Ercinee, or hercyniae (singular hercynia) are birds said to live in the Hercynian Forest in Germany. Their plumage glows at night.
Appearance[]
Ercinee are birds whose feathers glow like fire or sparks[1] in the dark.[2] Their feathers retain their glow even when removed from the bird.[3]
In bestiaries, the bird is often accented with gold or silver leaf to demonstrate the shine of their plumage.
Behavior[]
The birds lived in the Hercynian Forest, which was a massive stretch of woodland in southern Germany, east of the Rhine river. While much of the forest has since been destroyed, the modern day Black Forest is a remnant of the western portion.[4]
Travelers through the forest at night would often look to the ercinee for guidance, because their brilliant feathers shone through the darkness.[1][5] The light from even their individual feathers was so bright that they were placed on paths, lighting the way through the woods.[3]
Anthropological information[]
At some point in time the ercinee became conflated with the Bohemian waxwing, also called the Bohemian Jay.[5] This is possibly traced to Thomas Bartholin, who described the two in proximity to one another and added that the waxwing's wing and tail tips glimmered faintly in the night.[6]
Gallery[]
Similar creatures[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Solinus, C. Julius. Collectanea rerum memorabilium, Berolinum : Weidmann (1895). Pg 96.
- ↑ Pliny the Elder. The Natural History, Perseus (1855). Book 10, Chapter 67.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Isidore. Etymologies, Cambridge University Press (2006). Pg 266.
- ↑ Becker, Jeffrey. Hercynian Forest: a Pleiades place resource, Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places (2013).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 White, Terence Hanbury. The Book of Beasts, UW-Madison Libraries Parallel Press (1954). Pg 130-131.
- ↑ Bartholin, Thomas. De luce hominum et brutorum, libri III; De lunariis, Matth. Godicchenius (1669). Pg 291-292.