The starling is a small to medium-sized songbird found throughout temperate Europe and parts of Asia. With its dark and iridescent plumage, the starling is a familiar sight in fields, gardens, and cities across much of its range. While starlings may seem ordinary to us today, they have long captured the human imagination and featured prominently in myth, legend, and folklore across many cultures. In this article, we will explore some of the folklore surrounding the starling to understand what this ubiquitous bird has meant to humankind over the centuries.
Origins and symbolic meanings
The starling likely originated in Europe and parts of Asia, expanding its range alongside human agricultural development starting around 10,000 years ago. As one of the most numerous bird species on the continent, starlings integrated themselves into the daily lives and belief systems of early European cultures.
Starlings were seen as clever, social, and flashy birds. Their dark plumage represented mystery and magic to some cultures, while the starling’s iridescent feathers were associated with rainbows, light, and divine messages. Ancient Celts considered the starling sacred, believing it followed ley lines that channeled Earth’s magical energy. Due to their large, noisy flocks and tendency to steal food, starlings were also seen as mischievous thieves by some groups.
According to Irish folklore, starlings may house the souls of Druids reincarnated as birds. Some Native American tribes believed starlings to be medicine birds carrying wisdom from the spirit world. Across many traditions, spotting a lone starling or one that acted unusually was considered an omen of challenging times ahead.
Starlings in mythology
Starlings appear in the mythologies of several ancient cultures, often portrayed as clever, talkative, and even prophetic. According to Greek legend, the god Bacchus transformed his old and chatty nurse into the first starling as a gift of gab and good company. The Tongva people of southern California told of a creator god named Quaoar who transformed his disobedient sons into starlings.
One Welsh folktale recounts how the starling got its spotted plumage from the night sky. The story says the starling was originally plain black but asked the wise owl if it could borrow markings to be more beautiful. The owl acquiesced and allowed the starling to borrow sparkling star speckles from the night sky, which it wears to this day.
The vast numbers and black coloration of starling flocks inspired ominous mythological connections in some traditions. Irish folklore links large starling murmurations to an impending attack by Fomorians, destructive supernatural beings. Some Schleswig folk tales interpret the swirling patterns as dead souls unable to ascend to the afterlife.
Starlings in literature and art
Beyond oral traditions, starlings have made notable appearances in European written works through the ages. In Ancient Greek texts, famed playwright Aristophanes uses starlings as a symbol of foolishness. The birds also appear in verse by Anacreon and are alluded to in writings by Pliny the Elder on divination with birds.
In Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1, Hotspur compares women to flashy starlings for their jittery and indecisive nature. More positively, romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley depicts the starling as a harbinger of spring in his 1820 poem “The Cloud.” Charles Dickens provides some of the most evocative literary depictions of starlings in Great Expectations, equating their swift-flying flocks to gliding light and wind.
Starlings and starling flocks have been popular subjects for artists as well. Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Snyders often featured the birds in lush still life works. Prominent Impressionist painter Claude Monet painted starlings perched amid nature. Other artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh have all captured the characteristic look and movement of starling flocks in their art.
Starlings in superstition and divination
With their conspicuous presence and habits, starlings readily lent themselves to superstitions and divination practices of the past. Like other birds, starlings served as omens in many cultures depending on how, when, and where they were encountered.
For example, a lone starling near the home was an ominous sign to Germanic peoples, portending illness or death. Seeing starlings gathering branches for nests signaled imminent rainfall to the ancient Celts. Spotting a starling flock moving north indicated a stretch of bad weather was coming according to English folk wisdom.
In divination, starlings entering houses, landing on windowsills, or tapping windows carried spiritual messages in various traditions. Starling flight patterns were also commonly used for fortune telling, with different formations signifying famine, war, or plenty depending on local interpretations.
Across Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the Slavic countries, traditional belief held that the souls of the recently deceased transmigrated into starlings. Seeing a starling soon after a death was considered confirmation the person’s soul lived on. Starlings were thus closely associated with departed loved ones in these regions.
Practical uses of starlings in folk life
Beyond their rich symbolic value, starlings also served practical purposes in the traditional lives of agricultural peoples across Eurasia. As highly social birds, starlings were kept as pets, especially talented talking starlings that could mimic speech.
Farmers mobilized starlings’ appetite for insects to help control pests by fixing nest boxes on barns or fields to attract breeding pairs. At the same time, abundant starlings were considered a nuisance to fruit orchards and grain crops due to their voracious appetites. Scaring off or shooting marauding flocks was common practice.
Starling meat has been eaten as a food source since ancient times, continuing into the modern era in parts of Europe. The tongues of juvenile starlings were pickling in vinegar or preserved in fat as a small delicacy. Starling eggs and feathers were also gathered for food and household uses like stuffing pillows.
Starling mythology and superstitions today
While not as culturally prominent as in antiquity, starlings still feature in some modern mythology and superstition. For example, a few surviving folk beliefs in Ireland and Britain hold that when someone dies, their soul exits the body in the form of a bird, almost always said to be a starling.
Seeing a flock of starlings still carries a touch of the uncanny and inspires awe at their fluid, churning flight. To some, these swirling masses even take on supernatural qualities, carrying something of the great riddle of life and death. Starling murmurations appear in several modern fantasy stories and games as omens, manifestations of spirits, or familiars of magic users.
However, starlings today are overwhelmingly seen as annoyances when living alongside humans. After populations exploded with agricultural land conversion and nest box initiatives in past centuries, starlings came to be viewed primarily as crop-ruining pests and urban nuisances across much of their range. Their negative impacts led to them being one of the most detested and persecuted bird species, widely erasing their previous mystique and cultural status.
Conclusion
The starling has one of the more visible roles of any bird in European folklore, mythology, and superstition from ancient to modern times. Once seen as mesmerizing, mysterious, and even magical, the starling’s familiarity and often annoying habits have diminished such cultural significance in the human mind. Yet the huge flocks of starlings retain their awe-inspiring and disquieting qualities to this day. If we look past our modern prejudices, we can still glimpse the potent wonder and symbolism starling masses inspired among our ancestors. Perhaps regaining such a perspective can help us better appreciate the starling’s place in the natural and cultural fabric of Europe and the wider world.