Folklore: Sign Superstition/ Birds/ Death

Genre: Superstition/Folk Saying, Celtic  (myself)  December, 2, 2001
“A bird flying into the house
was to let death come into the house.”

My grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly (born in 1893, Co. Cork, Ireland, emigrated to California in 1919), who raised me in Forest Knolls, West Marin, Ca., had a few Irish superstitions about death. One was, “A bird flying into the house lets death come into the house.”

Since we lived in the country, and she usually left both the kitchen and front doors open in good weather, we often had winged visitors, including the wild towees that clustered like small chickens at the kitchen door to peck at the toast crumbs.

The first time I remember her telling me this death superstition was when a brown towee flew into the house. I was about six years old in the mid-50s. Since it was usually up to me to catch and release the birds before the cats spotted them, it was a time of great excitement, so I wasn’t too worried about the idea of portending death.

But later, when several deaths did occur after birds flew into the house, or banged against the windows, I began to sit up and take notice, filing the idea away for future reference....to test the hypothesis. I sensed the type of bird that entered the house also mattered by intensity of degree, but I couldn’t say why. Towees and bluejays were lower on the totem pole, a woodpecker or a wren had more significance. Ravens were the war goddess, the Morrígan’s own doomsday birds.

A variation of the bird coming into the house was when a bird tapped its beak or banged against a window—it didn’t matter whether it was inside or outside the house—it also portended a coming death. The combination of a bird entering the house and knocking were both omens of death signals. If my grandmother was wakened by the sound of knocking at night, she said it was a sure sign of death.

She’d wait for the bad news with resignation. And usually within the week or two, a letter would arrive from Ireland or California announcing the death of someone in the family. After the third time it happened, whenever a bird entered the house, I’d get goose bumps.

This is a sign superstition in that the event is our control. According to J.H. Brunvand in “The Study of American Folklore,” (Norton, 1966), “Superstitious death and funeral customs (category VII) reflect our fear of all things associated with death. A bird flying into the house...signs that were once widely regarded as sure omens of a coming death in the house...” (p. 387). Venetia Newall in “Discovering the Folklore of Birds & Beasts” (Herefordshire, Shire Publications 1946)writes that many birds, especially the owl, represents misfortune and death. (pp. 46-47). Ann Ross in “Pagan Celtic Britain,” (Academy Chicago Publishers, 1967), writes: “There are many references in [ancient] Irish literature to the drawing of omens from birds.....Evil is also divined in the flight of birds.” (p 329). The raven, the Irish war bird, was the most evil bird of all.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes