Hello Reader

This months' news includes:

• A new print with its story and connections to augury and the cycles of life and death.

• A new outlet for my work.

• Exciting exhibition news. ​
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The Calling

I made this print to illustrate the cacophony of corvids I heard at the bottom of my dad’s garden.
Two new jays had come to the woods, and the resident magpies weren’t happy. Then the crows and jackdaws flew over to see what was going on. The noise of them calling, screaming and bickering was quite something!
Recently an oak had fallen amongst the line of very old oaks still standing. Jays and magpies are said to be the guardians of the oaks as they take the acorns and bury them to feast on some of them in the winter, while others are left to take root and grow into new oak trees.
I think this was a calling, a calling for succession, the jays taking up residence, ousting the magpie, becoming the new guardians.
I also saw it as a warning and a call for my attention. Several days later my father died. Just like the birds showed me, it was a calling to inheritance, whilst illustrating the cycle of life of death.

A little later on I tip toed down to the end of the garden as I could hear the jays still but not the other birds. The trees line a stream that runs through a deep ravine and I saw the two jays at peace now drinking from the stream.
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Ornithomancy and Augury

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I’ve written a bit about bird divination before, how the Greeks and Romans, Celtic Britons and other tribes around the world, would use bird divination to find out the answers to questions or show them the path they should take for a difficult decision. The Greeks called it Ornithomancy while the Romans called it Augury.

The birds would enact the will of the gods that the 'auger' would interpret. These signs might have been shown by a number of birds, a flight direction, a call or a certain pattern they were flocking in.

Eagles, hawks and owls were particularly auspicious, their actions often read as a harbinger of doom or a win or loss of a forthcoming battle.

References to ornithomancy appear in the writings of the Ancient Greek poets Hesiod and Homer while references to augury appear in texts by Roman author and naturalist Pliny the Elder, and Roman poet Homer to name a few.

Pliny writes in his notes of contents in 'Natural History'

'Talking birds: parrots, acorn-pies; riot at Rome caused by talking crow.'

However I couldn't find where he expanded on the riot at Rome later in the book.

Here's what he writes about the eagle owl:

'The eagle-owl is a funereal bird, and is regarded as an extremely bad omen, especially at public auspices ; it inhabits deserts and places that are not merely unfrequented but terrifying and inaccessible ; a weird creature of the night, its cry is not a musical note but a scream. [35] Consequently when seen in cities or by daylight in any circumstances it is a direful portent ; but I know several cases of its having perched on the houses of private persons without fatal consequences. It never flies in the direction where it wants to go, but travels slantwise out of its course. In the consulship of Sextus Palpellius Hister and Lucius Pedanius { 43 A.D. } an eagle-owl entered the very shrine of the Capitol on account of which a purification of the city was held on March 7th in that year.'

Book 10 , sections 1-11Translated by H.Rackham (1952),

You can read Pliny's Natural History here, it is fascinating!

​http://attalus.org/info/pliny_hn.html​

I do feel sorry for the owl, it always got a bad reputation as a harbinger of death!

However, the Celtic story of Blodeuwedd in the Mabinogion is quite beautiful https://rattraymosaics.co.uk/blog/blodeuwedd-owl/​

I wrote more about owls in mythology here

Bird omens weren't always bad as we see here...

In Homer's Odyssey, Laertes talks about his meeting with Odysseus :

'Indeed, the bird signs were good at his going. They were on his right; and I too rejoiced as I sent him off, and he rejoices as he went' (310 The Odyssey of Homer translated by Lattimore)

Although it's not about augury do you remember my last newsletter when I wrote about the legend of the nightjar being called a Goatsucker? Well, here is some early evidence of the legend in Pliny's Natural History...

'Birds' dispositions also are equally varied, especially in respect of food. Those called goat suckers, which resemble a rather large blackbird, are night thieves - for they cannot see in the daytime. They enter the shepherds' stalls and fly to the goats' udders in order to suck their milk, which injures the udder and makes it perish, and the goats they have milked in this way gradually go blind. '

Book 10 , sections 1-11
​Translated by H.Rackham (1952)

Devon Sayings

I can't not say something about our own sayings here in Devon. There are quite a few about cuckoo's ...

This has to be my favourite, having practiced it myself a few times!:

'For good luck, run three times in a circle with the sun, on first hearing the cuckoo'

and then there's the doom one:

"He who in July the cuckoo's voice doth hear Will die before he comes another year. "

And of course there is the well known knowledge that if you see the first cuckoo on your right it was lucky, while on the left it was unlucky.

There's a belief that if you steal a swallow or robin egg your little finger will grow crooked and it's very unlucky to kill either of those birds. And if you steal a robin's nest then all the crockery in your house will smash!

Whereas you can tell the weather by reading the birds flight; when seagulls are circling there's a storm at sea, and birds flying low, or rooks making a lot of noise are a sign that rain is coming.

(Some of these sayings from 'The Folklore of Devon by Ralf Whitlock)

In today’s modern world bird divination seems superstitious and any happenings are usually seen as coincidence.
However folklore gives superstition and coincidence a voice, and in that form it can be healing, reveal a path forward, or enable us to live (temporarily) in an imaginal realm. And that’s not a bad thing, even if it is naive and childish, after all we often want to go back to being a child again, when we played and imagined strange and wonderful things. And sometimes we need a break from trying to live in this climate anxious, war torn and capitalist driven world!
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The Print

I have 8 prints ready to go. From a variable edition of 50, each one is unique. Some have orange suns, some black, some are hand coloured. Do have a look and see if there is one you would like.

As you are a newsletter subscriber, you get first dibs and you can use your 10% off code too!

The code is Larks10 ... add it at checkout.

Take me to the Calling

Hearth Herbal new outlet

I have some of my framed and unframed prints at Hearth Herbal a new apothecary shop and treatment room in Totnes. Find them at 19, High Street, Totnes.

You can also find my work at the Folk Preservation Society, 28, Fore Street, Teignmouth and at Artisan Chagford, 68, The Square, Chagford. ​

Exhibitions coming up

I'm one of five artists from Devon Open Studios selected for an exhibition at Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton from 12 September - 24 October. The theme we were given was Emerging/Re-emerging.

I'm exhibiting with two other makers, Helen Edwards (textiles) and Paula Wilson (ceramics) for Devon Open Studios at Ashburton Court Guest House, East Street, Ashburton. This will be from 12-20 September. I'll send more details in the next newsletter.

That be all me lovelies!

Let's do a rain dance!

Kate x

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