air being perhaps the Jinni's passionate allusion
to the egg as his master: "Wretch! dost thou command me to bring thee
my master, and hang him up in the midst of this vaulted dome?" But the
incident is to some extent cleared of its mystery when we learn that
the roc's egg is the bright sun, and that the roc itself is the rushing
storm-cloud which, in the tale of Sindbad, haunts the sparkling starry
firmament, symbolized as a valley of diamonds. [40] According to one
Arabic authority, the length of its wings is ten thousand fathoms. But
in European tradition it dwindles from these huge dimensions to the size
of an eagle, a raven, or a woodpecker. Among the birds enumerated by
Kuhn and others as representing the storm-cloud are likewise the wren
or "kinglet" (French roitelet); the owl, sacred to Athene; the cuckoo,
stork, and sparrow; and the red-breasted robin, whose name Robert was
originally an epithet of the lightning-god Thor. In certain parts of
France it is still believed that the robbing of a wren's nest will
render the culprit liable to be struck by lightning. The same belief was
formerly entertained in Teutonic countries with respect to the robin;
and I suppose that from this superstition is descended the prevalent
notion, which I often encountered in childhood, that there is something
peculiarly wicked in killing robins.

Now, as the raven or woodpecker, in the various myths of schamir, is the
dark storm-cloud, so the rock-splitting worm or plant or pebble which
the bird carries in its beak and lets fall to the ground is nothing more
or less than the flash of lightning carried and dropped by the cloud.
"If the cloud was supposed to be a great bird, the lightnings were
regarded as writhing worms or serpents in its beak. These fiery
serpents, elikiai gram-moeidws feromenoi, are believed in to this day by
the Canadian Indians, who call the thunder their hissing." [41]

But these are not the only mythical conceptions which are to be found
wrapped up in the various myths of schamir and the divining-rod. The
persons who told these stories were not weaving ingenious allegories
about thunder-storms; they were telling stories, or giving utterance
to superstitions, of which the original meaning was forgotten. The old
grannies who, along with a stoical indifference to the fate of quails
and partridges, used to impress upon me the wickedness of killing
robins, did not add that I should be struck by lightning if I failed t