[430] In the annals of the city of Debreczen, in the year 1564, we read as follows: "Æterna et exitialis memoria de incendio trium ordinum in anno præsenti: feria secunda proxima ante fest. nat. Mariæ gloriosæ exorta est flamma et incendium periculosum in platea Burgondia; eadem similiter ebdomade exortum est incendium altera vice, de platea Csapo de domo inquilinari Stephani literati, multas domos ... in cinerem redegit, et quod majus inter cætera est, nobilissimi quoque templi divi Andreæ et turris tecturæ combustæ sunt, ex qua turri et ejus pinnaculo, gallus etiam æreus, a multis annis insomniter dies ac noctes jejuno stomacho stans et in omnes partes advigilans, flammam ignis sufferre non valens, invitus devolare, descendere et illam suam solitam stationem deserere coactus est, qui gallus tantæ cladis commiserescens ac nimio dolore obmutescens de pinnaculo desiliendio, collo confracto in terram coincidens et suæ vitæ propriæ quoque non parcens, fidele suum servitium invitus derelinquendo, misere expiravit et vitam suam finivit sic."
[431] Reinsberg von Düringsfeld observes (_Das festliche Jahr_), that sometimes, for jest, in North Walsham, instead of the cock an owl is put,--another funereal symbol with which we are already acquainted.
[432] Not only the egg of the hen is a symbol of abundance, but even the bones of fowls served in popular tradition to represent matrimonial faith and coition. In Russia, when two (probably husband and wife) eat a fowl together, they divide the bone of the neck, the English merrythought, between them; then each of them takes and keeps a part, promising to remember this rupture. When either of the two subsequently presents something to the other, the one who receives must immediately say, "I remember;" if not, the giver says to him, "Take and remember." The forgetful one loses the game. A similar game, called the verde or green, is played in Tuscany during Lent between lovers with a little twig of the box-tree.
[433] The sun is an egg at the beginning of day; he becomes, or finds, an apple-tree in the evening, in the western garden of the Hesperides.
THE DOVE, THE DUCK, THE GOOSE, AND THE SWAN.
White, red, and dark-coloured doves, ducks, geese, and swans.--The funereal dove; it is united with the owl; kapotas.--The doves flee from unhappy persons.--The dove and the hawk.--Two doves sacrifice themselves, one for the other; a form of the Açviṇâu.--The dove and the ant.--Transformation of the hero and heroine into doves.--The two prophetic doves upon the cross-trees of the mast.--Among funereal games, that of shooting arrows at a dove which hangs from the mast of a ship.--The doves of Dodona.--The dove and the water.--St Radegonda as a dove preserves sailors from shipwreck.--A dove guides the Argonauts.--The soul of Semiramis becomes a dove.--It is sacrilege to eat a dove.--Hero and heroine become doves, in order to escape.--The dove as the bringer of joy, of light, of good; it is a symbol of the winter that ends, and of the spring which is beginning.--The daughters of Anius become white doves.--Two doves separate the barley for the girl.--The fireworks, the stove, and the car of Indras, perform the same miracles, _i.e._, they make beautiful the girl with the ugly skin.--Zezolla benefited by the dove of the fairies.--The doves on the rosebush.--The nymph Peristera helps Aphroditê to pluck flowers.--The phallical dove.--The word _haṅsas_; the guç-lebedi of Russian tales.--Agnis as a haṅsas.--The Marutas as haṅsâs.--The horses of the two Açvinâu as haṅsâs.--The duck makes its nest upon the thief's head.--Bṛibus on the thieves' head; Bṛibus as Indras, and as a bird.--Brahman upon the haṅsâs.--The sun as a golden duck.--The betrothed wife as a duck.--The arrows of Râmas as haṅsâs.--Kabandhas drawn by haṅsâs.--The haṅsâs as love messengers.--The geese-swans and the young hero in Russian tales.--The serpent-witch and the princess as a white duck.--The golden and silver eggs of the duck.--The golden egg of the duck causes the death of the horse.--The geese of the Capitol.--The goose which, after having been cooked, rises again alive.--Geese as discoverers of deceits.--The Valkiries as swans.--Berta the Reine pédauque.--The wild goose on the bush.--The goose eaten on St Michael's Day.--The hero and the swan.--The kingdom of the San Graal.--The legend of Lohengrin; a variety of the myth of the Açvinâu; Lohengrin and Elsa's brother, the sun and the moon.--The legend of the Dioskuroi; Zeus as a swan; the Dioskuroi deliver Helen, as Lohengrin delivers Elsa.