Four Jackdaws of the Apocalypse.

Something mildly unusual happened yesterday. I was walking along Church Lane when I saw a group of four jackdaws flying towards me and about to pass overhead. There’s nothing unusual in that; I see flocks of jackdaws of various sizes just about every time I perambulate the Shire. What was unusual was my reaction: I was startled and felt a sense that there was something of deep significance about them, even though they were doing nothing different than they usually do.

The phrase ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse’ dropped immediately into my mind, and I shrugged it off as nothing more than my habit of anthropomorphising birds and animals (see my referring to the eight sheep as ‘the Clanton gang’ in an earlier post.) But it didn’t explain why I found such a common sight startling and significant, so tonight I did a bit of research on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation.

It seems that the first horse and rider was said to portend plague, the second war, the third famine, and the fourth death (more explicitly, the death of a quarter of the population.) I suppose it was inevitable that I, being somewhat given to ascribing portentous relevance to the behaviour of birds, would connect this with the outbreak of Covid, the war in Ukraine (which some people fear might lead to a wider and more catastrophic conflict), and the forecast of a worsening cost of living crisis over the next year or so.

So what of the fourth: death? Well, I particularly noted that while three of the birds were flying close together in an orderly triangular formation, the fourth was a little behind and slightly to the side. Was that significant, or was it only notable to me because I have a fondness for regularity in patterns? I expect it was the latter and all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. (Haven’t used that quotation in many a long year.)

(Coincidentally, however, I might also mention that I saw two more skeins of geese flying north-west this evening. That makes eight altogether. I usually see just one, or occasionally two. Where do they come from? Where are they going? Why have I seen four times as many as I normally see?)

And does all this explain why, for a period of about ten years, I used to spend nearly every evening until the wee small hours of the morning writing speculative fiction?