📅 Thought for today:
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.
— Traditional
#thoughtfortoday #magpie #tiding #parliament #secret
Not a quote today, a nursery rhyme.
A little bit of synchronicity for my Morning Pages. Last night I watched Worzel Gummidge: Guy Forks and the music was by The Unthanks.
They also provided some music for The Detectorists, also starring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones. Specifically a reworking of the traditional rhyme about Magpies you see above.
This morning I was up and out before sunrise and as I walked across the park I saw seven magpies. Not for the first time.
This week I also booked tickets to see The Unthanks live next year.
So my thought for today is drawn to these coincidences and how we notice them.
In my native Lancashire, there is a longer version of the rhyme – it continues like this:
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten a surprise you should be careful not to miss,
Eleven for health,
Twelve for wealth,
Thirteen beware it’s the devil himself.
There are several collective nouns for magpies. Like rooks, a group can be known as a parliament. I have seen a rook council settling a dispute exactly as described in the book Crow Country by Mark Cocker.
However, my preferred collective noun for magpies is a tiding. Today we had a glad tiding and a secret never to be told.
