Hawk: Any of various birds of prey characteristically having a short hooked bill and strong claws adapted for seizing. One who favours a warlike or aggressive foreign policy. To peddle goods aggressively, especially by calling out.
Like the eagle, the falcon, or the vulture, the hawk is normally associated with other predators. The traits of hunting and capturing, and the exceptional eyesight that are innate to the bird are what seem to be the most notable characteristics of the creature. Provided are examples of the hawk as it appears in a storytelling context.
African Mythology: In the book African Myths and Folktales by Carter Goodwin Woodson, the hawk appears in a tale as betrothed to a hen. Provided is a paraphrased version of the story.
Why the Hawk Catches Chickens
Once upon a time, there was a young female hen that lived in the forest with her parents. The Hawk who flew every day in the morning during the same time, at eleven o'clock, was flying circles above the forest. With his keen eyes, the hawk spied the hen down below. She was pecking at the ground and picking up grains near her father's home. The hawk flew down to meet the hen, he landed upon a rock, as hawks avoid perching on the ground. He greeted the hen and charmed her. After they talked awhile, he offered to marry her, to which she agreed.
The hawk presented a dowry to the parents of the hen, most of which was paid in corn. The following day, the hawk carried the hen off to his home. But there was another creature that was in love with the hen. A rooster who lived near the home of her parents had found out she had gone off with the hawk. He had loved her ever since he had developed spurs, and so he decided he would try to steal the hen away from the hawk. The rooster travelled to the home of the hawk, and when the bird had flown away in the morning, he stood outside and crowed very loudly to get the attention of the hen.
The hen upon hearing the inviting crow of the rooster was so impressed and could not stop herself from going out to meet him. The rooster beckoned her to come with him, and they walked back home to the house of her parents, and all this time the rooster could not stop strutting and crowing with victory. Now, nothing escapes the piercing gaze of the hawk, and even though the bird had left its home that morning, it had watched all that had happened while it flew overhead. The hawk who was angered by the sight of this, flew to the king of birds to seek justice on the matter.
The bird king summoned the parents of the hen, and declared as was the custom in such a matter, they must pay back the dowry to the hawk. But the parents, who lived modestly, were in no position to repay the hawk. Upon hearing this, the king of birds then granted the hawk permission to claim any offspring of the roosters. In lieu of payment for the debt, the hawk was free to snatch any children brought forth by the hen and the rooster. And if the rooster protested on the matter, the bird king would refuse him any audience. And so wherever a hawk is seen swooping down and making off with chickens, this is repayment for a dowry that should have been paid long ago.
Norse Mythology: The cosmic tree known as Ash Yggdrasil is a bridge between the heavens and the underworld, which sprung from the primordial abyss. Of the creatures that dwell within the tree, there are two birds that are seen perched at the top of the tree. Alexander Porteous writes of the hawk;
"An eagle sits in stately majesty on the topmost bough, with a keen-eyed hawk named Veorfolnir, perched on his head between his eyes who gives him advice. The eagle symbolizes the atmosphere, and the hawk symbolises the external ether."
Aesop's Fables: The hawk appears in a number of fables. In the Townsend version, the hawk is written about in the tale of The Hawk and the Nightingale:
"A nightingale, sitting aloft upon an oak and singing according to his want, was seen by a Hawk who, being in need of food, swooped down and seized him. The Nightingale, about to lose his life, earnestly begged the Hawk to let him go, saying that he was not big enough to satisfy the hunger of a Hawk who, if he wanted food, ought to pursue the larger birds. The Hawk, interrupting him, said: I should indeed have lost my senses if I should let go food ready in my hand, for the sake of pursuing birds which are not yet even within sight.”
And another tale where the hawk makes off with the catch of the day in The Mouse the Frog and the Hawk:
"A Mouse and a Frog struck up a friendship; they were not well mated, for the Mouse lived entirely on land, while the Frog was equally at home on land or in the water. In order that they might never be separated, the Frog tied himself and the Mouse together by the leg with a piece of thread. As long as they kept on dry land all went fairly well; but, coming to the edge of a pool, the Frog jumped in, taking the Mouse with him, and began swimming about and croaking with pleasure. The unhappy Mouse, however, was soon drowned, and floated about on the surface in the wake of the Frog. There he was spied by a Hawk, who pounced down on him and seized him in his talons. The Frog was unable to loose the knot which bound him to the Mouse, and thus was carried off along with him and eaten by the Hawk."
Painting: As the hawk is a predatory creature, the bird is often depicted in painted scenes of the hunt, where the creature is shown surprising and descending upon its prey.
The French artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry was known for his vivid and rich paintings of animals. In his work Hawk attacking Partridges and a Rabbit, the hawk is painted with the full wingspan of the bird spread out. The bird is a bright white colour, with black-tipped feathers on its wings. The creature is mere feet from the ground and has a partridge in its clutches. Four other of the same birds are seen retreating on the ground, a crouched rabbit can also be seen fleeing. The dramatic scene is tempered by a soft blue sky and clusters of bushes and hills in the background.
The Flemish artist Pieter Boel created a scene titled A hawk hunting ducks on a lake. The painting shows the mad scramble of five ducks on a lake who flee from a hawk that swoops down to seize one of them. The head of the hawk is painted downwards as it dives towards them, while its talons are empty but clawed at the ready. The hawk is black with the underside of its down a beige colour, and its feathers are striped.
The French artist Jacques Charles Oudry painted a similar scene in his work Hawk attacking Wild Duck. Two mallards flee from a hawk that has surprised them as it swoops in from behind tall blades of grass.
Poetry: The Hawk makes for a sinister subject in verse and poetry, and much like painting, the subject of the hunt is the area of focus for many poems.
The Hawk
On Sunday the hawk fell on Bigging
And a chicken screamed
Lost in its own little snowstorm.
And on Monday he fell on the moor
And the Field Club
Raised a hundred silent prisms.
And on Tuesday he fell on the hill
And the heavy lamb
Never knew why the loud collie straddled him.
And on Wednesday he fell on a bush
And the blackbird
Laid by his little flute for the last time.
And on Thursday he fell on Cleat
And peerie Tom's rabbit
Swung in a single arc from shore to hill.
And on Friday he fell on a ditch
By the rampant rat,
That eye, that tooth, quenched his flame.
And on Saturday he fell on Bigging
And Jock lowered his gun
And wailed a small wing over the corn.
George Mackay Brown
Sea-Hawks
The six-foot nest of the sea-hawk,
Almost inaccessible,
Surveys from the headland and the lonely, the violent waters.
I have driven him off,
Somewhat foolhardily,
And look into the fierce eye of the offspring.
It is any eye of fire,
An eye of crystal,
A threat of ancient purity,
Power of an immense reserve,
An agate-well of purpose,
Life before man, and maybe after.
How many centuries of sight,
In this piercing, inhuman, imperfection
Stretch the gaze off the rocky promontory,
To make the mind exult
At the eye of a sea-hawk
A blaze of grandeur, permanence, of the impersonal.
Richard Eberhart
Hurt Hawks
The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clottered shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week waiting for death, their is game
without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it,
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come a torment him
At distance no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild god of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.
You do not know him, you communal people, or you have
forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying,
remember him.
I'd sooner, accept the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the
great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed
under his talons when he moved.
We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening,
asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance, I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed,
Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river
cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.
Robinson Jeffers
What other examples of Hawks can you think of?
Is there a Hawk in your own work, how does the bird function?