From: alex
Message: 25494
Date: 2003-09-03
> 02-09-03 23:22, alex wrote:So far I know yes, they are atypical.
>
>> The birds are mostly named because of other properties but not
>> because of the colour.
>
> Really? So names like "blackbird", "(robin) redbreast" and "greylag"
> are atypical?
>The same in Rom. The storks are seen as benefical birds, they are not
>> Question: is there in any other IE language the story about the
>> babies which are beared to the parents by a certain stork and if
>> yes, where / when was attested first time this story?
>
> I think this nursery myth originated somewhere in Germany, but I have
> no idea when it was recorded for the first time. By the way, what's
> the traditional attitude to storks in your contry? In Poland, which
> has the largest population of them, being the nesting home of about
> 25% of the world's white storks, they enjoy universal sympathy and
> are completely synanthropic, always nesting on roofs, chimneys or
> specially prepared poles (with lowercase p), and returning to them
> every spring. As far as I know, it has "always" been so, and there's
> a tradititional prohibition against disturbing or harming storks.
> Destroying the nest of a pair of storks would be comparable in its
> odiousness to shooting an albatross. I wonder if this is something
> local or more widespread.
>
> Piotr