-
kind. In the Assyrian legend of lshtar the souls of the
dead in Hades "are like birds covered with feathers".
Numerous instances could be quoted to illustrate the
widespread association of birds with the spirit world.
She calls a cow, she hews down wood,
The man who lingers says, "Who calleth?"
O Aranyani will not harm
If one will not invade her dwelling,
When, having eaten luscious fruit,
At her sweet will she turns to slumber.
The singing birds are all singing spirits in India as
in Europe. The "language of birds " is the language of
spirits. When Siegfried, after eating of the dragon's
heart, understood the " language of birds", he heard
them warning him regarding his enemies. Our seafarers
whistle when they invoke the spirit of the wind. Sir
Walter Scott drew attention, in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border, to the belief that the speech of spirits was a kind
of whistling. As we have seen, the wives of Danavas
had voices like Cranes; Homer's ghosts twittered like
bats; Egyptian ghosts were hooting owls. In India the
croaking raven is still a bird of evil omen, as it is also in
the West. In the Scottish Highlands the spirits of the
dead sometimes appear as birds; so do fairies. The Irish
gods and the Celestial Rishis of India take the form of
swans, like the " swan maidens", when they visit man-
kind. In the Assyrian legend of lshtar the souls of the
dead in Hades "are like birds covered with feathers".
Numerous instances could be quoted to illustrate the
widespread association of birds with the spirit world.