From the Story of the Flood
to Who Killed Laura Palmer:
Documented Words That Talking Birds
Never Said, Should Have Said, or Refused to Say
©1999 by Craig Conley

The attentive owner of a talking bird listens both to what it says and doesn't say. We have taught birds to talk for as long as recorded history, but not all of them have been content merely to mimic. Some have their own stories to tell. And thanks to the humans who have painstakingly transcribed their words, we can still learn from bird talk today.

Take for example the raven, who has both saved and doomed people with its voice. In 40 B.C. Virgil wrote that “If a timely raven on my left hand... had not warned me at all costs to cut short this last dispute, neither your friend Moeris nor Menalcas himself would be alive today” (Eclogue IX). But on May 26, 1873, vicar Robert Francis Kilvert recorded in his diary that two ravens flew over a sick man’s house crying “Corpse, Corpse.” The next day, the man died.

Undoubtedly the most famous thing a raven has ever said is “Nevermore,” recorded by the poet Edgar Allan Poe (1844). Poe’s raven knocks at a scholar’s door and, to every one of his questions, replies “Nevermore.” Terrorized, the man finally cries “‘Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’ Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

On the other end of the avian spectrum is the gentle nightingale. Filmmaker David Lynch has transcribed a message that a nightingale told a young woman (paraphrased here): “There is a love meant for you, and I have found it. One day you’ll meet him, and your two hearts will fly through the night and all across the world with me.” (“The Nightingale,” sung by Julee Cruise on her album Floating Into the Night.)

Talking birds have even figured into world mythology. The Greek god Apollo fell in love with a mortal, and his pure-white raven reported her unfaithfulness to him. Enraged by the news, Apollo turned his messenger’s feathers black. The Norse God Odin owned two ravens, one named Thought and one Memory. These birds flew through the world each day to bring their master news about mankind. In ancient Egypt, a falcon called Horus, representing the sky, was held sacred.

Talking birds also appear in Christianity. Ecclesiastes 10:20 says “Even in your thought, do not curse the king . . . for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter.” The stork is held sacred in Sweden because legend has it that it flew around the cross crying “Styrka, Styrka!” when Jesus was crucified.

Oftentimes birds have literary aspirations. Some of their stories have been collected in Scenes of the Private and Public Life of the Animals, published in Paris in 1840. For example, there’s a German turtle-dove’s final literary work. This dove is orphaned as a chick and later goes insane when his loved one marries another. He spends the rest of his life in an asylum, writing poetry. There are also letters of a French swallow -- a would-be writer who naively sets out on a world tour. She encounters a variety of birds, such as a nightingale tenor who sings “By a Brilliant Chirping” and advises her to live for pleasure. However, the swallow finds misery around every corner and eventually returns home depressed but worldly-wise.

Also included in the volume is the story of a white blackbird. This rare bird wrote an enormous autobiographical epic that made him famous. As a chick, the blackbird is disowned for being white. In search of his true species, he encounters a messenger pigeon, a magpie, a dove, and a cockatoo poet (who is a member of the Académie Française, and author of “The King of the Cockatoos,” “Melodrama, Archidrama,” “Crested Odes,” and “The Shadows: Fugitive Poems.”) But it is a human who finally reveals to the blackbird his rarity. Once famous, he marries an English blackbird who claims to be white also, but they separate when he finds her bleaching her feathers.

In spite of all these amazing talking birds, parrots are still the best-known. The ultimate parrot story was preserved nearly two-hundred-fifty years ago in Azor, the Enchanted Prince by the Abbé Du Guay de Launay (1750). It is about an island populated by mutes and a parrot who changed their lives forever. The parrot introduced himself with words to this effect:

I am in fact an enchanted African prince, the son of King Acroupski. My father became angry when he realized I wasn’t learning anything and could only parrot the stories my tutor told me. Insulted, my tutor (who possessed magical powers) turned me into a real parrot. I cannot regain my human form until I bring the gift of language to a people who are ignorant of it and until a princess chooses love for me over political power.

This is arguably the most amazing thing a parrot ever uttered -- which leads us to consider the most amazing things a parrot never uttered. Following are documented examples of parrot silence (and things other talking birds never said). If you were surprised by the bird-talk so far, you haven’t heard anything yet.

The Parrot

The Latin Mass, Popular French Songs, and Selections from St. Matthew

Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Love in the Time of Cholera describes a highly remarkable parrot who was notorious for both what he said and refused to say. The bird was a royal Paramaribo parrot. He had a yellow head, a black tongue, and was deplumed. He arrived on a ship just in from Curaçao. He “knew only the blasphemies of sailors, but said them in a voice so human that he was well worth the extravagant price of twelve centavos.”

The new owner, Dr. Urbino, knew the parrot had a remarkable mind the night the house was robbed. The parrot barked like a dog and yelled “Stop thief stop thief” . . . a phrase he hadn’t heard in his new household. So Dr. Urbino decided to see how much he could teach the bird.

Dr. Urbino tutored the parrot every afternoon for years, until he learned “to speak French like an academician.” Then Dr. Urbino taught him the Latin accompaniment to the Catholic Mass and “selected passages from the Gospel according to St. Matthew.” The parrot failed to learn the four arithmetic functions, however.

The parrot was also an accomplished singer. He learned by heart the songs of popular French singers Yvette Guilbert and Aristide Bruant. “He sang them in a woman’s voice if they were hers, in a tenor’s voice if they were his, and ended with impudent laughter that was a masterful imitation of the servant girls when they heard him singing in French.”

But the bird didn’t perform on call. He was a “maniacal parrot who did not speak when asked to but only when it was least expected, but then he did do with a clarity and rationality that were uncommon among human beings.”

The parrot’s accomplishments became so famous that distinguished visitors traveled great distances to see him. The President of the Republic, Don Marco Fidel Suárez, paid him his highest honor when he arrived “to confirm the truth of his reputation.” But for two hours the parrot refused to utter a single syllable, “ignoring the pleas and threats of public humiliation of Dr. Urbino.” Despite this defiance, the parrot continued to hold a high position in the household. He perched on a mango tree and dined on ripe bananas and water. (Gabriel García Máquez. Love in the Time of Cholera. N.Y.: Knopf, 1988.)

The Word of God (Spoken in the Tongues of the Holy Spirit)

In Gustav Flaubert’s Un cœur simple, an elderly servant-woman named Félicité finds herself all alone except for her beloved parrot, Loulou. Loulou has a green body, pink wing-tips, a blue forehead, and a golden throat. When Loulou dies, the woman has it stuffed and keeps it beside her.

Eventually, she kneels before Loulou when she says her prayers. This simple woman has confused the talking bird with the Holy Ghost, source of the gift of tongues. When Félicité dies, she imagines the heavens opening up for her and a gigantic parrot floating over her head.

Flaubert borrowed a stuffed parrot from the Museum of Rouen when he wrote Un cœur simple, and based Loulou upon it. He set this stuffed parrot, beneath a glass dome, on his writing desk. (Discussed in-depth in Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes. N.Y.: Knopf, 1985.)

An Eyewitness Account of the 1848 Paris Uprising

Another of Flaubert’s works, L’Education sentimentale (1869), tells of a man who wanders through a district of Paris that was destroyed by the chaotic uprising of 1848. Amid the wreckage, an occasional house remained untouched. Through one window, he can see a clock, some prints hanging on the wall, and a bare parrot’s perch.

No parrot remained to tell the story of the carnage it witnessed. (Examined in Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes. N.Y.: Knopf, 1985.)

The Story of the Flood

One of the most unusual instances of parrot silence ever recorded is found at the end of a story entitled “The Black and the White,” by the great French author Voltaire (1694-1778).

“If you want information,” said Topaz, “I have a parrot that will easily explain it to you. He was born some time before the deluge; he has been in the ark; he has seen a great deal; yet he is but a year and a half old. He will relate to you his history, which is extremely interesting.”

“Go fetch your parrot,” said Rustan, “it will amuse me till I again find myself disposed to sleep.”

“It is with my sister,” said Topaz: “I will go and fetch it. It will please you; its memory is faithful; it relates in a simple manner, without endeavoring to show wit at every turn.”

“So much the better,” said Rustan, “I like that manner of telling stories.”

The parrot being brought to him, spoke in this manner:

N. B. Mademoiselle Catherine Vade could never find the history of the parrot in the commonplace-book of her late cousin Anthony Vade, author of that tale. This is a great misfortune, considering what age that parrot lived in.

And thus the story ends. (The Complete Romances of Voltaire. N. Y.: Walter J. Black, 1927.)

“Hello, Handsome. When did you leave Kansas?”

Comedian Woody Allen recalls sitting in a London pub with author W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham tells him that in order to be a writer, one must take risks and not be afraid to look foolish. He offers Allen an example: “In the first draft of Rain, Sadie Thompson was a parrot. We grope. We take risks.”

If Sadie Thompson had remained a parrot, her last lines in the story would have been: You men! You filthy, dirty pigs! You’re all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!

The story “Rain” was later adapted into a play by John Colton. If Colton had kept Sadie Thompson a parrot, she would have had this amazing line:

Say, do I look that weak of intellect, do I look that artless? Should I marry the little husband of all the world? No, lady, no matter what I am, I’m no pansy stick pin, I broke out of my plush case years ago! [Stolling toward another character] Hello Handsome! When did you leave Kansas?

(Woody Allen. “Reminiscences: Places and People.” Without Feathers, Getting Even, Side Effects. N.Y.: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1989.

(W. Somerset Maugham. “Rain.” The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham. Vol. 1. N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953.

(John Colton and Clemence Randolph. Rain. N. Y.: Liveright Publishing Corp., 1923.)

“I’ve Read These Papers Already”

Comedian Brian Regan imagines what a parrot would say when it is first put in a cage. First, it would sarcastically mention that it happened to have the gift of flight, so what could be a more appropriate than confining it.

Then the parrot would complain that it had read the newspaper already, but had gone to the liberty of whiting out a few typographical errors. (A&E’s An Evening at the Improv. Arts and Entertainment Cable Network, 7 Nov. 1991.)

“Ugh!”

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the lory (an Australian parrot) denies saying “Ugh!” When a mouse starts talking about the earls of Mercia and Northumbria and the archbishop of Canterbury, the lory shivers and cries out “Ugh!” The mouse, frowning, says “I beg your pardon! Did you speak?” “Not I!” the lory says hastily.

The same lory refuses to tell Alice its age. It has a long argument with her and finally grows sulky, saying “I’m older than you, and must know better.” Alice doesn’t accept this reasoning, but the lory refuses to tell its age, so the argument dwindles away. (The Annotated Alice, edited by Martin Gardner. N. Y., New American Library: 1960.)

“Beware of Nearby Cannibals”

Shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe has a parrot named Poll. He caught it (when it was very young) by knocking it out of a tree with a stick. It is “some years” before Crusoe can make the bird speak. He eventually teaches Poll to say his name in a friendly tone. In addition, Poll says, in the bemoaning voice of its master, “Poor Robin Crusoe! Where are you? Where have you been? How come you here?”

When Crusoe sets out on a canoe and lands on another part of the island, Poll finds him and sits on his thumb to talk. “Poor Robin Crusoe!” Poll fails to mention, however, the fact that cannibals are nearby. (Defoe. Robinson Crusoe. 1718. N. Y.: Signet, 1960.)

The Nurk

The Pronoun ‘I’

Comedian Woody Allen tells of the mythical Nurk, a bird which is two inches long and has the power of speech. The Nurk refers to itself only in the third person, saying things such as “He’s a great little bird, isn’t he.”

Allen cites “a lesser-known opera by Holstein” entitled Taffelspitz. This opera is remarkable in a number of ways. One of its characters is a nurk, the other a mute girl. Neither character speaks. They kiss, fall in love, and “both fly around the room till the curtain falls.” (Without Feathers, Getting Even, Side Effects. N. Y.: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1989.)

The Bluebird

Valuable Information, Secret Reports

The American poet Carl Sandburg is intrigued by the shine of the bluebird’s feathers. He writes: “Bluebird, we come to you for facts, for valuable / Information, for secret reports. / Bluebird, tell us, what do you feed on?” (Bluebird, What Do You Feed On?” The Sandburg Treasury. N.Y.: HBJ, 1970.) But the Bluebird doesn’t give him an answer.

The Dodo

What a Caucus-race Is

Lewis Carroll transcribes a conversation in Wonderland between Alice and a number of wet animals. The Dodo bird suggests that the best thing to get everyone dry would be a Caucus-race. Alice asks, “What is a Caucus-race?” The Dodo is at a loss for words, and finally answers that the best way to explain it is to do it. But he never does put it in words. (The Annotated Alice, edited by Martin Gardner. N. Y., New American Library: 1960.)

The Finch

Why We Must Die

Poet E. E. Cummings asks a “sweet carolling” purple finch why “this summer world (and you and i / who love so much to live)” must perish.

The finch answers that if it should tell him anything it would not be able to sing. (“o purple finch / please tell me why.” Complete Poems 1913-1962. N.Y.: H. B.J., 1972.)

The Goose

At What Age it Made its First Journey

The silence of the wild goose compelled the poet Issa (1763-1823?) to ask, “Wild goose, wild goose, / At what age / Did you make your first journey?” The goose has not answered yet. (“Wild Goose, Wild Goose.” Talking to the Sun. Ed. by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell. N.Y.: Henry Holt and Co., 1985.)

The Lark

“Do Not Rob My Nest”

Rather than be direct and say “Do not rob my nest,” the lark will make a general threat: “Uiat, uiat, uitan, Co chreach mo neadan? [etc.]” (Translation: “Who harried my nest? I will chuck him over a cliff.”) (Iona Opie and Moira Tatem. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.)

The Myna

Who Killed Laura Palmer

The cult t.v. show Twin Peaks features Waldo, a malnourished myna who witnesses and testifies to the torture of prom queen Laura Palmer. However, Waldo is shot and killed before he has time to reveal Laura’s killer. His testimony (spoken in Laura’s voice) is as follows:

Laura? Laura? Don’t go there. Hurting me. Hurting me. Stop it! STOP IT!

Leo . . . no! Leo . . . no!

Ironically, Leo is the murderer of Waldo. (From Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. ABC Television, 1990.)

The Oven Bird

What to Make of a Diminshed Thing

Poet Robert Frost writes that the oven bird is a harbinger of autumn. It says when leaves are old and the early petal-fall is past.

“The question that he frames in all but words,” Frost says, “Is what to make of a diminished thing.” (“The Oven Bird.” An Approach to Literature. Ed. Cleanth Brooks. N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952.)

The Raven

Ominous Tidings

The poem “Old Woman of Berkely,” by English author Robert Southey (1799), features a talking raven but doesn’t tell what it said:

The Raven croak’d as she sate at her meal,
And the Old Woman knew what he said,
And she grew pale at the Raven’s tale,
And sicken’d and went to her bed.

(Iona Opie and Moira Tatem. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.)

The Skylark

What it’s Thinking

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley asks a skylark many questions, but receives no verbal answers: What art thou? What is most like thee? What sweet thoughts are thine? What objects are the fountains of thy happy strain? What fields or waves or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain? How can thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

Shelley says he’s listening for the answers, but one suspects that he is too caught up in his own rhetorical questions to hear anything. (“To a Skylark.” An Approach to Literature. Ed. Cleanth Brooks et al. N. Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952.)

Conclusion: The Wings of Silence

The above examples of bird silence may be amusing, but they point to two important lessons: birds are intelligent and have something to teach us, and the wise bird owner listens both to what his bird says and to what it doesn’t say. Edward Hersey Richards sums it up best in his poem “A Wise Old Owl”:

A wise old owl sat on an oak,
The more he saw the less the spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard;
Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?

Other Stories to Read About Talking Birds

The Loop by Joe Coomer is a novel in which Lyman, a thirty-year-old orphan, is sipping coffee on the front steps of the trailer he calls home one morning, when a ninety-year-old parrot arrives with a beakful of cryptic sayings -- such as “That which hath wings shall tell the matter” -- and a mysterious past. Convinced that heeding the bird’s wisdom will lead him to answers about himself he so desperately seeks, Lyman combines his night job as a courtesy patrolman, circling the highway that loops around Fort Worth, with days in the library. Together with Fiona, the loquacious librarian, he traces his adopted pet’s origins, and while what Lyman ultimately discovers may not help him piece together his own past, it paves the way for a future he never imagined.

“Meditations of a Parrot” is a poem by John Ashbery which gives us a peek into the mind of a Spanish parrot who was purchased at a fair. He thinks about such things as rocks, thimbles, jackets, roses, dazzling canopies, and Robin Hood. (Talking to the Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People. Ed. Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell. N.Y.: Henry Holt and Co., 1985.)

Voyages of Dr. Dolittle has a West African Gray parrot named Polynesia who teaches Dr. Dolittle how to communicate with animals. Polynesia speaks English and many animal languages. (By Hugh Lofting. 1922. N.Y.: Dell Yearling Books, 1988. See also The Story of Dr. Dolittle, 1920.)

Grimm’s Fairy Tales features dozens of stories about talking birds. There’s a pair of pigeons in “Cinderella” who tell the prince “The shoe is too small, Not the right bride at all.” In another story, there’s a raven who declares “I am a king’s daughter by birth, and am bewitched, but thou canst set me free.” There’s an eagle who cries “I am king! I am king!” And a songbird says repeatedly that its mother murdered it, its father ate it, its sister found its bones, wrapped them in a handkerchief, and laid them under a juniper tree. Then it says “Kywitt, kywitt, kywitt I cry, Oh what a beautiful bird am I.” There are also talking sparrows, roosters, ducks, etcetera. (Brothers Grimm. Complete Fairy Tales. Garden City: International Collector’s Library.)

Æsop’s Fables features a caged nightingale who says “If you’ll let me go, I’ll not only promise to sing for you every night, but I’ll also tell you three great truths that every man should know.” This bird keeps its word, but still fools its owner. In another fable, a proud rooster declares a diamond worthless, saying “Give me a grain of good yellow corn any day.” A hawk tells some pigeons, “If you’ll just sign this small contract making me your king, you’ll never have to worry again.” And a crow with borrowed peacock feathers says to his friends, “You crows aren’t colorful enough for someone like me.” (By Alan Doan. Kansas City: Hallmark, 1971.)

Are You My Mother? is the story of a yellow-beaked brown hatchling who ventures out of the nest in search of his mother. He encounters cats, planes, and bulldozers along the way, asking “Are you my mother?” (By Philip D. Eastman. N.Y.: Random House Beginner Books, 1960.)

The Robber Bridegroom has a caged raven who warns Rosamond to “Turn back, my bonny, Turn away home.” If only Rosamond would heed its warning! (By Eudora Welty. 1942. San Diego: HBJ, 1987.)

The Little White Bird features a bird named Solomon who explains to Peter Pan that he’s neither a boy nor a bird, but something “betwixt and between.” (By J. M. Barrie. N.Y.: Scribner, 1909.)

The World of Pooh tells of an owl who says “You can’t sneeze without knowing it.” He also knows all about the “Necessary Dorsal Muscles.” (By A. A. Milne. N.Y.: E. P. Dutton, 1957.)

Charlotte’s Web features a goose and gander who hatch seven goslings. When congratulated, the goose says “It was good management and hard work.” (By E.B. White. N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1952.)

Selected Poems of William Butler Yeats includes “The Hawk,” a poem in which that yellow-eyed bird says that it will not be clapped in a hood or in a cage, and won’t alight upon someone’s wrist. “Now I have learnt to be proud,” the hawk says, “Hovering over the wood / In the broken mist / Or tumbling cloud.” (Third Edition, edited by M. L. Rosenthal. N.Y.: Collier Books, 1986.)

Babar and Father Christmas has sparrows who say “We understand that you are searching for the real live Father Christmas. We know him well.” (By Jean De Brunhoff. Translated by Merle Haas. Miniature edition. N.Y.: Random House, 1991.)