Cuckoo in Folk-Lore (11 xii. 182, 230, 250, 287, 350).—Formerly the Japanese believed that to hear the first song of the cuckoo while in an outhouse was calamitous, whereas it was lucky when heard in a plantation of Colocasia antiquorum: therefore every noble family made it a usage to keep in the outhouse this vegetable, planted in a pot (Onos, 'Kazan Zôdan,' 1741, tom. iv.). The cuckoo in question is Cuculus polycephalus, not the British species, C. canorus, which latter also occurs in Japan, but has no significant folk-lore attached to it.
In Abbott's 'Macedonian Folk-Lore,' 1903, pp. 290-91, we are told:—
"There lived once two brothers, who were very jealous of each other and were constantly quarrelling. They had a mother who was wont to say to them: 'Do not wrangle, my boys, do not wrangle and quarrel, or Heaven will be wroth against you and you shall be parted.'
"But the youths would not listen to their parent's wise counsels, and at last Heaven waxed wroth and carried off one of them. Then the other wept bitterly, and in his grief and remorse prayed to God to give him wings, that he might fly in quest of his brother. God in His mercy heard the prayer and transformed the penitent youth into a gyon.
"The peasants interpret the bird's mournful note gyon! gyon! as Anton! Anton! or Gion! Gion! (Albanian form of John—the departed brother's name—and maintain that it lets fall three drops of blood from its beak every time it calls. Whether the alleged bleeding is a reminiscence of Philomela's tongue cut off by Tereus, it is impossible to say with certainty.
"Bernhard Schmidt compares the name of the bird ((
Greek characters), or (Greek characters)) with the Albanian form ((Greek characters) or (Greek characters)), and refers to Hahn's 'Tales' for an Albanian parallel, in which the gyon and the cuckoo are described as brother and sister."
Of the same pattern are the subjoined Japanese folk-tales:—
"This story has been handed down among the inhabitants of Nanao, prov. Noto. The cuckoo was transformed from a blind man who had killed his younger brother. The latter used daily to dig a yam-root and give the former its best part to eat. One day the blind man, who was naturally very suspicious, thus thought within himself, 'Surely what my brother himself eats must be peerlessly delicious, even the refuse that he gives me daily being so palatable.' So he killed him, ripped his stomach, but found only real wastes therein. He went mad from excessive remorse, and was turned into a cuckoo. Henceforth at the beginning of every summer, when the yam sets about to sprout, it calls its dead brother very dolefully: 'Ototo koishi, imo hotte kuwaso. Ototo koishi, hotte nite kuwaso,' which means, 'Come, brother, I shall dig and feed you with yam-roots. Come, brother, I shall dig and boil for you yam -roots.'"—Fuji Gyôja, 'Hokuroku Zakkyô,' xvii. in the Oosaka Mainichi Shimbun, July 23, 1908.
"In the district of Iwade this tale is popularly told. Of two brothers, the younger made it his custom to provide the elder daily with the choice middles of yam-roots, contenting himself with their savourless ends. The elder, notwithstanding, was incessant in plying him with the allegation that he reserved for himself the nicer parts. This made the younger unremittingly weep, and eventually turned him into a cuckoo. Even after the metamorphosis, the bird would not abate its endeavour to clarify itself by its cries, 'Gan kû, gan kû' ('I eat the ends only, I eat the ends only'). But, to prove its innocence completely, it has daily to utter such cries altogether forty thousand and eight times. Should its single cry be mocked during the process, all its preceding cries would lose their power; then the bird must recommence its racking cries, which force it to expectorate blood. Hence he is considered a very sinful man who imitates the cuckoo's cry. Its occasional utterances, 'Gih, giah' [cf. "Gyon! Gyon!" of the Macedonian folk-lore quoted above], are said to be caused by its retching, manifesting its readiness to show what poor food it has taken to any sceptic."—Takagi, 'Nihon Densetsu Shû,' 1013, p. 260.
Tanabe, Kii, Japan.
Quotations on Death (11 S. xii. 161, 231).—The 1913 edition of 'Cassell's Book of Quotations,' in a note on p. 638, says "Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa" "occurs in Seneca's 'Œdipus,' l. 126; but the passage Bacon seems to have had in mind is 'Stultitia est timore mortis mori' (Ep. 69)." At p. 856 the above-mentioned edition recognizes only as an Italian proverb the sentiment "Pejor est bello timor ipse belli," which is from Seneca's 'Thyestis,' l. 572 (see King's 'Classical and Foreign Quotations,' 1904, No. 2061).
'Anecdotes of Monkeys' (12 S. i. 166, 232).—I am very much obliged to Mr. Peet and to other of your correspondents who have kindly sent me cuttings from a second-hand bookseller's catalogue containing (presumably) the book I was in search of. I have thus been enabled to obtain the 'Apology addressed to the Travellers' Club; or, Anecdotes of Monkeys,' published by John Murray in 1825. But, alas! it cannot be the book I am in search of, for though it contains numerous and humorous "anecdotes of monkeys," it does not comprise the two extremely pathetic ones of "sailor monkeys" that are in my mind—one of a monkey who threw itself overboard because it had lost its mate, and the other who similarly committed suicide because it had been punished or neglected by the captain and sailors for some breach of discipline.
