Robin Superstitions

[sunnydale]

Originally Posted by jeskismeckski

I just had the weirdest experience, Ive just woken up to two robins trapped inside my room...obviously i have set them free but your post has scared me a little. Any ideas as you have now got me very worried

x

Please try not to worry jeskismeckski. What has been said here is purely superstition and does not mean that you are going to suffer anything horrible as a result.

It's likely that your two Robins were fighting outside and one some how found it's way indoors. The other followed, as Robins will fight to the death if they have to, to protect territory etc.

Stay cool and have a nice day,

Tracey

[VIVIENNEFAY]

Sure hope this Robin entering a house is only superstition! One flew into the house today! and I feel I have plenty of life yet!: But my father was a countryman, and shortly before he died he said the wanted to colour in the picture of a robin that had faded. May only be superstition, but I am sure he was aware of it. And what a good way to tell me he thought his days were numbered...

[tcvarlh]

I had a trawl and found this :
The robin is perhaps the most loved of all wild birds and dire are the omens if you should kill one. The story that it was a robin who covered the unfortunate 'Babes in the Wood' with leaves to help them keep warm has done much to endear it to children everywhere. Legend has it that it got its distinctive red breast when it tried to pull the bloody thorns from Christ's head as he hung on the cross. The bird has also been regarded as sacred to the household gods since the earliest of times, and William Blake in his poem, Auguries of Innocence, insists:
'A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.'
A wish made on the first robin of spring will be granted.
And a robin in the house means..... some twit left a window open.

Yeah well, It's jus' a boid init!

h

[VIVIENNEFAY]

Well, left the door open, really...

However, recovered well enough to walk the Camel Trail from Wadebridge to Padstow, and cross to Rock via the passenger ferry.

Wild life, birds, (as well as visitors at half term) abound in the glorious sunshine. Must try and find out what those sea birds were....

[Brocakat]

When it's very cold , its not uncommon for birds like robins and sparrows to come into barns & other farm buildings as well as cottages , etc.

I can't say I blame them .


More ( & especially when they are older ) people do die when it's colder.
The body is more stressed then , and also needs more calories to maintain the same temperature.


Ther's an obvious link here.

[tcvarlh]

I was reading about superstitions with reference to birds and came to the supposition that those 'old wives' needed a ruddy hobby. Robins, Owls, Rook, Crows, Eagles, Hawks, Ravens, Wrens, Magpies, Larks, Sparrows, Finches, Gulls, Cockerels (but not Hens (?)), Wrynecks, Woodpeckers and Pigeon (ye liste continueth mightily) flying into a house presage DEATH. Hellfire! My thought was that the folk that dreamed up all these portents of doom and terror really needed to get out more.
After further reading I noticed that most of these shibboleths derive from the later Plantagenet period, which goes some way to explaining many of them as the king, lords, barons and sheriffs demanded the food supplies for themselves and hang the poor. (Which they did, often) The 1235 famine and especially the Great Famine of 1315-17, constant rain, no sunshine and cold, with almost no crops surviving, meant that anything edible was eaten; birds particularly, as they can survive famines better than mammals, being able to navigate countryside barriers, would be easier to catch, netting, liming, snaring etc., their ingestion sometimes causing death through protein poisoning aka mal de caribou, most birds not having excess body fat. I'd have thought that anything that flew into a peasants' hovel would have lived just long enough to notice the cook pot being set on the hearth. A hungry persons' first notions being, 'Protein Is Where You Find It' and 'Luncheon Has Just Landed.'
People mayhap would have noticed when Old Fred pegged it after scoffing down a couple of Sparras and maybe connected the two with a warning that such birds cause you to stop being.

h

[artdemole]

There's some that say Robin received the red feathers for taking water to sinners in Hell.--Break a Robins egg then something vauble of yours will be broken.--Robin shelters on a branch then it's a sighn of rain but if he be chirping then fine weather is due....aDm...