Red-billed Chough - in Culture

In Culture

In Greek mythology, the Red-billed Chough, also known as 'sea-crow', was considered sacred to the Titan Cronus and dwelt on Calypso's 'Blessed Island', where "The birds of broadest wing their mansions form/The chough, the sea-mew, the loquacious crow."

The Red-billed Chough has a long association with Cornwall, and appears on the Cornish coat of arms. According to Cornish legend King Arthur did not die after his last battle but rather his soul migrated into the body of a Red-billed Chough, the red colour of its bill and legs being derived from the blood of the last battle and hence killing this bird was unlucky. Legend also holds that after the last Cornish Chough departs from Cornwall, then the return of the Chough, as happened in 2001, will mark the return of King Arthur.

Up to the eighteenth century, the Red-billed Chough was associated with fire-raising, and was described by William Camden as incendaria avis, "oftentime it secretly conveieth fire sticks, setting their houses afire". Daniel Defoe was also familiar with this story:

It is counted little better than a kite, for it is of ravenous quality, and is very mischievous; it will steal and carry away any thing it finds about the house, that is not too heavy, tho' not fit for its food; as knives, forks, spoons and linnen cloths, or whatever it can fly away with, sometimes they say it has stolen bits of firebrands, or lighted candles, and lodged them in the stacks of corn, and the thatch of barns and houses, and set them on fire; but this I only had by oral tradition.

Not all mentions of "chough" refer to this species. Because of the origins of its name, when Shakespeare writes of "the crows and choughs that wing the midway air" or Henry VIII's Vermin Act of 1532 is "ordeyned to dystroye Choughes, Crowes and Rookes", they are clearly referring to the Jackdaw.

In heraldry, choughs are known as "beckits". Three Red-billed Choughs are depicted on the coat of arms of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the city of Canterbury also has choughs on its coat of arms, because of its connection to the saint. This species has been depicted on the stamps of Bhutan, The Gambia, the Isle of Man, Turkmenistan and Yugoslavia.