Sunday, March 29, 2009
Cormorants
In The Hide, the color changing birds from the beginning of the story that the three birdwatchers are warned of are said to be cormorants. These are also the birds in the ending that storm the hut where Richard and Clare have waded out to, and they eventually transform into cormorants. I had never heard of a cormorant, so I decided to look it up. I expected to find maybe some negative folklore associated with them, but actually they have been viewed as symbols of Christianity in the past. I found this perplexing as they are presumed to be demons in this story. An interesting paradox.
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Lions, too, have been viewed as symbols of Christianity (see C.S. Lewis), but that hasn't prevented them from rending humans limb from limb on occasion.
ReplyDeleteCormorants in England and the rest of Europe tend to be black, so they carry some of the ominous folkloric freight of other "black birds," for example ravens and crows.