One White, One Black

 

Once upon a time very recently, but in a remote country, a Raven was heard to have speech with a Magpie.

Now, your humble fable writer has a theory. Hang in there. I am reminded of the Pied Piper and various other pied fellows. What does it mean to be pied? Well, it refers to a patterned fabric or coloration having two or more colors in blotches. So, in this case, whatever a Mag is, it is pied. Magpies have white markings in addition to their black suiting.

*mag-

also *mak-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to knead, fashion, fit." It forms all or part of: amass; among; macerate; magma; make; mason; mass (n.1) "lump, quantity, size;" match (n.2) "one of a pair, an equal;" mingle; mongrel.

Another hint at how she got her generic name.

“So, Fiona,” quoth Maeve, “I see you dressed in parti-pied raiment!”

“Verily,” saith Fiona. “Hast thou not seen such as I am?”

“Oh! Of a surety, in truth, I have!” Maeve’s black eye glints in the sunlight. She shakes her wings and settles down again on her branch.

Snapping out of the pidgin lingo, she says, “look, I know you’re pied and all that jazz, but you have one white wing and one black wing. What does it mean? What gives, spotty girl?”

“No! I do not,” cries Fiona! In demonstration Fiona throws up her two wings for inspection. She is dumbfounded by the truth of Maeve’s observation. That means she can’t think of anything to say right then.

Fiona had been practicing her short saucy flights with tail and wings all flashing as she flew. She grounds herself and begins a distressed lament, marching in a little tight circle on the duffy forest floor.

“Oh, will I lose the power of divination? What shall I say then? When a girl brings her wee belly to me to seek knowledge, or she brings a young man’s shirt to me, will I see the future no more? Shall I be ashamed before all the women?” For you see, the Magpie’s prophecies are mainly sought by women and girls of a likely age.

“Settle down, Fiona, you’re starting up the antique patter again. I’m sure this all makes sense somehow,” suggests Maeve.

Fiona stops to take another look at her wings. She still can’t believe what has happened. Her chattering calls fill the dust mote speckled afternoon air in the summer forest of evergreens. It echoes from tree to tree.

But it’s worse now. Both wings are white! She starts up a hell of a racket! But it’s just bird noise. In fact, she is cooing! “No one comes to a dove for truth,” she sobs. For the awful truth is that she is entirely white, with a short tail and foolish little red eyes. Hubris is quite absent from these little eyes.

Far up in her Douglas Fir tree, near the very tip, Maeve chuckles, gurgles and snaps her beak. You could almost be forgiven for thinking she had something to do with this evolution. She didn’t though because Maeve is just an embedded reporter and soothsayer, in but not of, not unlike someone you know.

“Rejoice, Fiona, for you shall be a harbinger of hope and peace to all who see you. No more wicked lies and spotty prognostications. The Lord Maker so wills it to be!”

As a sort of assent and ascent at the same time Fiona tries her new white wings, flying straight up into the sky looking for all the world like a sort of emblem of Peace/Shalom!

Just so!