# Gifts from Birds. Where do babies come from?



## Sasyexa (May 27, 2021)

The association between birds and kids comes up quite often in folklore. I found an article which explores this exact connection. Here's the translation with some context:

Once, one unreasonable Soviet leader climbed onto the UN podium and angrily began to threaten the United States of America from there, promising to show them Kuzma's mother. The translators precipitated; "Pentagon hawks" sternly scowled, believing that this term hides some kind of new super-secret Russian miracle weapon; the referents rushed to the explanatory dictionaries, frantically trying to find out who is "Kuzma's mother"?


> *Kuzma's mother* or *Kuzka's mother* (Russian: Кузькина мать _Kuz'kina mat_; _Kuz'ka_ is a diminutive of the given name _Kuzma_) is a part of the Russian idiomatic expression "to show Kuzka's mother to someone" (Russian: Показать кузькину мать (кому-либо) _Pokazat' kuz'kinu mat' (komu-libo)_), an expression of an unspecified threat or punishment, such as "to teach someone a lesson" or "to punish someone in a brutal way". It entered the history of the foreign relations of the Soviet Union as part of the image of Nikita Khrushchev, along with the shoe-banging incident and the phrase "We will bury you".
> 
> In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev mentions various "interesting and peculiar situations", including an occasion of him using this expression while mentioning that it was not the first time it confused the translators. The footnote in this volume to this item says that the 1999 Russian edition gave a mistaken "scientific etymology" of the expression derived from the folk name _Kuzka the bug_ of the pest insect _Anisoplia austriaca_, which overwinters deep under the soil, so it is hard to uncover it. According to the editors, this was guesswork on the part of an annotator who was suffering from an illness.
> 
> ...


The Russian people, unlike the Americans, not only won't look for an answer to this question, but they will not even ask such a question - we, they say, already understand what it is about! Maybe we understand, but we cannot explain it. Now, you, who are reading these lines right now, can you explain what the notorious Kuzka and his mother are famous for? Are they living beings or inanimate objects? Are they in the room where you are sitting right now or in order to get them you have to go to the distant lands? Well, and, finally, why is Kuzka's mother so terrible, if even her simple demonstration can cause Armageddon in America ???

This way our people (he used one of the common idioms with the name Makar here) (by the way, who is Makar and is he somehow connected to the famous shepherd?) understand all of this naturally, but cannot explain a bunch of similar idioms. Such things, understandable to everyone, the original meaning of which was lost in ancient times, are called archetypes.

Today we will talk about one such archetype and its origin. If you take a picture depicting a stork carrying a ripe baby in its beak, go out into the street, stop ten thousand people and ask them to explain the meaning of this picture to us, then all ten thousand people, without hesitation, will automatically say the popular answer to children's question "Where do children come from?" - a stork brings them. It is this hypothetical stork that is presented in our image, which usually means an addition to someone's family.

In principle, we can safely call a picture with a stork and a baby a pictogram. That is, an image in which the semantic content does not correspond to the visual range and the decoding of which requires an abstract approach. Any hieroglyphic writing works according to this principle - from ancient Egyptian to modern Chinese.





Where the stork flies, we know, but from where?​However, on the statement of the fact that the stork is carrying a newborn to someone's house, the decoding of this symbol will end. Already to the question “Where is the stork carrying the baby from?" the answer will most likely not follow. A stork with a baby has become so commonplace for us, so "blurred" our eyes that we, perfectly imagining where the baby-carrying bird is flying, do not even think that its flight has a starting point somewhere. Where are the babies that are delivered by storks to happy parents stored?! And why, by the way, are storks used for this, and not ostriches, for example?

Any archetype is formed not over the years or even over the centuries, but over millennia. Our stork with a baby is no exception. This idiom is rooted in the Slavic-pagan ideas about the world around us. There, in the beliefs of distant ancestors, in their worldview, in their views on nature and their place in it, one must look for a decoding of the symbolism of a stork carrying a newborn child.

And you will have to start with the structure of the Slavic-pagan Universe. Our ancestors saw it as having three levels: the Upper World (Prav') - the world of the gods; The Middle World (Yav') is our world, and, finally, the Lower World (Nav') is the world of demonic forces. Moreover, our World, the smallest and most primitive, according to this scheme, is only a point of contact between the Upper and Lower Worlds; the field of their incessant battle that rotates the Universe.



> *Prav* (Правь), *Yav* (Явь) and *Nav* (Навь) are the three dimensions or qualities of the cosmos as described in the first chapter of the Book of Light and in the _Book of Veles_ (probably a fabrication from the 19-20 century (you heard 'em, boys - stop reading right now)) of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery). Older sources mention only Nav and Yav concepts of ancient slavic cosmology, similar to Yin and Yang in Taoism, and Prav was not part of the concept. The literal meanings of the Prav, Yav, and Nav words, are, respectively, *"Right"*, *"actuality"* and *"probability"*. They are also symbolised as a unity by the god Triglav (the "Three-Headed One"). Already Ebbo (c. 775 – 20 March 851, who was archbishop of Reims) documented that the Triglav was seen as embodying the connection and mediation between *Heaven*, *Earth* and the *underworld* / *humanity*; these three dimensions were also respectively associated to the colours white, green and black as documented by Karel Jaromír Erben.



Two "inhuman" Worlds - Upper and Lower - are many times larger than the world of people and are divided into "floors". Such "floors" of the Upper World are called heavens. There are seven of them. Let's recall the popular expression "In seventh heaven"(same in Russian and English). It describes the stay in the highest - the seventh Slavic-pagan - sky, where the residence of the supreme god of the Slavic pantheon Svarog, the light Svarga, is located. A marvelous garden of Iriy, a Slavic pagan paradise, grows around it. It is very simple to determine that we are no longer on earth, but in Svarga: in Iriy the grass is light-blue - therefore the sky is also light-blue. And from here comes another idiom - "light-blue distances", describing the attractive, but hardly-realizable perspectives that have opened before someone.



> Svarog (Old East Slavic: Сваро́гъ; Russian: Сварог) is a Slavic god with unclear functions, but most often interpreted as a sky god or a god of fire and smithing. He appears in only one source, which is problematic because of the unclear circumstances of its origin. His name can mean "wrangler" or be related to "heaven". Father of Svarožic, Dažbog.





> Iriy, Vyraj (Belarusian: Вырай, Polish: Wyraj), Vyriy (Russian: Вырий, Ирий, Ирей, Ukrainian: Вирій, Ірій, Ирій), or Irij (Croatian, Czech, Slovak: Ráj, Raj, Irij, Serbian: Ириј, Ukrainian: Ирій, Ірій) is a mythical place in Slavic mythology where "birds fly for the winter and souls go after death" that is sometimes identified with paradise. Spring is believed to have arrived on Earth from Vyraj.
> 
> Initially, the Early Slavs believed in only one Vyraj, connected to the deity known as Rod—it was apparently located far away beyond the sea, at the end of the Milky Way. It was often imagined as a garden beyond an iron gate that barred the living from entering, located in the crown of the cosmic tree. Whereas the branches were said to be nested by the birds, who were usually identified as human souls. According to folkloristic fables, the gates of Vyraj were guarded by Veles, who sometimes took the animal form of a raróg, grasping in its claws the keys to the otherworlds.
> 
> The pagan Slavic peoples thought the birds flying away to Vyraj for the winter and returning to Earth for the spring to be human souls. According to some folk tales, the human soul departs the Earth for Vyraj during the cremation of its deceased flesh on a pyre; however, it does not stay in paradise forever, returning some time later to the womb of a pregnant woman (traces of reincarnation can be seen in this belief)—carried by a stork or nightjar.



Iriy is the place of residence not only of the gods, but also of human souls. There are two categories of such in Svarga. The first is the souls of deceased ancestors who have earned the bliss of being in the abode of the gods with a righteous life in our World; the second is the souls of children who are yet to be born.

This place is accessible not only to disembodied souls, but also to quite tangible creatures: migratory birds fly to Iriy for the winter. It is them that Svarog attracts to the transportation of souls for newborns to earth. When a person is born on earth, Svarog opens a window in the sky. Through it, he releases a bird that bears an infant's soul. Through it, he will observe this person all his life, recording his actions, both good and bad. From the ground, these windows are visible like stars. Therefore, there are as many stars in the sky as there are people on earth. This idea will pass from paganism to Christianity without cuts and will be fixed in it by the postulate: “The sky is the tower of God, and the stars are the windows through which the angels are watching us” (V. Dal “Proverbs and Sayings of the Russian People”).

The mechanism for delivering newborns to the ground does not have any selectivity, and if people won't pay attention, then the same birds can grab a child's soul on their way back - a separate work of Russian folklore, the fairy tale "Geese-Swans", is devoted to this sad phenomenon. That is why we still consider a bird that has flown into the house as an extremely bad omen - according to pagan beliefs, it flew in to take someone's soul.


> Once there was a couple who had both a daughter and a son. They left their daughter in charge of her younger brother, but one day she lost track of him and the magic swan geese snatched him away. The daughter chased after him and came upon an oven that offered to tell her if she ate its rye buns; she scorned them, saying she doesn't even eat wheat buns. She also scorned similar offers from an apple tree, and a river of milk. She came across a little hut built on a hen's foot, in which she found Baba Yaga with her brother; Baba Yaga sent her to spin flax and left. A mouse scurried out and said it would tell her what she needed to know if she gave it porridge; she did, and it told her that Baba Yaga was heating the bath house to steam her, then she would cook her. The mouse took over her spinning, and the girl took her brother and fled.
> 
> Baba Yaga sent the swan geese after her. She begged the river for aid, and it insisted she drink some of it first; she did, and it sheltered her. When she ran on, the swan geese followed again, and the same happened with the apple tree and the oven. Then she reached home safely.
> 
> ...



Since we remembered the epic geese-swans, we will have to admit at the same time that the stork from our pictogram usurped their place. As we found out, not only storks, but in general any migratory birds can carry baby souls to earth. And the primacy in this matter, nevertheless, should belong to the geese-swans, since swans are the personal birds of Svarog.

But back to our baby stork - what have we found out? It turns out that it flies from the seventh heaven, from the pagan paradise of Iriy, where the souls of unborn children live, and any migratory bird could be in its place. What a beautiful mythologeme; what a lovely fairy tale... A fairy tale, you say? What did Alexander Pushkin (a freemason) say about fairy tales? - "A fairy tale is a lie, but there's a hint in it"... Alexander Sergeevich was wrong! There is not one word of lies in fairy tales; they are the truth of the highest standard! So let's make sure of this on the example of how migratory birds were associated with the process of procreation.

I'll have to start from afar - get ready for a long introduction...

In a series of Slavic pagan holidays, Yarila's day, timed to coincide with the summer solstice, occupied a special place. We know him better as Kupalo or even Ivan Kupala and Agrafena Kupalnitsa.

The last name is nothing more than a clumsy attempt to powder a purely pagan celebration with Christian dates - the day of remembrance of the Holy Martyr Agrippina of the Romans and the birth of John the Baptist. Although, we must pay tribute, many tried to prove the primacy of Christian celebrations, and not only persons of clergy, but also quite secular scientists. So the great Russian folklorist-philologist Hermann-Voldemar Propp (funny name - don't you think?!) deduced the name Kupalo from the fact that John the Baptist baptized Christ by dipping him in water, that is, he bathed him. Hence, the ingenious conclusion: купал/kupal (bathed) - Kupalo.

I will refrain from racial hints that the Hermanns, Voldemars and other Propps would be more agile in studying their native, German folklore, which also has a lot of interesting things, and leave Russian fairy tales to someone more mentally adapted for them (me, for example) - let's go right away to the point. The name Kupalo does not come from the verb “to bathe”, but from the noun “kupa, kupavna”. This is a complex, multi-level term. Its most down-to-earth meaning is a fire, an indispensable attribute of Yarila's day. At the second level of perception, this is passion, symbolized by this fire; passion, as a rule, is understood as love (also an attribute of the described holiday), and therefore do not be surprised if you meet the same root in the name of the Greek god of love Cupid. Well, and finally, this is what we call white light, that is, the divine light that fills our Universe and gives life - the visible aspect of the yari (яри), which will be discussed in the paragraph below.

There was nothing Christian about the celebration of Yarila's day! Rather, even the opposite! It was an orgyistic (I'm not linking that), emphatically sexualized holiday, alien to all Christian ideas about virtue: “Whenever a holiday comes, on that holy night, the cities and the villages they will be excited, tambourines and snuffling and buzzing strings, splashing and dancing; wives' and girls' heads will nod, they will screech, sing all bad songs, their backbone will wobble, and their feet will gallop and stomp; man and a boy will endure a great fall, masculine, feminine and maiden whispering, their lustful view, defilement of wives, corruption of virgins”(abbot Pamphilus, 16th century).

Now, through the efforts of the playwright Ostrovsky, who created a fundamentally wrong image in the play "Snow Maiden", mass consciousness mistakenly considers Yarila to be the god of the Sun. In fact, Yarila was the god of yari - the productive forces of nature; the patron saint of fertility, carnal love and aggressive male sexuality (the same root words are яркий(bright), яростный(furious), яровой(crops which were planted in spring)).

He was portrayed accordingly. The main character on Kupala was the straw effigy of Yarila - a gigantic, richly decorated, anthropomorphic male figure, as Frezer slipperily put it in its address, “like Priapus”. This similarity was in the hypertrophied depicted sexual characteristics with an erect penis. The straw Yarila was dragged around the village all day and worshiped as a shrine (at the end, however, they were torn to pieces and drowned). Under the influence of Christianity, the ritual figure will first reduce the size of the genitals, then level them completely, and then take away the name, replacing the original Yarila with the vague Kupalo.



> In Greek mythology, Priapus (/praɪˈeɪpəs/; Ancient Greek: Πρῐ́ᾱπος, Príāpos) is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism. He became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature, and is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the Priapeia.



By the way, *Yarila* and *virile* sound kind of similar




Scarecrow Yarila in a modern interpretation​However, the matter was not limited to the rituals of worshiping the stuffed Priap-like Yarila - after sunset, the practical part of the celebrations began, so to speak. First followed by ritual cleansing with all the elements. It was necessary to walk barefoot - cleansing with earth (we now know that this is the best way to remove static electricity); undress - air purification; to jump over the fire - purification by fire and, in the end, to swim - purification with water. And then an orgy followed...




The puritanical customs of the Victorian era did not allow the artists of the 19th century, even the lover of  the orgy theme G. Semiradsky, to depict the true scope of the Kupala night celebrations.​On this day, the only one in the year, all prohibitions and sexual taboos were removed - whoever catches whom where, he uses them there. Moreover, children, even clearly conceived on that night on the side, had to be brought up as their own without any differences and reproaches. You say - savagery, but let's figure it out!

The orgy on Yarila's day had a serious physiological basis. The purpose of this sin was not banal indecency or getting subjectively pleasant sensations colloquially called orgasm, but the onset of the maximum number of conceptions. For it was the best moment of the year for conception!

As we noted, Yarila's day is a holiday of the summer solstice. That is, it falls on the shortest nights of the year and the longest daylight hours. The duration of daylight hours and the presence of the Sun above the horizon determines the maximum insolation. This means that future parents produce enough vitamin D - and this is the prevention of rickets plus the formation of the fetal skeletal system. Potential parents actively receive other vitamins from food. By Yarila's day, the first fruits of the new harvest had already hit the table. At least, the greens (vitamin C, B) have ripened enough and the seasonal winter-spring hypovitaminosis has been overcome. But these are still the first harbingers; the rest of the harvest is just on its way - its task is to ensure that the woman does not lack carbohydrates for the entire period of pregnancy.

The sun is not only about the vegetation; by Yarila's day, egg production in chickens increases (for them, it also depends on the illumination), and cows, on fresh grass, begin to gradually give milk. This means that a pregnant woman in the early stages will not be left without proteins and fats of animal origin. Well, and closer to the cold, you can stab a piglet...

In humans, the abundance of sunlight affects not only the exchange of calcium and skin pigmentation, but also the functioning of the pineal gland.




Where pineal gland is situated​The pineal gland is the most mysterious endocrine gland in the human body. Some consider it a reduced third eye; others - a dormant organ, stirring which you can awaken the gift of clairvoyance; the third - the central structure of the sixth chakra... Official medicine has reliably established so far that the pineal gland produces a hormone responsible for the regulation of circadian (daily) rhythms - melatonin. And as a bonus, the pineal gland suppresses the release of growth hormones, inhibits sexual development, inhibits sexual behavior. Sunlight suppresses the activity of the pineal gland and causes opposite effects, first of all, increases sexual activity. On the eve of Yarila's day, in the biological species Homo sapiens, at the maximum insolation, it reaches an annual peak and, accordingly, there is no better time for mating.

If pregnancy occurs immediately after the summer solstice, childbirth should take place around the spring equinox. That is, the child will spend the dark and, most importantly, the cold part of the year in the womb and will be born when spring confidently begins to come into its own. He will come to this world when the frosts are left behind, the snow is almost melting, and the length of daylight hours begins to increase. The increasing level of insolation guarantees the newborn its own dose of vitamin D, not only from the parents. In addition, timing the birth of a child to the warm season also makes a purely practical sense - if only due to the fact that the diapers dry faster in summer.

And another practical approach to such a time of childbearing did not concern the child, but the mother - she was not lost as a worker. It is now, in urban conditions, the time of maternity leave does not depend on the season. Before, however, in the countryside, and with subsistence farming, turning off a full-fledged pair of working hands from the production process was an unaffordable luxury. To avoid such labor losses, there was only a narrow time window, but for this, again, pregnancy had to come on Kupala. In this case, by the Pokrov - the official date of the end of the agricultural season - the expectant mother was just ending her first trimester. It, of course, could be accompanied by toxicosis, but, in general, it does not interfere with doing the work. And childbirth in early spring gave the mother at least a month to recover before the start of the next cycle of agricultural work.

You can, of course, object to me that early spring is not the best time in terms of supplies: last year's is eaten up, and the coming harvest is still far away! But so our baby at this time does not need anything except his mother's tit. And when his teeth begin grow and it is time to introduce other foods, then the new crop will ripen.




Judging by the number of teeth, this kid from the cartoon "Once upon a time there was a dog" (based on a fairy tale), about six months; the wolf steals him during haymaking (late July - early August), which means that he was born in the spring, and was conceived, most likely, on Kupala.​There is one more, rather subjective, but interesting aspect. If a child is conceived on Yarila's day, it means that he must be born under the zodiac sign of Aries. Their element is fire, their planet is Mars; they are stubborn and aggressive. These are not hysterics-Leos and not depressics-Scorpions - these are natural-born fighters, berserkers! Planning for mass conceptions on Kupala means that a targeted selection of potential warriors was carried out in society. And this is already called eugenics - the science of improving the hereditary properties of a person. This is what the Slavic wizards indulged in at their leisure!

In general, pay attention to how everything is thought out! What a super rational approach! What a subtle understanding of the ongoing processes and organic integration into nature! And after that, Mr. Gundyayev declares about my and your ancestors: “And who were the Slavs? They are barbarians, people who speak an incomprehensible language, they are second-class people, they are almost animals." Pause... silent scene... no comments...

But we digress... So, here it is, in fact, what we started this long and not the easiest conversation. A child conceived on the Kupala night will be born in late March - early April. At this time, the birds are returning home from wintering (from Iriy or simply from warm countries - this is the secondary question). And it was this coincidence that formed the basis for the association that the abundant droppings of March sheep, massively conceived on Yarila's day, are brought by migratory birds (and is it storks or geese-swans - again, the secondary question). From them, from the fruits of free Kupala love, this prejudice spread to the rest of the newborns. It has spread so deeply that we still, at the reflex level, understand the sacred meaning of the image of a stork with a baby in its beak, although we don't remember where it flies to us from...

But what about those who are impatient to be born in winter, when birds winter in Iriy? Here, too, Yarila's intervention is here again. The second standard answer to the question “Where do children come from? "- found in the cabbage.

Let us ask ourselves the question again: who throws the children into the cabbage? Well, who, starving in the forest, visits our gardens to feast on it? Hares, of course. they are Yarila's personal animals, symbols of the masculine principle.

Sexual symbolism simply prevailed over hares in Russia. It is now, castrated by sanctimonious censorship, adapted versions of fairy tales for a children's audience, the hare is depicted as a defenseless, humiliated creature of the lowest rank. But he appears completely different in unfiltered primary sources - there he is a hero and all his heroic deeds are associated with his sexual abilities.

The hare was a frequenter of love-conspiracies and rituals of erotic magic. Rabbit blood was considered the most effective means of increasing virility. Rabbit fat was used to lubricate the genitals of women in labor during prolonged difficult labor. Rabbit droppings were used in the treatment of venereal diseases. A hare in a dream foreshadowed an imminent pregnancy. It is not surprising that the collective unconscious during the absence of migratory birds assigned the functions of delivering newborns to hares.

By the way, the expressions “the hare broke the cabbage” and “the hare jumped into the hole” are nothing more than the now forgotten allegorical designations of sexual intercourse. It is not difficult to understand that the hare is meant to be a penis in this context. This wonderful organ, in general, had many designations, both animate (hare, cockerel, gray drake) and not (oud, tooth, ear, shuttle). Sometimes he even honored his own names. Vanka, for example (hence Vanka-vstanka). Or Kuzka ... yes, the very mother of which Khrushchev frightened the Americans.

Vladimir Orlov,
Aries                      


The Arian supremacy aside, this is quite an article. However, there's more. It was only the first part. A comment from under the article:


> "The cult of the hare was supplanted by the cult of Thoth... The sacred animal of Thoth was the ibis.
> 
> Ibis are in the same family with storks
> 
> Along with the eagle and the ibis, the stork destroys sinister reptiles and is therefore a solar bird. But, as a creature associated with water and fish, he is associated with the waters of creation. The children brought by the stork in the form of embryos are in the bosom of Mother Earth and in the waters of creation where storks find them when fishing. "



From wiki:


> Ancient writers and medieval bestiaries mention the legend that storks feed their parents when they are no longer able to take care of themselves. For this reason, in Renaissance and later painting, the stork symbolizes deference to parents. In addition, storks are depicted as carrying the chariot of the god Mercury.



There's also a video by Robert Sepehr in which he mentions a global war between pigmies and large cranes

Translation of the second part of Orlov's "Gifts from Birds" 

Are there any other stories from other traditions about infant soul transfer, baby-carrying animals and a far away paradise from which those souls came?


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## davtash (May 28, 2021)

Really fascinating site, I am a great observer of birds especailly as I cant hang my washing out, fear of being squaked and wing beaten. In the evening I have a display of house martens for about 20 minutes. Then where do they go? I alsonever see a dead bird on the ground, maybe one that has recently been run over but never a natural death so to speak. I ask my school students about their experiences and they say they see them every day, but when I ask them for a photo I have had one in 3 months, So where do they go expecially the older ones my age kind of? The story Gusi Lebedi/Goose Swans one of my favourites for my russian daugher. This place where we are has not even had its surface scratched on this excellent site.


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## Starman (May 28, 2021)

Maybe it's not storks gifting us with babies, but an inversion with storks stealing human babies for eating.  Could be an example of a macabre human experience turned into a myth that hides the true origins.  A seminal memory preserved, but over time gets inverted to take the sting out of the reality.  In the end, just one more traumatic memory sublimated into a fairytale fit for children.

Maybe not 30,000 years ago. From an NPR article!  I've seen this theory in other places.  There may even be a thread for it here on SH.

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/01/25/133178380/killer-storks-eat-human-babies-perhaps


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## Sasyexa (May 28, 2021)

davtash said:


> I alsonever see a dead bird on the ground, maybe one that has recently been run over but never a natural death so to speak


I live not far from the city center and I first started seeing dead birds a few years ago, maybe in the 19-20, a friend who lives right in the center sees them constantly, the ones who live further away see them more rarely. Maybe it's the scavengers/predators? Either that or city surroundings are cursed


davtash said:


> The story Gusi Lebedi/Goose Swans one of my favourites for my russian daugher. This place where we are has not even had its surface scratched on this excellent site.


A great story indeed


Starman said:


> gets inverted


It's not the first time I see an immediate neighbor of Slavs having an opposite view on some mythological entity. In the second part V. Orlov argues that storks are a neutral party that represent universal order, while sometimes accidentally kidnapping children on their way back to heavens. Considering that pigmies were kid-sized, it's natural they would hate that kind of thing


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## Alexandra (May 30, 2021)

I accidently found out that chassidim is translated in all kinds of languages as "Stork movement" because my Hebrew Wikipedia page translated this automaticly:

https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/תנועת_החסידות
Some explanation:

_"There, included with the other non-kosher birds, we find the chasidah, the stork.  What?  How could it be that a bird whose name is derived from the shoresh “ch, s, d”, whose name incorporates the word chesed* is not kosher?"

*Chested _is a difficult to translate word meaning something like divine love, charity, pure of heart.

_"However, the chasidah is kind, but only to her own kind.  She is charitable, but only to her own kind.  She is caring, but only to her own kind.

Her goodness is real, but limited.  She does not give any other bird a single thought.  She ignores every other species."_

Source:

The Stork and What its Name Means for Us - Parsha from OU - OU Torah

Chasidah also means "white".

I don't mean to be racist, but as far as I know, storks only deliver white babies.
The stork- narrative is as I know, not worldwide known or found in ancient cultures, unlike for example the Holy Trinity, the Sun God etc. 

According tot HC Andersen storks found babies in a 'baby-pond' and they delivered a pair of dead babies to the parents of the mean children in the story.
And all the storks were called Peter since that day.
Peter the great, st Peter- who had the key to heavens?

https://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheStorks_e.html


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## Sasyexa (Sep 17, 2021)

I found an interesting video analysing the folk song "Black Raven" (Чёрный Ворон). It goes along nicely with the topic above.


_View: https://youtu.be/XyfH_mztCjI_

Translation of the transcript below:​
Hello dear friends, hello dear compatriots, hello Vazhichi and Vazha! Today we have a lesson - not a lesson, a tale - not a tale, a reality - not a reality, today we have - a Song about the Song. Today we have a Song about our Great Battle Song "Black Raven".

Many songs were composed by our glorious ancestors. Many of them are simply magical, simply wonderful, simply brilliant. And there are Pearls among them, there are Precious Gems, and there are Golden Songs. And there are simply Great Songs. One of these Great Songs is the "Black Raven" Song. Our great Russian song "Black Raven". When was this Great Song composed? God knows, only God knows. 

One thing is clear - they created it back when people in Russia did not mention either God, or Jesus, or the Apostles, or the Church and the Monasteries. No one in those days had yet prayed or baptized. In any case, no one has ever prayed like that or baptized, as people did a hundred years ago, or how they do it now. That is, it was created a long time ago, but no more than three hundred - three hundred and fifty years ago. And this can be seen in the language with which it is sung and spoken. Its language is close and very clear to us. Now this song is considered a Cossack song, but according to the language it can be seen that it is rather created somewhere north of the Cossack
territories. 

*And they sang "Black Raven" while playing on Gusli.*




That is, when the Gusli was not yet banned by the Church. And there was still no Church Ban on Russian Tales and Fairy Tales. Nowadays many people play the Gusli. Many people revive ancient songs. And many masters create a variety of musical instruments based on our ancient musical instrument - Gusli. Russian Gusli are tuned so that free-sounding strings give the scale in D minor or F major. This scale contains one lowering - B flat. Such a musical system is called "Russian Tuning". Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, who somehow still reach our memory, sang the song "Black Raven" always in D minor. And they sang it like that while playing any musical instrument. Always in D minor. This D minor is associated with the song "Black Raven" in a special way.

The fact is that the Note D and the keys of D major and D minor in the Russian worldview are associated with Birds. Namely - with the birds Swan, Goose and Duck. In ancient times, Russian Warriors were always considered Geese. Some of the warriors, who were standing out by stature, bravery and courage were considered Swan Warriors. Scouts and Warriors for various Special Assignments are Ducks. Thus, the Russian troops consisted of Geese, Swans and Ducks. 

*It is interesting that the Russian troops to this day consist from Geese, Swans and Ducks. Even if they don't know it. *




Hence the expressions: "They made a bold flight" or "They flew on the enemy". All soldiers of the special forces wear a variety of beret colors. And they wear them because the heads of so many Ducks of different types are covered with colored berets. On their heads are Gray Berets, and Blue, and Green, and Red, and Maroon. The Russian people were leaving for the war being the Geese-Swans.

Sometimes they went and flew to fight somewhere far away. We went on distant, distant military campaigns. And the Warrior who died In battle - so the Russian people believed - was returning for some time to their native land in form of a Crane, Stork or Heron. And he did not land on the ground, but just flew over his native spaces. He flew and went somewhere to unknown heights, to unknown distances.



​It's in our blood! Russian people always look at the sky with bated breath when seeing flying cranes, looking at them and always saying goodbye to someone or something. 

And in the old days special Priests said goodbye to the Warriors fallen In battle. Such a Priest walked with the Gusli across the battlefield and said goodbye for all the Fallen. He loudly sang a special Solemn Song of Eternal Life. He sang to them the Solemn Hymn Of Great Gods And Eternal Eternity. And he forgave them all for killing people, even though they were enemies. 




The Priest sang for all the fallen, and for all those who can't be helped, who are dying. And from those warriors who can no longer be helped, he collected their orders home to relatives and friends. And the Song "Black Raven" is about such a mandate. The dying warrior gives orders to the Priest-Narada. He tells him what to give and to whom. And at the end of the song he dies. But the song is being sung alive! Alive. 

For a Russian person, the basis, or support, of all life has always been the Purity of the Soul. And in battle it is difficult to keep the soul pure - you have to overcome fears, you have to make an agreement with yourself and have to kill people. Otherwise, you will not defend your land. But there is a way to preserve the Purity of the Soul in the battle. To do this, you must sing a funeral song for it in advance. The soul will freeze and rush into the sky, and the body? The body attacks, goes into the battle. 

Western soldiers find it difficult to understand such subtleties of Russian relationship to the soul. They find it even impossible. And the Charter of the Western armies even states that a threat to the body is a valid reason for desertion and surrender to captivity. But for the Russian soul - its a total betrayal. The Russians sang the "Black Raven" and went into the march of the Dead! They sang themselves off. The dead line of the Russians is a terrible attack. The Warriors went at the enemy in Dead Formation, and they have no one and nothing to fear - they are all already dead. All of them have already said goodbye to their relatives, said goodbye to each other and said goodbye to their lives. If a warrior is killed in this attack, his soul will be preserved clean, glorious and unharmed. And if the warrior survives, his soul will eventually return to its body. And the Priest-Narada will help it to return and settle down. 

Germans and various other enemies of ours have heard this song more than once. They did not understand its words. Russians sing their song with fervor, but in this fire there is the Cold of Death. Everyone who heard this felt scared and the blood froze in their veins. Everyone understood one thing - the Russians would now attack, and this attack will be the Attack of the Dead. And they all died not now, but somewhere in the centuries, in the darkness of the ages. Even if the Germans kill all these dead, death itself will enter their souls and will never let them go. They will remember and shudder all their life. 

"Black Raven" is not a simple song about someone or something. This song is a Spell. Song "Black Raven" is a spell against an empty and meaningless death. Spell against an inglorious and worthless death. The name of the original Song-Spell is lost in time. Unknown. But about a hundred - one hundred fifty years ago, this Song was called "Spell Against Bombs And Bullets". The "Black Raven" is our Bhagavad Gita. And Gusli is our Sacred Instrument of Spells.

Before I say a few words about playing the Gusli, I must say that in Russian the Right Hand of a Man is called Raven, and his Left Hand is called Magpie. When a man plays the Gusli, then with his Right Hand he spells the strings, that is, he makes them sound, pulling them or at them, striking in a special way, and with the Left Hand he clamps or muffles the necessary strings. 




Thus, the Right Hand - Raven - spells the strings, and the Left Hand - Magpie - gives the strings the Timing. (Here the author shows the possible etymology and relationship between the words Ворон (Crow/Raven) and Ворожить (Spell/Enchant), and between Сорока (Magpie) and Срок (Time Interval))

And this happens with almost all string instruments. Touching the strings of his Gusli with his right hand, Priest thereby knows that it is the Raven that touches the soul of the Swan-Goose, that it is the Raven attacking the Swan-Goose. The Gusli are related to the Swan-Geese. That is, they are related to the Warriors. Each of their strings is a Warrior, a Warrior's Soul. This is the Warrior - Goose-Swan. And when the Priest touched the strings of his Gusli, he thereby touched the Souls of the Warriors. And this is what is most important in this Song. Hand of the Singer-Priest who sings the funeral song to the Fallen Warriors - this is not just a Raven, but a Black Raven. The Priest himself walks across the battlefield in a black robe, and therefore he himself is also called the Black Raven. 





*And in the sky above the battlefield, the Black Bird is circling, and this is Black Raven himself.*




And here it must be said that the word "Ворон" (Raven) has the most direct relation to the words "Война" (War) , "Варвар" (Barbarian), "Руины" (Ruins), "Курок" (Trigger) and "Кара" (Punishment/Judgement/Retribution). And the sound the Raven makes is "Carrr-Carrr-Carrr". The word "War-battle" in Greek, that is, in priestly, is ο πόλεμος. That is Polemos. This word is associated with the words "Поле" (Field), "Полемика" (Polemics) and "Политика" (Politics). By the way, one of the Apostles, disciples of Jesus, in the "New Testament", there is the Apostle Bartholomew (Варфоломей). His name consists of two words: "Вар" and "Полемей". Warpolemos is the Raven of War, that is, the Black Raven. 

The melody of the song "Black Raven" is the Russian Canonical Melody. The very melody of this song, even without any words, is alive and it echoes through the soul of a Russian person. There are many beautiful melodies in the Russian language, tunes that feel like a million years old from the very creation of the world. And the melody of "Black Raven" is one of them. It takes your breath away from the way it flows calmly, confidently, solemnly and thoroughly. This melody is the melody of our soul, wide and spacious, like Russian endless steppes, like Russian endless land... 

Currently, the lyrics of the song are heavily abbreviated. Reduced due to the fact that the "Black Raven" is being sung on the stage. It is inconvenient to sing it in full at a concert - too long. And many sing it. Artists sing it, actors and film actors sing it. And many sing it greatly, but they still sing it like a pop song, like song for applause. And it is not for the stage, not for applause. Nobody has performed this song anywhere before. They sang it in the trenches. They sang it in a soldier's dugout. And they sang it at the table, remembering the Fallen in battles and the mortally wounded. It is for tears. But remember, everyone, the song "Black Raven" is not about Death! It is about Life! And here it is, dear friends and dear girlfriends, the text of this Great Song. Here are the lyrics as we know and remember approximately from the twenties and thirties of the last century.

(The song is playing, ~14th minute)
____________________________________________________________​
And that's all that we remember. And we have a feeling that there are one or two verses that we do not know. We searched for them for a long time, we interviewed everyone we know. But this is all that we remember, know and sing. 

Now, about the text itself. So, the Priest-Narada in the Russian army was called the Black Raven, burial service for the Fallen. After the battle, he walked across the field in a black robe and with the Gusli, deciding the fate of those lying on it. The wounded were sent to the camp and treated, and the seriously wounded spoke their last will to convey it to their family and friends. And only after that it was possible to perform a song for all the fallen.

*"Black Raven, why are you hovering above my head!
You will not achieve prey, Black Raven, I am not yours..."*​
Comparison with the black raven arose not only because of the black attire of a priest, but also because of the special intuition. The raven is a wise bird. This bird will not fly up to those who are able to survive. It is only interested in those who are definitely doomed.

"*Why are you spreading your claws?
Why are you singing your song?
While you wish for the prey, better carry the news..."*​
The fallen were sung away with the Gusli. The Priest's fingers on the strings looked like claws aimed for the prey. Like the claws of the Raven over the fallen Goose-Swan. And for the seriously wounded - their last words, which Narada needed to pass on to their family.

*"I will tie a mortal wound with a gifted handkerchief,
And then I will talk with you about everything in a row..."*​
Narada did not rush the mortally wounded soldier. His message to the family and friends was considered sacred. Narada, who took it upon himself, had to convey it.

*"Fly to my homeland, where I was small and with my Mom,
And tell her gently, that I have fallen for my Motherland.
Slowly, taking her by the shoulders, that I have fallen for my Motherland..."*​
Messenger, the so-called black messenger, strictly observed the rite of transmitting the last will of the Fallen. Mother and father were the first to receive the message.

Sometimes the repeated couplet is sung with these words:
*"From the back, and taking her by the shoulders, that I have fallen for my Motherland..."*​
Telling mother and father the sorrowful news, the messenger in no way should have looked them in the eye. The mother's grief is capable of involuntarily cursing the messenger. And in this case, the messenger has nowhere to put his eyes. Therefore, the messenger was supposed to bypass the mother of the fallen warrior and go behind her. From behind her back, in a low voice in the mother's ear, he reported the death of her son. In order to support her if the woman's legs give way, if she would fall from grief, he took her by the shoulders and said: "Be strong, mother, your son fell the death of the brave, fell the death of a hero."

*"And tell your father separately that I have not put the family to shame,
And before the mortal enemy, I didn't take a step back"*​
The next to receive the news of the death of the son separately from everyone - the father. Only he had the right to know the details of his son's death, had the right to know what happened and how. And only he knew what and how to tell all his relatives about it. The father should have been proud of his son - after all, he glorified family by his valor. Therefore, the messenger told his father about the feat of his son, even if there was no special feat. This verse was sung in F major and the men singing at the table got up and took off their hats.

*"Tell my brothers, tell my sisters -
I am a good brother.
And I'll go back to my native seven versts with/in the form of a Crane..."*​
Close relatives also had the right to hear the story about the death of the brother. Moreover, no matter what happens on the battlefield, the family of the Fallen must remember him with pride. Belief that the Fallen return by cranes to their native places, has been in the Russian people since ancient times. When hearing the cry of the cranes, it was necessary to leave all deeds and conduct them with a glance, thereby paying tribute for the lost defenders of the family.

*"Take the bloody handkerchief to my dear love,
Tell her: the brave warrior there married another..."*​
This verse is about the wife or the bride. The wife or the bride was waiting for a man who went to war. And this expectation was sacred. A woman couldn't marry someone else until the husband or groom returns. Even his death was not a valid reason to marry another. The only way to make a wife or bride free - to return the word given by her. 

*"Took a quiet-modest bride - 
The step is light, there is fire in the eyes, and the matchmakers were
A sharp saber,
And a horse..."*​
This verse describes Barbara the Beauty with a Long Braid. She is the steady image of death in the Russian epic. This verse was also sung a little solemnly, in In F major. The wife or bride, of course, was waiting for the return of the husband or groom. And they tried not to think that he might die. But, if a warrior died, then - so it was believed - he laid down next to Death and gave her the place of his wife. Husband's message about it set the abandoned woman completely free.

*"I'll get up early, go out into the field -
Our Don flows to heaven.
There, without fear and without pain, the red sun rises..."*​
Don is a stable name for any rivers in Russian language. And human life is a river. And for the Fallen, she already leads to heaven. The afterlife is a rising setting sun. The Red Sun is a sunset on earth, but the Red Sun is - sunrise in the other world.

*"A twisted string sang above my head -
Apparently, my death is ripe,
Black Raven, brother, I am yours..."*​
Finally, the Narada Priest approached the dying warrior. His Gusli is over his head. The twisted string is ringing and singing very close. And Narada promises to fulfill his last will. His song is sung... Those who could be saved were carried out. The last will of all mortally wounded is gathered. And all are sung away... The twisted strings of the Gusli sing along with the voice of the Priest. The souls will all go to heaven, and the bodies will be given to the birds. After the victory, the survivors will return here and bury the remains. They will bury and sing for them another Song - a Song for Health, the Song of Memory.


Image source


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## Whitewave (Feb 19, 2022)

Native Americans also have death songs which are sung if they're mortally wounded in battle or sure they're about to die from some other cause. An Irish superstition (to this day) is that if a raven flies into your house it is a portent of death.
There are many cultural bird symbols of death. When so many disparate peoples have similar beliefs/traditions, it makes one wonder what is the common denominator of these beliefs.

It's odd but singing really does separate you from bodily concerns.


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