[415] Hence Gregory of Tours relates, in _Du Cange_: "In Ecclesia Arverna, dum matutinæ celebrarentur Vigiliæ, in quadam civitate avis Corydalus, quam Alaudam vocamus, ingressa est."
[416] Vartikâṁ grasitâm amuńćatam; _Ṛigv._ i. 112, 8.--Amuńćataṁ vartikâm aṅhasaḥ; i. 118, 8.--Âsno vṛikasya vartikâm abhîke yuvaṁ narâ nâsatyâmumuktam; i. 116, 14.--Vṛikasya ćid vartikâm antar âsyâd yuvaṁ çaçîbhir grasitâm amuńćatam; x. 39, 13.
[417] The same fable is also related in a different way: Jove cohabits with Latona, and subsequently forces her sister, Asterien, who is, in pity, changed by the gods into a quail. Jove becomes an eagle to catch her; the gods change the quail into a stone--(cfr. the stories of Indras as a cuckoo and Rambhâ, of Indras as a cock and Ahalyâ. It is a popular superstition that quails, like the crane, when they travel, let little stones fall in order to recognise on their return the places by which they passed the first time)--which lies for a long time under water, till by the prayer of Latona it is taken out.
[418] Ælianos says that the cock is in the moon's favour, either because it assisted Latona in parturition, or because it is generally believed (as a symbol of fecundation) to be the facilitator of childbirth. As a watchful animal it was natural to consider it especially dear to the moon, the nocturnal watcher.--The cock, as an announcer of news, was sacred to Mercury; as the curer of many diseases, to Æsculapius; as a warrior, to Mars, Hercules, and Pallas, who, according to Pausanias, wore a hen upon her helmet; as an increaser of the family, to the Lares, &c. Even Roman Catholic priests will deign to receive with especial favour, ad majorem Dei gloriam, the homage of cocks, capons, and chickens.
[419] This year, my quails cried out six times; and the corn in Italy is very dear, the spring having been a very rainy one.
Alektrüon, a satellite of Mars, the lover of Venus, becomes a cock.--Indras, the lover of Ahalyâ as a cock; Ahalyâ turned to stone.--Indras as a eunuch or as a ram.--Praǵâpatis loves his daughter the aurora, and becomes a goat.--Ahalyâ in the ashes, like Cinderella.--The thunder and the eggs; the iron nail and the laurel in the nest.--To be made of stucco, to be turned to stone by the thunder which astonishes.--It is a sacrilege to kill cocks and hens.--The cock Parodars in the _Avesta_.--The cock chases the demons away.--The cock wakens the aurora and arouses mankind.--Christus and the cock as _cristiger_, _cristatus_, _cristeus_.--The cock sacred to St James, to St Christopher and Donar.--St James as a cock.--The hen crows like a cock.--Men turned to stone, and the cock who calls them to life again.--The cock as a devil.--The enchanted hut stands upon a hen's little feet.--Cocks killed as a form of witches.--The _lapillus alectorius_; the same enclosed in a ring.--To dream of brood-hens with chickens.--The egg is more cunning than the hen.--The golden cock on the rock; marvels come out of the rock.--The egg which becomes a girl.--The cock on the top of high buildings, to indicate the winds, and also the hours.--The black cock and the red one.--The black hen.--The cock sacrificed.--The cock, son of Mars.--Cockfights.--Auguries taken from cocks and hens; these auguries held up to derision.--The hen's egg; "Gallus in sterquilinio suo plurimum potest."--The pearl is an egg; the hen's egg in the sky is the sun.--The white hen.--Easter eggs.--The golden egg.--The cosmic egg.--It is an excellent augury to begin with the egg; "Ab ovo ad malum."--To begin _ab ovo_.