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Question 21. Why do the Latins worship a woodpecker, and all of them abstain strictly front this bird?
Solution. Is it because one Picus by the enchantments
of his wife transformed himself, and becoming a woodpecker uttered oracles, and gave oraculous answers to them
that enquired? Or, if this be altogether incredible and monstrous, there is another of the romantic stories more probable, about Romulus and Remus, when they were exposed
in the open field, that not only a she-wolf gave them suck,
but a certain woodpecker flying to them fed them; for even
now it is very usual that in meads and groves where a
woodpecker is found there is also a wolf, as Nigidius writes.
Or rather, as they deem other birds sacred to various Gods,
so do they deem this sacred to Mars? For it is a daring and
fierce bird, and hath so strong a beak as to drill an oak to
the heart by pecking, and cause it to fall.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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