370
NOTES AND Ql)kRIE& [9- s. n. NOV. 5,
conception that the prime end of mediaeval
chronicle was to show up the Romish Church.
The other authors cited above do not commit
themselves either to statement of fact or
enunciation of theory on the occasion for
the aforesaid crows indulging in jinks so
high. Wplfius was equal to improving the
opportunity. The date he gives is different
from that of the others, whether, as already
suggested, because of his having got his
matter out of another quarry than theirs, or
because of some accidental error or designed
inaccuracy. The result, anyhow, was happy
from his peculiar and rather perverted point
of view ; it enabled him to connect the
prodigy with a baleful event of English
history to which its relation might not other-
wise have been particularly apparent. Ac-
cording to him the episode belonged to
1226, about the time wnen as, with some
uncertainty of detail, he mentions the
"Franciscan or Dominican friars" (he was
not sure which) passed out of Italy into
England. Historically it is true that the
first of the Franciscans landed at Dover
in 1224, although I think Wolfius enjoys
the sole credit of delicately suggesting so
admirable a reason for the storm, and for
such unwonted conduct of crows and other-
birds viz., a plain indication of celestial
displeasure over the coming of the friars.
" Aves sedes incendunt" is the MS. marginal
comment made by an early owner of my
copy of Wolfius's inexhaustible tomes.
If all tales be true, this outburst of 1190 or 1226 which, by the way, happened on the Continent was not the only one of the same sort, and a bird of analogous feather bore destruction in its beak to the metropolitan church of Scotland in 1378. It is noteworthy, of course, that Abbot Bower (ii. 391) gives a sufficiently direct, rational, and commonplace explanation of this burning of St. Andrew's cathedral church as due to a careless plumber (were plumbers ever anything else, until of late, when they became "sanitary engineers'"?) who, at work on the roof of the nave, upset his heated melting-pot over the nest of a iackdaw or a crow, set fire to it, and so kindled an inextinguishable flame that con- sumed the whole edifice. This account was found a century or so later too simple by far for Hector Boece's taste, and in his history a touch of art " Hectorean art " a panegyrist of his styled it at once removed the base and unimaginative realism of that inadver- tent plumber and his lead-pot. A plumber obviously was not a dignified enough medium to burn St. Andrew's, and Boece's rectified version ('Historic,' ed. 1574, fol. 329) was that
if it was not lightning that set fire to the
cathedral, it was il a jackdaw, as it is reported,
carrying a burning twig to its nest." Why
the Dird was moved to such an eccentricity
Hectorean art does not stoop to explain.
William Stewart, translating Boece into
Scottish verse (' Buik of the Croniclis,' line
55789), does full justice to this passage :
And sum man said, as i can trow that best,
With ane fyre brand ane ka buir till hir nest
That kirk was brynt alss far as tha had feill :
Gif that wos trew I can nocht tell yow weill.
Stewart's reserve and doubt on the matter
argue him a highly respectable man and
lover of the truth although a poet.
Now this form of the flambard bird inci- dent is, I confess, not perfectly on the same plane with the birds of Cirencester, although tolerably near. How often 'twixt legend and legend do we find the partition thin ! Saxo Grammaticus (ed. Stephanius, 1644, p. 12 ; Mr. Elton's translation, p. 30) tells of an expedient resorted to by King Hading when besieging the city of Duna. He gave order to his fowlers for the catching of different kinds of house birds of that place, and caused burning wicks to be fastened to their feathers. The oirds, seeking again the shelter of their nests, filled the town with fire. The attention of the townsmen was thus dis- tracted from the defence by the effort to put out the flames ; the gates were neglected, and the city fell. So again (p. 67; transl., p. 145), in recording the Dublin exploit of Fridlev, Saxo mentions that in the siege he "emulated the ingenuity of Hading," fastening fiery wicks to the wings of swallows, which, be- taking themselves to their own nests, set fire to the roofs, and thus, drawing away the defenders, enabled the besiegers to prevail. Legend much more than history tends to repeat itself time and again, and the very same thing is told by Snorre ('Heimskringla,' transl. Morris and Magnussori, iii. 64) in the saga of Harald Hardrada in connexion with the siege which that stout warrior undertook of a mickle town in Sicily :
" Then he sought this rede that his fowlers took small fowl which nested in the town, but flew into the woods by day to take their meat. Harald let bind, on the back of the fowl, shavings of fir tree and cast therein wax and brimstone and let set lire thereto. Flew the fowl so soon as they were loose all at once into the town to see to their nestlings and dwellings, which they had in the house thatches, which were thatched of reed or straw : thus caught the fire from the fowl on to the house thatches, and though each one bore but a little burden of fire, yet waxed thence speedily a mickle fire, since many fowls bare it wide about the town into the thatch ; and thereupon bui-nt one house after the other until th town was all a-low. Then all the folk came forth out of the town and prayed mercy."
