The Bird-catcher and the Blackbird
The Bird-catcher or Fowler and the Blackbird was one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 193 in the Perry Index.[1] In Greek sources, it featured a lark, but French and English versions have always named the blackbird as the bird involved.
Modern European retellings of the fable include Giovanni Maria Verdizotti's 1570 version, which has a lark as the bird. The nearly contemporary French edition of 1582 however features a blackbird, and this is followed in Roger L'Estrange's 1692 collection.
An alternative tradition dating back to the Greek Anthology maintains that the blackbird is under the special protection of the gods, and cannot be trapped in nets.
European versions
The account in Roger L'Estrange's collection of the fables (1692) follows the original closely except for the substitution of the bird's name. "As a Fowler was bending his net, a Black-Bird call'd to him at a distance, and ask'd him what he was doing. Why, says he, I am laying the Foundations of a City; and so the Bird-Man drew out of Sight. The Black-Bird mistrusting nothing, flew presently to the Bait in the Net, and was taken; and as the Man came running to lay hold of her; Friend, says the poor Black-Bird, if this be your way of Building, you'll have but few Inhabitants."[2] Though the story is applicable to human credulousness in general, it has been given a political interpretation since earliest times that continued through most later commentaries.
Although this version of the story only existed in Greek sources, one very like it occurs in the Syriac version of the story of Ahiqar, which goes back to the time of Aesop. Ahiqar has been betrayed by his adoptive son Nadan and among the reproaches for his conduct appears this reference: "A snare was set upon a dunghill and there came a sparrow and looked at it and said, 'What doest thou here?' And the snare said, 'I am praying to God.' The sparrow said, 'And what is that in thy mouth?' The snare said, 'Bread for guests.' Then the sparrow drew near and took it, and the snare caught him by the neck. And the sparrow said, as he was being shaken, 'If this is thy bread for guests, may the god to whom thou prayest never listen to thy voice.'"[3] A much later Arabic recension begins with the inquisitive sparrow but then makes a lark the victim. This, however, may be evidence of contamination from a Greek source.
One of the earliest tellings of the Greek story in another European language was as Fable 31 in Giovanni Maria Verdizotti's "100 Moral Fables" (Cento favole morali, 1570).[4] There the story is told of a lark (lodola), while a blackbird (merle) is the bird named in the nearly contemporary 1582 French edition of Aesop's fables,[5] remaining so through the following centuries. In English tellings also it is always a blackbird that is named.
There is also a traditional tune in the Isle of Man that is called "The Fowler and the Blackbird" (Yn Eeanleyder as y Lhondoo),[6] to which is sung the mysterious ballad "O what if the fowler my blackbird has taken", sometimes ascribed to Charles Dalmon.[7] In 2010 the Greek text of the fable was set for octet and voice by Lefteris Kordis as part of his Songs for Aesop's Fables.
An alternative tradition
In his History of British Birds, Thomas Bewick says that blackbirds "readily suffer themselves to be caught with bird-lime, nooses and all sorts of snares".[8] In general it was trapped for caging as a songbird rather than for food, but there existed an ancient Greek tradition that the songster was under the special protection of the gods and that nets could not hold it.
No less than three poems in the Greek Anthology preserve this belief. The earliest is by Archias of Antioch and concerns fieldfares that are trapped while the blackbird is left free since "the race of singers is holy".[9] Antipater of Sidon tells of a blackbird and a thrush caught in separate snares, from which the blackbird escapes since "even deaf bird-snares feel compassion for singers".[10] Finally, in the poem by Paulus Silentiarus, where a fieldfare and a blackbird are netted, it is Artemis herself, the goddess of hunting, who frees the songbird.[11]
References
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Fables
- The Ant and the Grasshopper
- The Ass and his Masters
- The Ass and the Pig
- The Ass Carrying an Image
- The Ass in the Lion's Skin
- The Astrologer who Fell into a Well
- The Bear and the Travelers
- The Belly and the Members
- The Bird-catcher and the Blackbird
- The Bird in Borrowed Feathers
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf
- The Cat and the Mice
- The Cock and the Jewel
- The Cock, the Dog and the Fox
- The Crow and the Pitcher
- The Crow and the Snake
- The Deer without a Heart
- The Dog and Its Reflection
- The Dog and the Wolf
- The Dove and the Ant
- The Eagle and the Fox
- The Farmer and the Stork
- The Farmer and the Viper
- The Fir and the Bramble
- The Fisherman and the Little Fish
- The Fowler and the Snake
- The Fox and the Crow
- The Fox and the Grapes
- The Fox and the Lion
- The Fox and the Mask
- The Fox and the Sick Lion
- The Fox and the Stork
- The Fox and the Weasel
- The Fox and the Woodman
- The Frog and the Ox
- The Frogs Who Desired a King
- The Goat and the Vine
- The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
- The Honest Woodcutter
- The Horse and the Donkey
- The Horse that Lost its Liberty
- The Lion and the Mouse
- The Lion, the Bear and the Fox
- The Man with Two Mistresses
- The Mischievous Dog
- The Miser and his Gold
- The Moon and her Mother
- The Mountain in Labour
- The Mouse and the Oyster
- The North Wind and the Sun
- The Oak and the Reed
- The Old Man and Death
- The Old Woman and the Doctor
- The Rose and the Amaranth
- The Satyr and the Traveller
- The Sick Kite
- The Snake and the Crab
- The Snake in the Thorn Bush
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- Town Mouse and Country Mouse
- The Travellers and the Plane Tree
- The Trees and the Bramble
- The Two Pots
- The Walnut Tree
- Washing the Ethiopian White
- The Weasel and Aphrodite
- The Wolf and the Crane
- The Wolf and the Lamb
- The Woodcutter and the Trees
- The Young Man and the Swallow
- An ass eating thistles
- The Bear and the Gardener
- Belling the Cat (also known as The Mice in Council)
- The Blind Man and the Lame
- The Boy and the Filberts
- Chanticleer and the Fox
- The Dog in the Manger
- The drowned woman and her husband
- The Elm and the Vine
- The Fox and the Cat
- The Gourd and the Palm-tree
- The Hawk and the Nightingale
- The miller, his son and the donkey
- The Monkey and the Cat
- The Priest and the Wolf
- The Scorpion and the Frog
- The Shepherd and the Lion
adaptations
- Aesop's Film Fables
- The Grasshopper and the Ants
adaptations
- Demetrius of Phalerum
- Phaedrus
- Babrius
- Avianus
- Dositheus Magister
- Alexander Neckam
- Adémar de Chabannes
- Odo of Cheriton
- John Lydgate
- Kawanabe Kyōsai
- Laurentius Abstemius
- Roger L'Estrange
- Gabriele Faerno
- Hieronymus Osius
- Marie de France
- Robert Henryson
- Jean de La Fontaine
- Ivan Krylov
- Nicolas Trigault
- Robert Thom
- Zhou Zuoren