Who would think chickens would have so many superstitions and so much folklore attached to them? But then of course they would. Humans have been keeping chickens for centuries, valuing eggs, meat, feathers and the propensity of chickens to eat bugs and weed seeds.
Exactly how long has our relationship with the fair fowl existed? Wikipedia says that "Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia,[4] but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the domesticated chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BC.[5] Fowl had been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BC, with the "bird that gives birth every day" having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III." (from wikipedia)
According to some research there are over 19 billion chickens in the world today, surely enough to take over the world if they had a mind. Fortunately, chickens have long been said to have a tiny mind--think Chicken Little--and perhaps that is just as well for the rest of us. (The story of Chicken Little was originally called Henny Penny, interestingly enough.)
 |
| 1916 children's book illustration for Henny Penny. Artist unknown. |
Chickens were once regarded as sacred animals, and to mistreat them could bring disaster, as this story notes:
"Cicero wrote about the sacred-chicken-related folly of Publius Claudius Pulcher in 249 B.C. Seeking approval to launch a surprise naval strike he consulted the sacred chickens aboard his ships. The chickens refused to eat, an ill omen for the upcoming battle. Frustrated, he announced, “If they will not eat, let them drink,” and had the birds thrown overboard. His fleet suffered near annihilation during the battle of Drepanium. After returning home from the humiliating defeat, Pulcher was subsequently convicted or exiled and died soon after. Several other ominous portents of the sacred chickens came true, including the Manicus’s defeat by the Numantines in 137 BC and the death of Tiberius Gracchus." From the blog Superstition Saturday.
.
Even today in Key West, chickens are a protected species and it is against the law to kill them, although not illegal to eat them, which seems an odd conundrum.
 |
| A rooster roams free near a restaurant where we were eating during a trip to Key West in 2016. |
In West Virginia, chickens--roosters in particular--can be weather prognosticators. People say that if a rooster crows before midnight, his head will be wet by morning. If the rooster keeps crowing all day, there will be a hard rain within 12 hours.
Other Appalachian chicken sayings:
It's bad luck to set an even number of eggs.
Thunder will kill baby chicks that are just about to hatch.
To break a setting hen, tie a red ribbon around her neck, with a bow in front on her breast.
If hawks get in your chickens, place a flat rock in your fire grate. the hawks will leave.
If chickens pick their feathers after a rain, it will soon rain again.
A rooster crowing a daybreak will scare off evil spirits and ghosts.
It is unlucky to set a hen in August.
A hen that stands before you and flaps her wings is the sign that good news is on the way.
If you put iodine in the chicks drinking water they won't peck each other.
Thunder will cause a hen to stop laying.
Pennsylvania Dutch lore says that chickens squawking and fluttering about at night means that there will soon be a death in the famiyly. (I am most relieved to report that this is apparently not true of West Virginia chickens, as mine often carry on at night to the point that we go down to check on them, only to find them all looking at us like, "What?" No family deaths ensued after these ruckuses.)
An interesting belief from England says that if a hen lays an egg without a shell, she has been impregnated by the wind, and the egg is called a "wind egg." I have always heard that such eggs (they do happen sometimes, just the egg encased in a membrane with no shell) are laid by hens getting near the end of their laying years.
Some other chicken beliefs from around the world:
If you burn eggshells, the hens will not lay. Which is exactly opposite the practice of many West Virginians who bake the shells and feed them back to the chickens so that they will lay better and their shells will be hard.
In England, pieces of pancake are tossed to chickens and other poultry on Shrove Tuesday. If the rooster eats the pancakes without calling the hens, it's a sign of a poor harvest that year, but if he calls the hens, a good harvest can be expected.
In old Persia, people believed that setting a hen on a cloudy day will cause all her chicks to be black. But if you set her at dark, all the chicks will be pullets.
In France, a piece of iron is put into a setting hen's nest to protect her and her future chicks from lightning.
In Devonshire, England the following was a cure for snakebite: Kill a chicken and put the affected area immediately into the chicken's stomache cavity. Leave it there until the chicken's flash is cold. If the chicken's flesh turns dark, it was a sign that the flesh had absorbed the poison and the person would recover. If the chicken's flesh remained its natural color, it was bad luck for the victim, who probably would not survive the ordeal.
For more chicken history and lore, check out the following:
Smithsonian Magazine: How the Chicken Conquered the World.
Anomaly Info: Facts and Myths: Chickens.
The Cunning Wife: Magical Animls in European Folktales and Lore
Folklore Thursday: Origins of Breaking the Wishbone
Granny Sue's News and Reviews: The Golden Fruit
Granny Sue's News and Reviews: Chicken Riddles
And then there are chicken folktales! Here are ten from all over the world:
The Story of Chicken and Elephant: from South Sudan
Chicken at the Well: from Africa
Half-Chicken: from Mexico
The Miraculous Hen: from Russia
Mrs. Chory's Chickens: from America
The Hawk and the Hen: from the Philippines
The Hen and Her Chicks: from India
Black Snake and the Eggs: from Africa
The Little Red Hen: from England
The Farmer and the Jackal: from India
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
The Black Snake story reminded me that someone, perhaps Doug Elliot told of a snake swallowing the china egg used to encourage hens to use a nest. I believe he massaged the object out of the snake, so it didn't die.
ReplyDeleteHow does one "set a hen"? I always thought they chose their own times . . . ;-)
Mary, a hen does set her own time, but once you have one that wants to set, you just slide more eggs under her so she'll hatch more than one or two. Hens stop laying when they're setting.
ReplyDelete