This species occurs on one extremely small island and undergoes marked population fluctuations, owing to climatic events, reducing it to tiny numbers. It is a 13 cm small, inconspicuous, thin-billed warbler. Brown above, darkest on crown, white below. It sings a simple song of rapid, metallic notes. It is endemic to the steep, rocky island […]
In this tale the swallow was originally a servant of Holy Sunday. Holy Sunday, going to church, told her servant, whom she had left at home, that she was to prepare the dinner for her, and that she should take care that it should neither be too hot nor too cold, but just as she […]
Once upon a time there was a widow who had one only child. She had a flock of sheep and a magic dog. The widow died, and the girl was left quite alone. So she took the flock of sheep and went to feed them in the mountain, accompanied only by her faithful little dog. […]
The people regard the sparrow as one of the greatest pests, for he eats up the seeds and the crops. The people believe that the sparrows reach an age of over nine hundred years, and they tell the following tale about it. In a clearing of a huge oak forest, there grew up a tiny […]
A very long time ago, so long indeed that no one can remember when it happened, there lived a king and queen. They had everything which their heart desired, except that they had no children. They were good and charitable people, and distributed alms and prayed, but all in vain. At last, when they had […]
Another story of the lark tells of one who went in search of his sister, who had been stolen away from her home by Sila Samodiva. He was directed by a curious dream, in which he saw an old man with a long white beard, who told him to go in search of her, for […]
Once upon a time there was a man who was under a spell. He got married to a woman, and after a time he suddenly disappeared. He was carried away by the spell, no one knew whither. The poor woman waited for him one day and another day and a third day, and seeing that […]
The wagtail did not have the tail from the beginning. This tail originally belonged to the wren, but it happened in this manner. The wagtail was one day invited to the wedding of the lark, and as she felt ashamed to go there without any tail, as she had none, she went to the wren […]
Another legend brings us again to the same events. This time it is in connection with the sparrow. It is said that the sparrows were originally much bigger birds than they are now, but at the time of the crucifixion they flew round the cross and cried half mockingly, “Jiviu Jiviu,†which means “Live, live.†[…]
It is a story of a mother-in-law, who, like all mothers-in-law, treated her daughter-in-law in a most cruel manner. Whatever the young woman did was not right. Her mother-in-law persecuted her from morning till evening, and gave her neither peace nor rest. One day, seeing that she could not get rid of her by any […]