Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1887 — Why the Nightingale Sings. [ARTICLE]

Why the Nightingale Sings.

The Westphalians have a curious explanatory myth regarding the nightingale. They imagine that the bird’s song may be rendered in these syllables of human speech: Is tit, is tit, is tit, to wit, to wit—Trizy, Trizy, Trizy, to bucht, to bucht, to bncht. But the last syllables are the usual shepherd’s cry to his dog when he wishes the sheep collected. Therefore Trizy must be the name of the dog to whom the cry to bucht is addressed. Therefore the nightingale must have been a shepherdess, whom a Bhepherd cursed be-

cause she always postponed the mar-: riage she had promised. He uttered I the wish that she might not sleep till the day of judgment. Nor does she, j for may not her voice still be heard at , night as she cries to bucht, to bucht, tb buclit to her good’dog Trizy? The same people give a stiange explanat on ,c f the face of the shard, or flounder, | which is all awry, with its eyes on one side of its face instead of being .straight, like the eyes of most other fish. Originally its face was a straight and sensible fish face, hut one day it insulted a passing herring and made a mocking face at it, for which, as a punishment, it was never able to draw its face back to its original position.— Gentleman’s Magc^ine.