Excerpt from Bird Legend and LifeThe most important avian legends and superstitions and also to discover in them evidences of apparent truth. Some of the most agreeable and interesting legends of the past were gathered about these guests of our groves Whose actions formed the basis of innumerable fancies and superstitions. Birds exercised a strong in¿uence on prehistoric religion, having been worshiped as gods in the earlier days, and, later, looked upon as living representatives of the higher powers. The Greeks went so far as to attribute the origin of the world itself to the egg of some mysterious bird. Then in the days when mortals did not die at all, but passed, these small creatures, ¿itting about among the trees, represented to those inhabiting the earth the Visible spirits of departed friends. The Aztecs believed that all good people, as a reward of merit, were metamorphosed at the close of life into feathered songsters, and as such were permitted to pass a certain term in the beautiful groves of Paradise. To them, as to all North American Indians, thun der was the cloud bird ¿apping his mighty Wings, While the lightning was the ¿ash of his he peoples of other coun tries believed that the higher showed their displeasure.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.