Black chicken - mystical creature

Chicken and hen, only black suit - what's in itso special? However, there are so many interesting things associated with the usual chernushka that it's time to write a separate article about her. Whatever you may say, a black chicken is a character of fairy tales, fortune telling and superstition.

Chicken - not a bird?

This dismissive remark does notrefers to the black hen, although she also does not know how to fly, like her relatives. But, unlike other domestic birds, it is considered to be a mystical bird. Examples? You are welcome. Some Scandinavian peoples have a belief that a black chicken has a connection with the other world and even feels its vibrations. That is why she was allowed into the cemetery in search of vampires. A chicken sat on the grave - it means that this is where the ghoul lies, it remains only to cook an aspen stake. Many dream books attach great importance to dreams in which there is a layer with black plumage. Most often, she warns of future troubles in the family or with loved ones.

Some peoples of the Caucasus still existtradition, left over from pagan times, to celebrate New Year in spring. Adyghes, for example, call this celebration just as the day of the sacrifice of black chicken. In each family in honor of the holiday this bird is cut. It is a black chicken as a sacrifice that is most pleasing to the gods of the sun and fertility.

Little about the breed

Chickens are black - this is not one breed.Poultry with dark plumage can be of different types and sizes. Crested hens are especially popular, as are the favorite landladies of the housewives, which in addition are also meat ones. Austrolorpas, Minorca, Sumatra - these are also black hens. Of course, they are black with their feathers, and their meat and eggs are ordinary. Although not always.

There is, for example, a special breed of chickens with blackfeathers, beak, legs ... and even with black meat, bones and entrails! By the way, it was known in the 16th century, so it is not the result of selection or mutation. One of the varieties of such a miracle is the Chinese silky chicken, which is happily bred in Europe, however, more with a decorative purpose. And in China, its meat is considered delicious and sold very expensive.

Fairy-tale character

Written in the 19th century by Anton Pogorelsky's fairy tale "The Black Chicken, or Underground People" is popular to this day.

Books with colorful pictures reprintedhundreds of times, cartoons appeared on the screen. Film critics was named the masterpiece of children's cinema film by Ukrainian filmmaker Viktor Gres, shot in 1980 based on the plot of the magic novel "Black Chicken". The content in brief is as follows. Alyosha, a boy who lives in a boarding house far from his parents, once saved a nag from a cook's knife. She, as usual, was not a simple chicken, but a magic one, even a minister of the underworld. With this start a fabulous adventure. For his courage, Alyosha receives a reward from the underground king: now he can know all the tasks without learning the lessons. And here the boy is experiencing a real breaking of character: he begins to dare to teachers, to misbehave and enter. And then he will have to correct himself: his friend, the Minister, does not approve of such behavior and deprives him of his magical gift.

This is such an unusual character of fairy tales and superstitions - an ordinary black hen.