Storks and Swallows

Storks and Swallows

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Seeing a stork or a swallow is a moment to rejoice because we know that the spring has come. We then remove the martenitsa (the traditional red and white tassels) and tie it to a blossomed orchard tree as a token of sound health throughout the year. In the past the stork and the swallow meant to Bulgarians a lot more things than simply “forecasting” warmer weather. These birds nested close to houses – on roofs, huddled in the eaves or in high trees in the yards, and so they emerged as people’s neighbors. People got used to their company and watched how they hatched their eggs and cared for their offspring. The birds’ concerns and routines were not far from what occupied human minds and so human traits were ascribed to the birds. Every autumn however, the friendly birds flew God knew where. Fortunately, in the spring they would come back to their old nests. For the Bulgarians of old time who only seldom walked out of their villages, the wandering of migratory storks and swallows was a very unusual and exciting occurrence.

According to legends, the stork was once a human being: a very pious one, a dedicated pilgrim who went to the Holy Sepulcher regularly. God however decided to put him to the acid test and find out whether his faith was as deep as it seemed. He came to him and asked him to climb a high mountain with a big chest tied to his back. However he banned him from opening the lid of the chest and from looking inside. The man embarked on the hard journey and after a while sat down to have a rest. His curiosity was stronger than his will, so he opened the chest. Right away all sorts of lizards, toads and serpents came out of the box and ran out into the wide world. God was angry and transformed the man into a stork telling him he would become human again, once he had collected back into the chest all fugitive creatures. Since then the stork has been touring rivers and swamps during the summer to catch frogs, snakes and lizards, and every autumn goes away on pilgrimage to pay homage to the Holy Sepulcher, and pray for forgiveness for his sin.

In another legend the storks took bird appearance during one half of the year and human appearance during the other half. Their country was at the end of the world. There women could not give birth, so God would send them to us under the guise of storks, to raise their offspring here. Once upon a time, when the storks braced to fly away, a man decided to go after them and to see where they would go. The storks flied and flied, and he was following them closely, and so they all reached a lake. The storks bathed into the water and became humans. The stranger stayed with them for the whole winter. When the spring came, they went to another lake got inside its waters and transformed into storks. The stranger too, was converted into a stork. He flew back home and built a nest over the barn. One day his wife left her necklace at the tap in the yard and the stork-man stole it and hid it into his nest. In the autumn he flew away with the stork again. He bathed in the magic lake, became human again and this time decided to go back home for good. No one from his relatives believed the story about living with storks, so he climbed to the nest on the barn and showed to everybody the necklace hidden there. Only then did they believe his story about stork life.

The swallow too, was once a woman, a young bride. A folk ballad recounts the story of how she turned into a bird. While she made her hair for the wedding, her mother swore her to keep speechless as a token of respect for her new family in the course of three to four days; not to utter a single word in the company of her in-laws and her husband. The girl was too excited and got the instruction wrong. She thought she should keep silent for four years. Time went by and she was speechless, so everybody thought she was dumb. On the fourth year her husband decided he should find a new wife. He brought her from far away and when the two arrived it was already dark at night and his first wife came out in the yard with a candle to meet them. The wax from the candle dropped on her fingers and on her wedding ring. The new bride went mad and said, “If you are dumb, you are not blind at least! Can’t you see the wax on your fingers! I don’t care for them but I care for the silver ring!” Then the silent girl broke her vow and spoke up: “God, I was speechless for four years, and she has not even jumped from the horse, and what words she has uttered! Is she going to take care of her husband? Convert me into a bird, God, to fly above the yard and watch how she will pamper him!” God heard her plea and turned her into a swallow.

In traditional beliefs the swallow was a dear friend of the stork. Swallows left for the South earlier, and stopped by the seashore to wait for the storks because without them they could not possibly cross the sea. When the storks came, the birds would fly together across the sea and when the swallows got tired they perched on the wings of the storks to have a rest. In the spring they arrived back to the same houses and the same nests from where they had left in the fall. People would welcome the birds with songs and dancing. Children were very active celebrating the comeback. It was believed that whoever sang and danced when seeing storks, would be healthy and would have great fun during the whole summer. On Annunciation, 25 March, a special ritual was performed in Central Bulgaria. People clanged with the tongs to scare serpents and lizards: “Go away snakes and lizards: storks are coming!” In traditional beliefs the biggest and most poisonous serpents cannot harm storks. A serpent could sometimes overcome an eagle but it could never beat a stork. Whatever house had a stork’s or a swallow’s nest was believed to be protected from misfortune and black magic. It was perceived as great sin to destroy their nests or to break their eggs. When people saw the first storks they ought to have some coins in their pockets or bread in their hands, so as to be well-off and have enough food all year round. They ought to stand, not be seated, so that their work went well. Dreaming of a stork or a swallow was perceived as a good sign for the future. A dream about catching a swallow was taken as a prediction for quite secure profit.

Translated by Daniela Konstantinova

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Storks and Swallows

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