Day Ten: The Cockerel

Continuing the “bird” theme from yesterday, here is a fine looking cockerel.

There is a cockerel later in the story of Jesus, which crows when St Peter denies knowing Jesus on the eve of his crucifixion. Brueghel may mean us to see this one as a link with the end of the story.

It’s more likely, though, that this is another reference to those Medieval traditions of birds at the birth of Christ. They said that on that night, the cockerel began to crow at midnight, to announce the birth of this new dawn for the world, rather than at sunrise as people would have expected. Shakespeare refers to the moment when “the bird of dawning singeth all night long”in Hamlet (Act 1 Scene 1)

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes,

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

This bird of dawning singeth all night long;

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;

The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow'd and so gracious is that time.

 

For Reflection

 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and in his word I hope: my soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning. Psalm 130. 5-6

 Have you ever had to be up in the middle of the night – for work, caring for a relative or sick or anxious yourself? What does it feel like?

Pray for those who “watch or wake or weep” this night, as one  ancient prayer puts it.

The whole picture:

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-brueghel-the-elder-the-adoration-of-the-kings