The Hoopoe.
The legend of the hoopoe is thus told by Arrian: “To the king of the Indians was born a son. The child had elder brothers, who, when they came to man’s estate, turned out to be very unjust and the greatest of reprobates. They despised their brother because he was the youngest; and they scoffed at their father and their mother, whom they despised because they were old and grey-headed. The boy, accordingly, and his aged parents could no longer live with these wicked men, and away they fled from home, all three together. In the course of the protracted journeys which they had then to undergo, the old people succumbed to fatigue and died, and the boy showed them no light regard, but buried them in himself, having cut off his head with a sword. Then, as the Brachmanes (Brâhman) tell us, the all-seeing sun, in admiration of this surprising act of piety, transformed the boy into a bird, which is most beautiful to behold, and which lives to a very advanced age. So on his head there grew up a crest, which was, as it were, a memorial of what he had done in the time of his flight.”140
Somadeva gives another story of this bird. Rajatadanshtra one day saw his sister Somaprabhâ playing on a Pinjara, and when she would not give it to him, took the form of a bird and flew away with it to heaven. She cursed him that he should become a bird with a golden crest, but promised that when in his bird shape he should fall into a blind well, “and a merciful person draws you out, and you do him a service in return, you shall be released from this curse.”141
The Muhammadan tradition is that the Hudhud, or hoopoe, had the power of finding water which the devils have buried under the earth, and she assisted Solomon to find water for ablution, and helped him to find Bilqîs, the queen of Sheba. In Sweden the appearance of the hoopoe is looked on as an omen of war.142