Green Island (Oxford Reading Tree: Stage 9: Magpies)

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Back in 1984 I was awaken by a very loud cackling sound from a lot of magpies on inspection of a tree I counted 15 magpies making an herendus noise. Yet while its image is dark in Europe and America, in the Far East it enjoys a rather different status. As we mentioned earlier, John Brand’s Observations On Popular Antiquities recorded one of the original versions in 1780. The magpies, the only known bird that can recognise itself in a mirror, remained in the branches for several minutes before they flew off one by one.

Some people salute and bid the bird good morning, hoping that this is enough to change it to a positive encounter. Anthony Horowitz used the rhyme as the organizing scheme for the story-within-a-story in his 2016 novel Magpie Murders and in the subsequent television adaptation of the same name.A longer version of the rhyme, which continues to map the significance of up to 13 Magpies, was popular in the English county of Lancashire, spelling out further potential good fortunes that you may encounter when seeing a larger number of Magpies, although you may wish you hadn’t counted 13 when you read the meaning below. English people generally were prone to cross themselves and raise their hats upon seeing magpies, intoning as they did so: “Devil, Devil, I defy thee! Note: I don't actually own them, but I reckon the general area around the bakery could do with 9 - 10 fewer magpies. In the Orient, the magpie was prized as a sign of fertility and domestic bliss, admired for its yin-and- yang plumage (it was the official ‘bird of joy’ for the Manchu dynasty).

According to an old superstition, the number of magpies seen tells if one will have bad or good luck. The children meet pioneers in America; become the heroes of a computer game; foil the toxic villains; Chip becomes a victim of the litter queen; Wilma stars in her own fairytale quest, and Floppy becomes a superhero. Even so, many people still believe that seeing a single magpie can bring good luck – something that will no doubt continue far into the future!The famous ‘One for Sorrow’ Magpie rhyme has undergone several revisions and adaptations over the centuries and has since become ingrained in folklore, with superstitious antidotes to counteract any bad luck associated with Magpies also being widely practiced. Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Discworld (London: Random House, 2010), ISBN 1407034243, p. Unless otherwise acknowledged, the text and photographs on this blog are my own and are subject to international copyright. In Sing Street, Conor sings a version of the rhyme while walking around Dublin with his friends, showing how timeless this classic is. Among devout Scots, it was considered so evil that each bird was believed to carry a drop of the Devil’s blood under its tongue.