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By Carina Magyar in Animals —

V: Nightingale

The story of Ilya Maromets, defender of Kyiv.

quintidi, the 5th of Floréal, Year CCXXXI
A nightingale prepared to warble. Photo by Andrey Gulivanov / Unsplash

Good morning. Today is quintidi, the 5th of Floréal, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le rossignol, a finch with a beautiful song.

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The nightingale's nighttime trill has captivated cultures across the Northern Hemisphere, but it takes on specifically impactful significance in the former Ottoman Empire, where it is such a revered bird that it is the national symbol of such different countries as Iran, Croatia, and Ukraine. In Persian tradition, the nightingale is the lover of the rose, and this is taken a step further as a religious teaching in the Baha'i faith, symbolizing those who constantly seek divine truth: "Like a moth, one must be a lover of the light, in whatever lamp it may shine; and like a nightingale, one must be enamored of the rose, in whatever bower it may bloom."

There's an old Kyivan Rus folk tale from its days as a sometime Tatar vassal state which speaks of fighting for independence from the yoke of an invader. While in many stories, a bird becomes a symbol of freedom or hope, here we see the opposite – the bird as a nuisance from afar that must be silenced.

The story is of a boy named Ilya from a village in modern-day Ukraine called Murom. He was a sickly child, barely able to walk, and he would rest upon his parent's great stone hearth all day while they tilled their fields. Some pilgrims came by the farmhouse hoping to beg or work for food, and they saw the young Ilya, and took pity on him. They performed a healing ritual, and somehow destiny knitted this healing into Ilya's bones, making him not only able-bodied but mighty. He leapt up and joined his parents in the field, much to their surprise. This child would go on to liberate Kyiv.

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