'Tis the season

[snad]

for crows to fly about with sticks. They seem to do this for a fair amount of the summer. Of course, weather is so grim I hope none of them have actually laid eggs in their presumably refurbished nests, but every time I see a crow in flight it seems to be carrying a stick somewhere. Maybe it's the same crow/stick just moving about a lot.

Comments

[meltroid]

Are you sure it's not the sticks carrying the crows? The terrified birds unable to open their beaks because of the sticks' stickiness, flapping their wings desperately in a vain attempt to escape their awful fate at the hands - branches - of the sticks' masters, the sadistic trees. Out of human sight the merciless sticks dash the poor crows against the side of their tree then their sidekicks the leaf people wrap themselves around the bird, squeezing the life out of its body, its dripping blood feeding the ancient forest in which nest future generations of crows, the great cycle of nature turning in cosmic harmony.

What did they put in this tea?

[moz_attics]

Ach - the heresy of the wood-folk!

Snad speaks of none but the fabled Craw Withie - and she is fortunate to have seen it, mark you. Passed from crow to crow from Michaelmas to Lugh's night, it's said that the crow who last holds the Withy has the power to summon all crows to him and bind them in service for a year.

That is, of course, until the Cromwelian crows invented the Parliament of Rooks and pecked to death any uppity bloody jays hopping about with a stick in their beak, saying (with considerable difficulty) "gow gown and norship nge, for I idd the righthul hing of all horvigs. It'h true!"

Wow...

[snad]

... and the little lumpy things they carry about sometimes? I always assumed that was the kind of stuff I didn't want to think about too much, but now I've heard about the withie I wonder whether they really are dogs eyeballs or not?

Re: Wow...

[moz_attics]

I must be brief, because this page is extremely pink.

Lumpy round things - sheep/cows/pigs do poo, crows eat bugs that live in poo. As do country pigeons. Often times, the birds don't differentiate. I'd love to hear Elton John's song about that particular "Circle of Life".

My favourite - and shortest - socio/economic history lesson of England in the C13th is here presented. We have various words for meat - beef, pork, venison, mutton - but different words for the beasts themselves - cow, pig, deer, sheep. Thus, prior to the Norman conquest, the anglo-saxon words were used for the beasts themselves, but the Norman / early French words were used for the product of slaughter. Hence, the saxons did the farming, and the normans did the eating. Johnny Ball on History, or what?

Finally - apologies once again. I found another of your e-mails in a spam box on my BT mail thing. It has a Feb vintage. I'll reply instanter, once I've stopped typing in pink-land.