Researching Magpies and Crows - Urban Myths and Superstitions

One of the reasons I wanted to look at magpies and crows in my project is the strange relationship we have with them as humans and how they are perceived by society. I really like the ideas we have about them, like that they collect or steal sparkly, manmade things.

The website www.birdspot.co.uk/ suggests that despite popular belief, there is no real evidence that magpies steal shiny objects more than any other bird species, but there have been certain instances of valuables like jewellery and money being found in magpie's nests, including a platinum engagement ring and a hoard of over 1000 coins. Another article on this website talks about the folklore of magpies from various cultures and periods in history, for example;

  • Romans - believed magpies were very intelligent and had great reasoning
  • Ancient Greece - magpies were sacred to the god of wine, Bacchus
  • Native Americans - wearing a magpie feather was a sign of fearlessness; magpies were a messenger of the creator; they were a guardian with shamanic properties
It wasn't until the proliferation of Christianity that magpies became negatively perceived and are still thought of as bad luck - the Victorians even feared them so much that they hunted them to near extinction.

Crows are also often thought of as kleptomaniacs attracted to shiny objects, but these stories may originate from very old folktales and story telling - in reality, metallic surfaces are more likely to act as deterrents to them. On the other hand, crows are highly intelligent birds and are known to bring gifts to humans who they have formed a bond with - they can remember our faces and communicate this with other crows so they know who to be wary of and who might feed them. This is one of the reasons I'm interested in gathering found objects for my project - if it was easier to befriend a crow to collect things for me I would do that instead obviously. Throughout literature, particularly the Gothic, crows are an abundant symbol of death and doom, an idea that is widely accepted and gives many of us a sense of ill-omen and foreboding when we see a group of them. 

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