Crow Augury

I have no idea where it started, but there are many variations on the 'counting crows' rhyme. I first learned it as:

One for sorrow, Two for joy
 Three for a girl, Four for a boy
 Five for silver, Six for gold
 Seven for a secret never to be told.

That is the version used in the song "A Murder of One" by Counting Crows, and undoubtedly where they got their name.

A variation reported from Maine:

One crow sorrow,
Two crows joy,
Three crows a letter,
Four crows a boy.

Many other versions exist, from various regions. These below come from user Kerrie posted on surlalunefairytales.com:

Counting Rhyme
(from The Folklore of Birds, by Laura C. Martin, 1993) 

 One for sorrow, two for mirth,
 Three for a wedding, four for a birth,
 Five for silver, six for gold,
 Seven for a secret not to be told.
 Eight for heaven, nine for hell,
 And ten for the devil's own sel'.

Counting Crows (Emailed to me by a 'Net acquaintance) 

 One for sorrow,
 two for joy,
 three for a girl,
 for for a boy,
 five for silver,
 six for gold,
 seven for a secret,
 never to be told,
 eight for a wish,
 nine for a kiss,
 ten for a time
 of joyous bliss.
 

Magpie Rhyme (from Bird Brains, by Candace Savage, 1997. 
The Rhyme she quotes is from The Dictionary of Superstitions, 
published by Oxford University Press in 1992) 

 One for sorrow,
 two for mirth,
 three for a wedding,
 four for birth,
 five for rich,
 six for poor,
 Seven for a witch,
 I can tell you no more.

Counting Rhyme (another from an email acquaintance) 

 One crow sorrow,
 Two crows mirth,
 three, a wedding,
 four, a birth,
 five brings silver,
 six takes wealth,
 seven crows a secret,
 More I can nae tell.

Counting Crows (again, from an email acquaintance) 

 One for sadness, two for mirth;
 Three for marriage, four for birth;
 Five for laughing, six for crying:
 Seven for sickness, eight for dying;
 Nine for silver, ten for gold;
 Eleven a secret that will never be told.
 
A third found in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is: 
 
 One's sorrow, two's mirth,
 Three's a wedding, four's a birth,
 Five's a christening, six a dearth,
 Seven's heaven, eight is hell,
 And nine's the devil his old self.

And there is this page within the oldwivestales group on Yahoo:

The practice of Augury has been around for centuries. It is about predicting the future by counting the number of crows present at significant times, Sometimes the direction of their flight is significant, or the time of day at which they are seen. Complex rules have been drawn up by some augurist, while simple rhymes are used by others.
The basic rhyme, which goes something like "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy.." has been a popular children's chant off and on through the years. It has recently been made popular again by the band Counting Crows, which has put the rhyme to music.
Crow augury may have started off as Magpie augury. The oldest rhymes, including at least one dating to the 1600's, deal with counting magpies rather than crows.
The magpie rhyme seems to have been left on European shores, though. In North America, most people who know the rhyme use it in reference to crows.
Various version of the rhyme exist,but the basics are as follows:

• One: Sorrow. An unhappy event. A change for the worse. Maybe loss or a death.
• Two: Joy. A surprise. A change for the better. Sometimes the finding of something.
• Three: Marriage. A celebration. Sometimes the birth of a female child. Other times some significant event around a daughter.
• Four: Birth. Usually the birth of a male child. Sometimes a significant event surrounding a son.
• Five: Silver. Sometimes costly. Usually a positive transaction.
• Six: Gold. Wealth. Sometimes money. Maybe greed. Occasionally a negative transaction.
• Seven: Something of spiritual significance. Often a secret. In some cases witchcraft, or the performing of sacred rites.
• Eight: Something profound. Death, dying, or a glimpse of Heaven. A life-altering journey or experience.
• Nine: Something sensual. Passion, or forbidden delight. In some versions this is corruption, in others it is closer to temptation.
• Ten: Something extreme. An overwhelming sensation. Something paid in full.
• Eleven: Uncertainty. Waiting. Wanting. May be in relation to a spiritual matter.
• Twelve: Fulfillment. Riches (though not always of a material sort). A fruitful labor. Something completed. An end to a problem,or the answer to a question.

And another European version:

One's lucky,
Two's unlucky,
Three is health,
Four is wealth,
Five is sickness
And six is death.

The Airing Of Grievances

My Father is an interesting guy.  He's a doctor, a surgeon, and he doesn't talk about himself all that often.  Usually, we have to ask the right questions to get any answers. 

At Christmas time, wife, daughter and I drove down there and stayed with the Folks a few days for the holiday, along with my sister and her family.  One of those nights, sister, brother-in-law, father and I sat up talking, each nursing a glass of our preferred (rum for me, tequila for my father, and so on).  We talked about this and that, but at one point, my father told us that he had never understood why I had taken the path I had.  I was a smart guy, and was set up for life as an engineer, with the college program and and opportunities, why had a thrown that away and gone into the theatre life?(1)

Talking with my b-i-l a month later, he said that it was like the 'Airing of Grievances' from the famous Seinfeld 'Festivus' episode.  On that show, the father of Jerry's friend George has made up his own midwinter celebration, complete with a 'Festivus Pole' (an aluminum pipe on a stand) and various other traditions, like the 'Feats of Strength', which involved wrestling.  As for the Airing of Grievances itself, "each person tells everyone else all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year."(2)  My b-i-l said he was a bit uncomfortable with this (my sister confirmed that she was as well), that it was a bit personal.  He figured that I must have been taken aback by my father's thoughts.

I did not see it that way at all.  Actually, in a way, I agreed with him on much of it.  During that night's conversation, I set my father straight on a few details (mostly timeline stuff), and also explained why things turned out as they had.  First, I had not paid much attention in high school.  I coasted.  I did what I had to do to get the grades I needed, but that was it.  I never really learned how to learn.  Hitting college was a pretty big shock for me, and my grades suffered; but nowhere did they suffer more than in Mathematics and Physics.  You see, these disciplines build heavy on their foundations, and if you don't have that strong basis, it is easy to get lost.  I got a D in my second-year physics class in college - I couldn't keep up.  That engineering program I was in, well, a D was the end of that.  Not that I was all too enthusiastic about the program anyway.  It was very competitive.  Only a handful of students survived the three years and went on.  So, the serious folks were not all that friendly: it was every man for himself, and I don't respond well to that.  Plus, I just didn't have the all-consuming 'physics brain' to make this happen.  I remember walking across the campus one time with a fellow physics student, and it was snowing.  He stopped, pointed and said, "I wonder what the angular momentum of this snowflake is."  Yeah, I pretty much knew right there that I was cooked.

Theatre was, in hindsight, the path of least resistance, and I took it.  This is not to say that I didnt work very hard: I had longer hours than any of those physics students, by far.  But the company was good, the process entertaining, and I learned a lot about many things: history, literature, social interaction, even some electronics.  I told my father than I would not go back and change what happened, because it made me who I am today, and I am pretty happy with that. 

It's funny, now I read a ton of science and math.  I recently finished How To Ace Calculus: The Streetwise Guide, and I will admit that more than once I said to myself, "Oh, so that's what that meant...."  I am reading books about mathematics and cosmology.  So yeah, I bet that I could have taken that path.  And in the back of my mind, though I would never tell my father, I believe this: if I had had a little bit of guidance, of someone explaining to me why all this is important....  Ah well.  Being a teenager at the time, I am pretty sure that I wouldn't have listened anyway.  My father blamed the high school counselor.  Heh.


(1) I was a theatrical sound designer for many years.  I even have a masters degree (MFA) from the University of Illinois in that very subject.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus