The Naughty, Naughty Sparrow!

photo by ana traina

The sparrow has a mixed reputation depending on what area of the world you live. A small bird that is internationally recognized as a harbinger of good or bad luck, the sparrow is seen throughout literature and folklore as a sign of God's benevolence, an omen of death and a catcher of lost souls. Known for their small, 5- to 6-inch-long size, sparrows were introduced to North America in the 1850s, where they have continued to become a part of both the urban and rural American landscape.

Considered bad luck in many European cultures, a sparrow flying into the home is said to be a sign of impending death. A variation of this superstition claims that the person who catches the sparrow in the home must kill it, or else he will be the one to die. In Kent, England, if a sparrow is caught, it is believed that the catcher must kill it or his parents will soon die..

In contrast, Indonesian superstitions claim that the sparrow brings good luck. If a sparrow enters a home, Indonesians believe that a wedding will occur, and if a woman spies a sparrow on Valentine's Day, she will find happiness by marrying a poor man. If a sparrow enters a home and builds a nest, it will bring good luck. The call of a sparrow is a harbinger of rain.

Sparrows, according to ancient Egyptians, caught the soul of a person recently deceased. Many sailors would tattoo the image of a sparrow on their bodies with the hope that the sparrow would catch their soul, carrying it to heaven if they died while at sea.

To dream of sparrows, denotes that you will be surrounded with love and comfort, and this will cause you to listen with kindly interest to tales of woe, and your benevolence will gain you popularity.

To see them distressed or wounded, foretells sadness.

Photo by ana traina

Lots of Bits of Odds and Ends:

.       Sparrows are mentioned in the bible with the first mention in Psalm 102:7, "I watch and am like a sparrow alone on the house top".

• Sparrows used to be eaten as an aphrodisiac because of their habit of mating in public. The herbalist Nicholas Culpeper wrote, "the brain of sparrows when eaten provokes the lust exceedingly".

• Roman poet Catullus (84-54BC), wrote two poems about the pet sparrow of his lover Lesbia, while Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow".

• Sparrows have not been popular in art, but one features in Madonna Del Passero (Our Lady of the Sparrow) by the Italian painter Guercino (1591- 1666).

• A sparrow was killed by bowler Jehangir Khan in 1936. It was stuffed and can still be seen at the Memorial Gallery at Lord's cricket ground.

• A sparrow took a lit cigarette into its nest in the roof of a thatched cottage in Saxmundham, Suffolk in 1960 and the house caught fire.

• A chirping cock sparrow was shot in 1979 at St Helen's Church, Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, because it disturbed a concert recital.

• A sparrow ruined an attempt to break a world record attempt to collapse 4 million dominos. It flew in to one and 23,000 then fell over. TV company Endemol had it shot.

• Sparrows that have colonised airports and warehouses are said to have discovered how to open doors by intercepting electronic beams.

• Legendary French singer Edith Piaf was named by her manager after the little chirping house sparrow - Piaf is French for sparrow!

photo by ana traina

A Tarte Recipe to provoke courage/lust in a man or Woman.

Take a quart of good wine, and boyle therein two Burre rootes scraped cleane, two good Quinces, and a Potato roote well pared, and an ounce of Dates, and when all these are boyled verie tender, let them be drawne through a strainer wine and all, and then put in the yolks of eight Egs, and the braines of three or four cocke Sparrowes, and straine them into the other, and a little Rosewater, and seeth them all with Sugar, Sinamen and Ginger, and cloves and Mace, and put in a little Sweet Butter, and set it upon a chafing dish of coales betweene two platters and so let it boyle till it be something big.

[From : “A good huswifes handmaide for the kitchin Containing manie principall pointes of cookerie …”; 1594]

A wingnote-- Sparrows had been associated with the planet Venus since very ancient times, and their brains were popular ingredients in remedies to improve the generative powers.