The cock is crowing

Some of you might know I live on a farm.
We keep hens there and a cock.

Well since I was a kid,my mum always associated the cock crowing in the daytime(especially if all day) with someone going to die and its going to be someone we know.

Uncannilly and scarilly,its always borne true.Someone always dies that we know when this happens.
Ergo I pay attention to it, though maybe I shouldnt.

This morning the cock was crowing but thankfully has stopped now.

What do you think? Anyone else heard of this?

I've never heard of this one. I've always associated something like that with a banshee, but now I'm gonna get really paranoid anytime I hear a cock crowing.

stevenmu

I've never heard of it relating to cocks crowing before but we did have a thread about Birds as portents of death before. The association of the appearance or behaviour of certain birds with a coming death is pretty commonplace. If other birds can predict impending deaths (which is a pretty big 'if') then it could follow that cocks can too, and with farming generally being passed down through family lines, it stands to reason that farming familys would have stories relating to cocks as opposed to other birds.

As to whether or not they actually can predict death, it's very hard to say. Birds (among other animals) have been known to predict natural disasters, and they can also predict weather patterns. I think both of these are probably more down to senses beyond ours measuring current conditions than a future telling ability. Migrating birds for example are thought to be able to sense the earths magnetic field and read it like a map. It's possible that there are signs which show up in people who are soon to die which birds can somehow sense, but we cannot. (of course this falls down if a birds can predict sudden unexpected deaths)

The other side of the coin is that things like this are very subject to positive reinforcement. If a cock crows during the day and someone dies soon after, that'll stay in your memory a long time and strengthen the 'myth'. If a cock crows during the day and no one dies, you'll probably have forgotten all about it a week later.

solas

The only stories I've heard in relation to the significance of a cock crowing would be somewhere in the gospels.

6th

What Stevenmu has said is very interesting. Birds seem to be attached to being able to perceive things humans cant, for example it is a scientific fact that Penguins can also see into the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The resent interest on Paranormal with regards to electromagnetic fields seems to be pointing us into a better understanding of "some" paranormal phenomenon.

6th

solas

did I miss an ealier thread on electromagnetism?

GuanYin

stevenmu wrote:

I've never heard of it relating to cocks crowing before but we did have a thread about Birds as portents of death before. The association of the appearance or behaviour of certain birds with a coming death is pretty commonplace.

Strangely its not just birds.

I mean if you look throughout so many cultures at harbringers of death pretty much all of them have a winged quality.

Apart from the obvious birds, we have the banshee, the mothman, a winged korean spectre whose name I can't remember right now, a hungarian winged demon and I think some aborigonal (sp?) creature. There are others I'm sure.

So you have to wonder how and why "winged portants of death" made it to so many cultures. And why so many of them have similar traits besides the wings (apart from birds) such as glowing eyes and behaviour (appearing before death).

stevenmu

The wings aspect possibly comes from the fact that many of them are said to carry away the soul of the deceased.