Does it matter? This is an old belief told from one generation to another. And in the instance of my family, it certainly turned out to be true.

Later that summer, during an especially hot and bright night (it's midnight sun where I come from because it's above the Arctic Circle) I saw that grouse on the tractor road further down the fields of the farm. It silhouetted in the midnight sun. It surprised me to see it standing in the middle of the road like that, like it was mocking me, so I got angry and chased it off the property.

It went off into the property of my grandmother's sister. And later that year, also she died.

But look, there's probably a reasonable explanation for it. When farmers grow old and sick, they often move away from their cabin, and in with their younger family and children further away, who take care of them. So when the house becomes derelict, wild and otherwise shy animals dare to move closer. But of course, old people would only move away from their farm if they were in a bad shape. And there's your omen and the logical explanation for it.

No need to surrender your beliefs to some egghead who's not imaginative enough to see the world with wonder. Who cares about someone else's logic that is too narrow to contain the wonder of the universe. No need to pander to their inability to believe. They sit on their high horse telling other people they are crazy, then the grouse sits above them and they drop dead. Good story. The end.

well, maybe so but they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there ain't anybody dead there yet.

Great Tom Sawyer ref. It continues, "Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?"

While Gracie Miller survives her terrible burns, who knows what happens to her after the novel? A ref I know you'll just love is:

It was written in 1885 by Holger Drachmann as a midsummer hymn (midsommervise) called 'Vi elsker vort land' with a melody composed by P.E. Lange-Müller. Singing this surrounded by people and in full view of a flaming witch on a bonfire can feel very surreal. Burn the witch. Love the land. Burn the witch. Love the land. Drink some beer.

During Sankthansaften/midsommer burning the witch spirits to rid the land of them is a cause for celebration, and along with keeping shoes pointing up at doorways and chanting 7-9-13 after boasting or saying something good (to prevent jinxing it), helps keep the good luck flowing and the harm away. We can respect these parts of cultural tradition and belief, as we respect the people to whom they mean something. :P ;) xx

Ok but I do not think I've ever met anyone who took Sankt Hans as anything serious - that is to say for them it is all tradition (see a thing burn, call it a witch, listen to some tunes, drink some beer, grill out yayyy) and none belief. Of course with my luck I'll end up having an Ari Aster Sankt Hans this year.

But it's a nice reference.

But if there's no belief to it, then why do it? If you stopped doing it, would you feel things were a little off, would other people? Would you sense your year might get worse, and if it did, kick yourself for missing Sankt Hans? Maybe not. Maybe it's just all tradition, no belief. But I think there's belief there, that although not fashionable these days to admit (not least because burning witches has gone out of style), operates as a motivation compelling people to do the same "meaningless" traditions year after year. They're not meaningless because people believe them, on some level.

But maybe Sankt Hans is an exception. But other things, like 7-9-13 why do that? It's not tradition. If you travel, you'll still catch yourself saying it, maybe under your breath if in another culture. But you'll feel weird if you don't do it. You'll feel you bring yourself some bad luck. Even if a person doesn't "believe" that it could be the case, on another level they do believe that, because they'll feel weird if they don't do it. It's a belief that it will affect things. It's not easy to admit in this context, I'm not asking you to "admit" it, I'm just saying it's part of who we are. We believe these things.

Have a happy (and safe!) Sankt Hans this year! :P ;) xx

The ending of your comment gave me a chuckle. Thank you.

Those kinds of beliefs are what lead to anti-vaxers, belief in homeopathy, astrology, etc... It has nothing to do with good or bad imagination. An egghead can imagine Star Wars or Lord of the Rings but that doesn't mean they aren't imaginative when someone tells them a grouse predicted a death as though they actually believed it.

It's interesting you see it like that. I bet there's a story there! :p :) xx

I guess I'm just more open minded about those things. I think you can do that, as well as treat science with respect (I have a chemistry degree after all). I just think it's good not to think the sum of what we have in science is everything that is.

well it does mean they're not imaginative, in a certain way. but it doesn't mean they're not imaginative in other ways.

when I read your comment I was like, "wow coming to the defense of calling other people crazy and not seeing the universe with wonder." yeah, only what you know, or what you're told, can happen, nothing outside of that. all vaccines are safe. only conventional medicine works. there's nothing we don't understand. a little arrogant much? extraordinary conservatism leads to extraordinary ignorance. i believe in astrology, and i love it. i reckon homeopathy definitely works. i don't want to get vaccinated. i'm guessing you enjoy hating on people who don't share your opinions, and you're sure their stupider and you're smarter, but you can't admit that, because it's about "facts". thanks "asiachick"

"those kinds of beliefs", "those kinds of people", "those countries", sounds pretty high-horse judgemental and discriminatory. but also hypocritical. here's how i see it coming across...so beliefs like your mother really cares about you and doesn't resent you? beliefs like praying at the temple is going to help you? and grandma is not supid for doing so? beliefs like what dragged our ancestors out of the incomprehensible universe and gave them a bit of reassurance? oh, now we have a couple "facts" a bit of science, just throw all that away? Because we've become so sure? Beliefs like indigenous people have a spiritaul connection to a piece of land? who cares, log the fuck out of it. beliefs like that scrap of sweater you carry around form when you were a kid is somehow special or lucky for you? beliefs like your worthless life has any meaning beside being a collection of atoms? Oh, yes, science, please account me and sum up my worth and give meaning to my life? without beliefs "like those" we're rootless. maybe you hate that part of your humanness, but you can't "science" your way outta that. you'll face to face it, or be perpetually uncomfortable in your skin and in the thousands of years of human culture that died before you to bring you the privilege of where you are now.

but we can't add it up, and measure it, so chuck it all away right? i'm glad you have solved the riddle of truth in the universe. what's it like being god and knowing everything absolutely? please enlighten me in your infinite wisdom and rid my life of uncomfortable uncertainty and pesky ambiguity and unknowns, actually, nope, i'm comfortable in all that, and i think i prefer a mystery. plus, i could never understand anything significant. my feeble human mind is just not up to the task of grokking reality. i can just tell you what i see.

This isn't an English creative writing class hangout space. It's a space dedicated to intellectual curiosity.

Quite ironic you hoisted yourself on a high horse to write that comment.

I feel you about that. :p Well, what can I say? I thought it was the right thing to do at the time :P ;) xx;p

i'll make this space whatever i want. no one tells me what kind of space this is. i decide what space this is for me. you don't define what "this space is" for me or anyone else, I decide I make this place what I choose it to be for myself, and so does everyone else. seems you have a problem with that.

you dont think stories are interesting intellectually? they're the most effective way to convey meaning.

how intellectually curious is it to assume that you know everything, can dismiss all hidden connections and have contempt for the beliefs of others? that's not great, you're defending your contempt of someone's belief in the context of a story about their relatives passing. and now you try to define what this space is, and I suppose you live by that, do you? the irony is you don't even live by what you say it is.

you, dude, were already up on that high horse before i got up here to address you.

you want me to address you from the ground? yeah, i get that's where you'd like to see people...you just wnat to say your peice and have everyone silent... but if i see you push someone, i push back and now you don't like that, that's a big irony: you're the one up on the high horse. that's the irony, you don't like it if someone comes up there to address you. Ok for you, but not others? if you can't take it bro, don't dish it out yeah.

I'm so glad you think highly of my English, good Sir. You should hear me speak one day!

Humans are also great at seeing patterns in noise and we like to attribute various things to things we see. So its also likely that you remember these coincidences because of your loved ones deaths and don't remember the many other times these animals were around because nothing happened to make them memorable. Also, "later that year" is a very long period of time for something to happen.

I like the word describing this tendency:

apophenia : the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)

I learned the word on account of http://apophenia.info which is open source software used for the book "Modeling With Data" by Ben Klemens. His "21st Century C" is more commonly encountered.

I love how people will do anything to deny the lizard brain. We have a “spidey” sense just like all the other animals and for good reason. Ignore it at your peril should you ever have a brush with the side of nature that cares not for your “lack of studies”.

I’m a strong proponent for listening to your gut, but that’s very different from a bird landing on your home predicting death, especially when the correlation is weak (sometime later that year). It’s easy to attribute something to something else if there’s an indeterminate timeframe in between.

Remember that people see what they want to see in noise too. Clouds often look like something tangible, that doesn’t mean it’s a sign. If I squint, I can see shapes in pretty much any random pattern. And people tend to remember events that they attribute meaning too (in this case the old wives tale about the birds and then the family member dying) and forget the events that have no meaning to them (how many times did the person see said birds without anything happening and just forgetting about it?)

Nobody has yet managed to prove the existence of the supernatural, but many people have tried. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it seems pretty unlikely, especially when other better-understood causes exist.

It doesn't have to be supernatural. We know, for example, that dogs can smell various diseases. Also, someone pointed out that as people age and become ill, they tend to do less outside the house, and shy animals will start to come out and stay closer.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Blanket ridicule of such phenomena is just as irrational as are many superstitions.

Sure. But in this particular case, it sounds like there was a fairly longish period of time between seeing the "omen" and the supposed effect. Yes, the shy animals coming out was given as a reasonable explanation.

Over a period of time enough people noticed a correlation that it became an “old farmers/wives tale”. Had a university done a study with equal or lesser N you’d probably have taken it as fact. LOL

We're talking about birds portending human death. The author even suggested a likely explanation for how the old wives tale started (animals being attracted to run down places because the building's owner is being cared for elsewhere), which would seem to indicate they don't actually believe birds can tell when someone is going to die. I don't think this situation qualifies as "Spidey sense".

The existence of cognitive biases may help in some instances, and may harm in others. But they are not a substitute for data and proper experimentation or mechanism of actions.

It’s all data. Even the old farmers tales.

Could be a gentle way for an elder to let their grandchild know that they are passing soon.

Does the Grouse know? Probably not. The grandmother would though.

We had similar sayings around the number of crows you'd see together. As I got older, I realized if you spend enough time outside you'll see any combination of crows you might need to fit the rhyme and have a little talk.

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.

We would say "Crow" instead of "for".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_for_Sorrow_%28nursery_rhym...

Huh - I know these numbers from a Counting Crows song (“A Murder of One”, one of my favorites). Never knew this came from cultural heritage.

Interesting, in the UK I know this for magpies but I also know some additional lines which are absent from the Wiki page…

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, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a bird you must not miss.

EDIT: It seems the 8/9/10 lines are from Magpie, a British children’s TV show: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie_(TV_series)#Theme_son...

In rural England I've heard of that for magpies (which are corvids I think), but never crows themselves.

Someone I know from Scotland sings a song with the same sort of pattern but about crows proper (like 'Ten green bottles' but for crows - "the last craw wasna' there at a'").

That's a very nice way of seeing things. Thanks for that.

Everything is filtered through human perception and pattern-matching. Everything. There's a difference between groupthink religion (which tends to spread exponentially when unchecked) and harmless little beliefs like this. So what if someone notices a pattern where there isn't one?

It's known that animals can sense certain scents that can indeed be foreshadowing of death or health decline. Isn't it even the slightest bit possible that the grouse may have smelled something that humans couldn't begin to perceive? More importantly, do you have any proof or knowledge that would actively disprove this? No, that's not a requirement in science, but it is a handy discussion aid.