Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton

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he that knows will like a lapwing fly,

      Farre from the nest, and so himself belie.”

      Through thus alluring intruders from its nest, the lapwing became a symbol of insincerity; and hence originated the proverb, “The lapwing cries tongue from heart,” or, “The lapwing cries most, farthest from her nest.”259

      Lark. Shakespeare has bequeathed to us many exquisite passages referring to the lark, full of the most sublime pathos and lofty conceptions. Most readers are doubtless acquainted with that superb song in “Cymbeline” (ii. 3), where this sweet songster is represented as singing “at heaven’s gate;” and again, as the bird of dawn, it is described in “Venus and Adonis,” thus:

      “Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,

      From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,

      And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast

      The sun ariseth in his majesty.”260

      In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2, song) we have a graphic touch of pastoral life:

      “When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

      And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks.”

      The words of Portia, too, in “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), to sing “as sweetly as the lark,” have long ago passed into a proverb.

      It was formerly a current saying that the lark and toad changed eyes, to which Juliet refers in “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 5):

      “Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes;”

      Warburton says this popular fancy originated in the toad having very fine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones. This tradition was formerly expressed in a rustic rhyme:

      “to heav’n I’d fly,

      But that the toad beguil’d me of mine eye.”

      In “Henry VIII.” (iii. 2) the Earl of Surrey, in denouncing Wolsey, alludes to a curious method of capturing larks, which was effected by small mirrors and red cloth. These, scaring the birds, made them crouch, while the fowler drew his nets over them:

      “let his grace go forward,

      And dare us with his cap, like larks.”

      In this case the cap was the scarlet hat of the cardinal, which it was intended to use as a piece of red cloth. The same idea occurs in Skelton’s “Why Come Ye not to Court?” a satire on Wolsey:

      “The red hat with his lure

      Bringeth all things under cure.”

      The words “tirra-lirra” (“Winter’s Tale,” iv. 3) are a fanciful combination of sounds,261 meant to imitate the lark’s note; borrowed, says Nares, from the French tire-lire. Browne, “British Pastorals” (bk. i. song 4), makes it “teery-leery.” In one of the Coventry pageants there is the following old song sung by the shepherds at the birth of Christ, which contains the expression:

      “As I out rode this endenes night,

      Of three joli sheppards I sawe a syght,

      And all aboute there fold a stare shone bright,

      They sang terli terlow,

      So mereli the sheppards their pipes can blow.”

      In Scotland262 and the north of England the peasantry say that if one is desirous of knowing what the lark says, he must lie down on his back in the field and listen, and he will then hear it say:

      “Up in the lift go we,

      Tehee, tehee, tehee, tehee!

      There’s not a shoemaker on the earth

      Can make a shoe to me, to me!

      Why so, why so, why so?

      Because my heel is as long as my toe.”

       Magpie. It was formerly known as magot-pie, probably from the French magot, a monkey, because the bird chatters and plays droll tricks like a monkey. It has generally been regarded with superstitious awe as a mysterious bird,263 and is thus alluded to in “Macbeth” (iii. 4):

      “Augurs and understood relations, have

      By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth

      The secret’st man of blood.”

      And again, in “3 Henry VI.” (v. 6), it is said:

      “chattering pies in dismal discords sung.”

      There are numerous rhymes264 relating to the magpie, of which we subjoin, as a specimen, one prevalent in the north of England:

      “One is sorrow, two mirth,

      Three a wedding, four a birth,

      Five heaven, six hell,

      Seven the de’il’s ain sell.”

      In Devonshire, in order to avert the ill-luck from seeing a magpie, the peasant spits over his right shoulder three times, and in Yorkshire various charms are in use. One is to raise the hat as a salutation, and then to sign the cross on the breast; and another consists in making the same sign by crossing the thumbs. It is a common notion in Scotland that magpies flying near the windows of a house portend a speedy death to one of its inmates. The superstitions associated with the magpie are not confined to this country, for in Sweden265 it is considered the witch’s bird, belonging to the evil one and the other powers of night. In Denmark, when a magpie perches on a house it is regarded as a sign that strangers are coming.

      Martin. The martin, or martlet, which is called in “Macbeth” (i. 6) the “guest of summer,” as being a migratory bird, has been from the earliest times treated with superstitious respect – it being considered unlucky to molest or in any way injure its nest. Thus, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 9), the Prince of Arragon says:

      “the martlet

      Builds in the weather, on the outward wall,

      Even in the force and road of casualty.”

      Forster266 says that the circumstance of this bird’s nest being built so close to the habitations of man indicates that it has long enjoyed freedom from molestation. There is a popular rhyme still current in the north of England:

      “The martin and the swallow

      Are God Almighty’s bow and arrow.”

       Nightingale. The popular error that the nightingale sings with its breast impaled upon a thorn is noticed by Shakespeare, who makes Lucrece say:

      “And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part

      To keep thy sharp woes waking.”

      In the “Passionate Pilgrim” (xxi.) there is an allusion:

      “Everything did banish moan,

      Save the nightingale alone.

      She,

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