Familiar

THE GORBEYSHe started for the landing,one morning quite late,But little did thinkof his terrible fate.Down came two bluejays,a gorbey and tookThe mortal remainsof that ignorant cook.Now its young folk take warningof the birds be aware;of bluejays and gorbiesthat pepper the air.When you go out a-walking,be armed and keep lookfor the damndable crittersThat haunt Beaver BrookAnon

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"The Man Who Plucked the Gorbey" has been the most common talebrought back from the woods-camps of New Brunswick and Maine.Folklorist Edward Ives collected more than one hundred variants of thelegend, each attested to be the truth, with the human culprit named.The word "gorbey" is no longer much used, but the Anglo-Normans ofBritain understood "gorb" to describe any fledgling bird; one which had notyet developed its flight-feathers. Alternately, a gorb was an adult birdwhose feathers had been plucked. We would guess that the word came toEngland with the Normans, the Old French form being "corbel", from theLatin "corvus". Since Roman times, birds have had an important place inaugury, the forecasting of the future through observation of theinteractions of flocks, with black birds being the preferred focus of thisart.

1

For another version, see Edith Fouke, Explorations InCanadian Folklore, p. 176.

The blackest of birds (figuratively speaking) comprise the familystill known as the "Corvidae". These are: the Gray or Canada Jay, the BlueJay, the Raven and the Crow. Robie W. Tufts has said that the Gray Jay hasno peers for boldness and impudence. "It is a common practice for it toenter a camp to steal food when the camper's back is turned. The furtrapper hates it whole-heartedly, for the very good reason that it stealsthe bait from his trap lines, often before he is out of sight when makinghis rounds..."

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This explains the designation "camp-robber". Described as"a magnified chickadee" this bird "will eat absolutely anything. It willpeck at a deer carcass...make off with soap and candles that have been leftaround the camp, and the Indians claim it will eat mocassins and furcaps.

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Among them, this bird was the "wiskidjak", which the white meninterpreted as "whisky jack". The wiskidjak coveted moose-meat as muchas stale buscuits and whisky, and was always willing to guide people tothis animal in exchange for meat from the carcass. In the elder days, theAbenaki hunters said that a powerful spirit lived within this bird, andwhen they hunted they listened for his cries of "Gee! Gee! Hungrrry!"Following them through the woods they would ultimately spot game. Atother times, they did not welcome his company, and Fannie Eckstrom, saidthat the natives "hated Whisky Jack, and a bullet was their usual greeting(for him).

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In my grandfathers day, white men followed the gorbie in thesame belief, but they claimed his cry was "Jesus, Jesus, cold!" In anyevent, neither group of hunters made serious attempts to shoot thesebirds (unless the shot was silver). When Eckstrom offered two dollarseach for specimens of eggs, she was surprised that there was no rush ather door, and concluded that, "there may be some superstition connected

2

Robie W. Tufts, The Birds of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1961, p.308.

3

Edward D. Ives, "the Man Who Plucked the Gorbey, asquoted by Foukes,

4

Edith Foukes, from "Concerning the Bad REpute of WhiskeyJohn", 1902, quoted in Edith Foukes book, p. 186.

with (it)."

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It was in fact frequently suggested that gorbies might housethe departed souls of dead woodsmen, but there were worse suppositions. In a typical run-in, a Gray Jay watched while lumbermen gatheredwood, built a noon-day fire, melted snow for tea and popped open the topsof lard-buckets, which contained their lunches. Instantly, there was awhirl of gray and a biscuit snatched between hand and mouth. All of the jays were universally fearless, and after they fed, would harasswoodsmen, dashing under a coat-tail or up a sleeve or pant-leg. Most menlaughed at these antics, and gladly parted with a bit of food in exchangefor the show, and these referred to the jays as the woodsman's friend.Others insisted it be called a moose-bird, meat-bird, grease-bird, orvenison hawk, because of its seemingly bottomless stomach and thievery.Ives claimed that one camp cook threw out stale doughnuts, and watchedaghast as a bird looped one over his left foot, another over the right, andflew away with a third in his beak. In Britain men, who were voracious orgreedy in their eating, or other habits, were once called gorbs aftersimilar black birds. A man with an expanded waist-line was called agorbelly. Gorbies never seemed to tire of feeding, earning them the localnickname "greedy gorbeys". In every lumber camp, there seems to havebeen at least one thin, puritanical man, who disliked their gluttony.Gorbeys were not easy to catch but according to legend they mightbe entrapped by soaking a buscuit in whisky and offering it to them. Thegreediest of the lot became intoxicated and so drunk he could no longerfly. A humane woodsworker might tie a shoe-lace or baloney wrappingabout the neck of a gorbey as chastisement, but ill-humoured men pluckedthe feathers from such birds and left them to the elements. This wasconsidered ill- omened since most lumbermen knew that any injury doneto a gorbey reflected on the person who did the damage. Those whoplucked the gorbey often lost their hair if the bird survived. Those whoinjured the wing or leg of this black bird soon suffered damage to an armor a leg, and those who killed a gorbey had a short life-expectancy.Charles Sibley of Argle, Maine told Harold Ives that ArchieStackhouse was one man who denuded a gorbey: "...he picked him, all buthis wings. In February. Picked him all off...and he said, "Go you you son ofa bitch and get a new coat." And they said the next morning he woke up,

5

Ibid, p. 187.