Common Cuckoo - in Culture

In Culture

  • In Europe, hearing the call of the Common Cuckoo is regarded as the first harbinger of spring. Many local legends and traditions are based on this. In Scotland, a number of Gowk Stones exist, sometimes associated with the arrival of the first cuckoo of spring. "Gowk" is an old name for the Common Cuckoo in northern England, derived from a harsh repeated "gowk" call the bird makes when excited.
  • The well-known cuckoo clock features a mechanical bird and is fitted with bellows and pipes that imitate the call of the Common Cuckoo.
  • Common Cuckoos feature in a number of traditional rhymes. For instance,
'"In April the cuckoo comes, In May she'll stay, In June she changes her tune, In July she prepares to fly, Come August, go she must,"' quoted Peggy. 'But you haven't said it all,' put in Bobby. '"And if the cuckoo stays till September, It's as much as the oldest man can remember."'

Read more about this topic:  Common Cuckoo

Famous quotes containing the word culture:

    “No race has the last word on culture and on civilization. You do not know what the black man is capable of; you do not know what he is thinking and therefore you do not know what the oppressed and suppressed Negro, by virtue of his condition and circumstance, may give to the world as a surprise.”
    —Marcus Garvey (1887–1940)

    “Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point. Is not crisis itself a concept we owe to Hippocrates? In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one.”
    —Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)