Sparrows as psychopomps

[dreadfulpennies]

I'm working on a novella where the main characters are psychopomps/grim reapers/death deities. I'm still in the speedy first-draft and gave the main character sparrow wings in passing. It was a detail jotted down for my own benefit and wasn't even mentioned until a minor character begins talking at length about death and its symbolism. Like the

Comments

[bopeepsheep]

I just last week came across a reference to sparrows and death in Shappi Khorsandi's memoirs: her grandmother sees a sparrow in the doorway and 'knows' her son has come to misfortune (he's been shot by Iranian police).

I grew up in Oxfordshire hearing that sparrows brought messages, although not always of death; it was a very bad sign if they came into your house though.

One site says "Sparrow - It is said that the sparrow was at the crucifixion of Jesus and it encouraged the Romans to torture Jesus as it kept shouting he is alive he is alive, its this reason today when you see a sparrow it will walk away rather than fly as it prefers to stay and see what's going to happen the sparrow is a symbol of the Gods and bad luck to kill one" (sic). The connection with the crucifixion turns up in a few places but I can't yet find an origin for it. Will keep looking, as this is something that interests me anyway!

[djinnj]

I always think of Hamlet when I think of the fall of a sparrow.

[10littlebullets]

Yeah, when I saw this post I knew I had some lingering mental connection between sparrows and death, and this comment made everything go "click!" in my head. And now that I've made the connection, I might have to steal it for a character who is juuuust the sort to joke about being led to the underworld by Lesbia's sparrow.

[dreadfulpennies]

No, but I would like to.

Unfortunately, this particular character never enters houses. The psychopomps in my story have designated tools that ensure they can only reap specific people at specific times. The main character, for instance, can only reap people outside, during daylight hours... and they need to be moving.

[dreadfulpennies]

I have to disagree with you there. I don't think looking into things like symbolism and mythology hurt writing. Tons of ideas have been done to death these days and, sure, every author wants to put their own spin on vampires... or werewolves... or psychopomps. As a big fan of folklore, mythology, and the occult, I always prefer when authors go that extra mile to dig deep into the subject matter. I enjoy authors like Neil Gaiman and, heck, YA authors like Holly Black because they craft great stories while still adding those extra details people familiar with the subject matter can really appreciate - or go look up later, depending on how it's presented.

The sparrow wings idea is just a tiny little detail, but I figured that's what this comm is for. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing some popular snippet of folklore before I made a change. Hate to mess with the picture of a character I have in my head, but my psychopomp characters follow a theme appearance-wise that I would sooner not break.

[klgaffney]

small birds coming into your house---sparrows or starlings, is a sign of an imminent death in the family. *gestures at my mourning icon* at least, it's considered so by the old folks in my family long before stephen king. it may have been a fairly common old wives tale at some point, because i've had several folks also say it was true for their families too, and i was intrigued and tried to trace where it might've come from. sadly, it's defied all of my attempts at tracing the origin, but i can confirm that it is, in fact, a viable association.