Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton

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(ii. 2), makes Hamlet say, “I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw;” handsaw being a corruption of “heronshaw,” or “hernsew,” which is still used, in the provincial dialects, for a heron. In Suffolk and Norfolk it is pronounced “harnsa,” from which to “handsaw” is but a single step.245 Shakespeare here alludes to a proverbial saying, “He knows not a hawk from a handsaw.”246 Mr. J. C. Heath247 explains the passage thus: “The expression obviously refers to the sport of hawking. Most birds, especially one of heavy flight like the heron, when roused by the falconer or his dog, would fly down or with the wind, in order to escape. When the wind is from the north the heron flies towards the south, and the spectator may be dazzled by the sun, and be unable to distinguish the hawk from the heron. On the other hand, when the wind is southerly the heron flies towards the north, and it and the pursuing hawk are clearly seen by the sportsman, who then has his back to the sun, and without difficulty knows the hawk from the hernsew.”

      Jay. From its gay and gaudy plumage this bird has been used for a loose woman, as “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 3): “we’ll teach him to know turtles from jays,” i. e., to distinguish honest women from loose ones. Again, in “Cymbeline” (iii. 4), Imogen says:

      “Some jay of Italy,

      Whose mother was her painting,248 hath betray’d him.”

Kestrel. A hawk of a base, unserviceable breed,249 and therefore used by Spenser, in his “Fairy Queen” (II. iii. 4), to signify base:

      “Ne thought of honour ever did assay

      His baser breast, but in his kestrell kynd

      A pleasant veine of glory he did fynd.”

      By some250 it is derived from “coystril,” a knave or peasant, from being the hawk formerly used by persons of inferior rank. Thus, in “Twelfth Night” (i. 3), we find “coystrill,” and in “Pericles” (iv. 6) “coystrel.” The name kestrel, says Singer,251 for an inferior kind of hawk, was evidently a corruption of the French quercelle or quercerelle, and originally had no connection with coystril, though in later times they may have been confounded. Holinshed252 classes coisterels with lackeys and women, the unwarlike attendants on an army. The term was also given as a nickname to the emissaries employed by the kings of England in their French wars. Dyce253 also considers kestrel distinct from coistrel.

      Kingfisher. It was a common belief in days gone by that during the days the halcyon or kingfisher was engaged in hatching her eggs, the sea remained so calm that the sailor might venture upon it without incurring risk of storm or tempest; hence this period was called by Pliny and Aristotle “the halcyon days,” to which allusion is made in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 2):

      “Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days.”

      Dryden also refers to this notion:

      “Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be,

      As halcyons brooding on a winter’s sea.”

      Another superstition connected with this bird occurs in “King Lear” (ii. 2), where the Earl of Kent says:

      “turn their halcyon beaks

      With every gale and vary of their masters;”

      the prevalent idea being that a dead kingfisher, suspended from a cord, would always turn its beak in that direction from whence the wind blew. Marlowe, in his “Jew of Malta” (i. 1), says:

      “But now how stands the wind?

      Into what corner peers my halcyon’s bill?”

      Occasionally one may still see this bird hung up in cottages, a remnant, no doubt, of this old superstition.254

      Kite. This bird was considered by the ancients to be unlucky. In “Julius Cæsar” (v. 1) Cassius says:

      “ravens, crows, and kites,

      Fly o’er our heads, and downward look on us.”

      In “Cymbeline” (i. 2), too, Imogen says,

      “I chose an eagle,

      And did avoid a puttock,”

      puttock, here, being a synonym sometimes applied to the kite.255 Formerly the kite became a term of reproach from its ignoble habits. Thus, in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 13), Antony exclaims, “you kite!” and King Lear (i. 4) says to Goneril, “Detested kite! thou liest.” Its intractable disposition is alluded to in “Taming of the Shrew,” by Petruchio (iv. 1). A curious peculiarity of this bird is noticed in “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 3), where Autolycus says: “My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen” – meaning that his practice was to steal sheets; leaving the smaller linen to be carried away by the kites, who will occasionally carry it off to line their nests.256 Mr. Dyce257 quotes the following remarks of Mr. Peck on this passage: “Autolycus here gives us to understand that he is a thief of the first class. This he explains by an allusion to an odd vulgar notion. The common people, many of them, think that if any one can find a kite’s nest when she hath young, before they are fledged, and sew up their back doors, so as they cannot mute, the mother-kite, in compassion to their distress, will steal lesser linen, as caps, cravats, ruffles, or any other such small matters as she can best fly with, from off the hedges where they are hanged to dry after washing, and carry them to her nest, and there leave them, if possible to move the pity of the first comer, to cut the thread and ease them of their misery.”

      Lapwing. Several interesting allusions are made by Shakespeare to this eccentric bird. It was a common notion that the young lapwings ran out of the shell with part of it sticking on their heads, in such haste were they to be hatched. Horatio (“Hamlet,” v. 2) says of Osric: “This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.”

      It was, therefore, regarded as the symbol of a forward fellow. Webster,258 in the “White Devil” (1857, p. 13), says:

      “forward lapwing!

      He flies with the shell on’s head.”

      The lapwing, like the partridge, is also said to draw pursuers from her nest by fluttering along the ground in an opposite direction or by crying in other places. Thus, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 2), Shakespeare says:

      “Far from her nest the lapwing cries away.”

      Again, in “Measure for Measure” (i. 4), Lucio exclaims:

      “though ’tis my familiar sin,

      With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,

      Tongue far from heart.”

      Once more, in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1), we read:

      “For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs,

      Close by the ground, to hear our conference.”

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