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A section for all you budding etymologists where each week the origin of a word or phrase is investigated.
This week it is..... Halcyon days
Calm, peaceful days.
The Halcyon is a bird of Greek legend and the name is
now commonly given to the European Kingfisher. The
ancients believed that the bird made a floating nest in the
Aegean Sea and had the power to calm the waves while
brooding her eggs. Fourteen days of calm weather were
to be expected when the Halcyon was nesting - around
the winter solstice, usually 21st or 22nd of December.
The Halcyon days are generally regarded as beginning
on the 14th or 15th of December.
The source of the belief in the bird’s power to calm the
sea originated in a myth recorded by Ovid. The story
goes that Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, had a daughter
named Alcyone, who was married to Ceyx, the king
of Thessaly. Ceyx was drowned at sea and Alcyone
threw herself into the waves in a fit of grief. Instead of
drowning, she was transformed into a bird and carried
to her husband by the wind.
The myth came to the English-speaking world in the
14th century, when, in 1398, John Trevisa translated
Bartholomew de Glanville’s De proprietatibus rerum
into Middle English:
“In the cliffe of a ponde of occean, Alcion, a see foule, in
wynter maketh her neste and layeth egges in vii days
and sittyth on brood ... seuen dayes.”
By the 16th century the phrase ‘halcyon days’ had lost
its association with the nesting time of the bird and
had taken on the figurative meaning of ‘calm days’.
Shakespeare used the expression that way in Henry VI,
Part I, 1592:
Assign’d am I to be the English scourge.
This night the siege assuredly I’ll raise:
Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days,
Since I have entered into these wars.
Note: Saint Martin’s summer is what we now know as
an Indian summer.
The kingfisher is associated with other powers relating
to the weather. In mediaeval times it was thought that if
the dried carcass of a kingfisher was hung up it would
always point its beak in the direction of the wind [don’t
try this at home]. Shakespeare also refers to this belief,
in King Lear, 1605:
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters
Our current use of ‘halcyon days’ tends to be nostalgic
and recalling of the seemingly endless sunny days of
youth - despite the fact that the original halcyon days
were in the depths of winter.
Is there an English phrase or saying that you would
like to know more about?
Email it to us on [email protected]
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