"The wife of one of my patients, a man in his fifties, once told me in conversations that, at the deaths of her mother and her grandmother, a number of birds gathered outside the windows of the death-chamber" (Jung, 22). The woman's husband collapses, and is brought home close to death, but (shocker!) a flock of birds beats him home and settles on his roof. The man dies soon after.
Jung continues: "If one considers, however, that in the Babylonian Hades the souls wore a 'feather dress,' and that in ancient Egypt the ba, or soul, was though of as a bird, it is not too far-fetched to suppose that there may be some archetypal symbolism at work" (23).
Intriguing. I've a connection to this phenomenon (albeit in fiction) through H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror. He describes the behavior of whippoorwills, birds that gather when death is near.
"Then too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous whippoorwills which grow vocal on warm nights. It is vowed that the birds are psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer’s struggling breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter; but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence."
You get the feeling that these birds are evil, although by definition, a pyschopomp (yes, I looked it up) comes from Greek mythology and means a guide for the soul to the afterlife. So I guess it depends on perspective. Same as with Hell Girl.
From Wikipedia:
"Due to its haunting, ethereal song, the eastern whip-poor-will is the topic of numerous legends. One New England legend says the whip-poor-will can sense a soul departing, and can capture it as it flees. This is used as a plot device in H. P. Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror. Lovecraft based this idea on information of local legends given to him by Edith Miniter of North Wilbraham, Massachusetts when he visited her in 1928. This is likely related to an earlier Native American and general American folk belief that the singing of the birds is a death omen. This is also referred by Whip-poor-will, a short story by James Thurber, in which the constant nighttime singing of a whip-poor-will results in maddening insomnia of the protagonist Mr. Kinstrey who eventually loses his mind and kills everyone in his house, including himself."
Hmm. So what does a whip-poor-will sound like?
Uh, yeah. That's definitely creepy. Could be a little bit maddening. Maybe we shouldn't be listening.
Just ... once ... more.
Again.
Someone ... help.
More to come. I'm not done with this topic.
J. L. Dodd
"Then came a halt in the gasping, ... A change came over the yellow, goatish face of the prostrate thing, and the great black eyes fell in appallingly. Outside the window the shrilling of the whippoorwills had suddenly ceased, and above the murmurs of the gathering crowd there came the sound of a panic-struck whirring and fluttering. Against the moon vast clouds of feathery watchers rose and raced from sight, frantic at that which they had sought for prey."
- The Dunwich Horror, H.P. Lovecraft
Work Cited:
Jung, C.G. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Bollingen Foundation, 1960.
Links:
http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/dh.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_whip-poor-will
No comments:
Post a Comment