The classic name of the European kingfisher was the halcyon, named after the Greek Dove-goddess Alcyone, leader of the Pleaides or Seven Sisters. The ancients believed Alcyone stilled the waters near mid-winter, so that the Kingfisher could build her nest in open sea. (We know now that kingfishers actually build their nests on shore; whether or not Alcyone calms the Mediterranean is a matter of perspective.) The Halcyon Days are celebrated for seven days before and seven after Yule.

Cherokee myth describes the kingfisher as a wannabe water bird without webbed feet or a good fishing bill; the animals held a council and decided to give the bird a long sharp spear with which to fish. They fastened the spear onto the front of the bird's mouth, and the kingfisher used it to dive from the trees and catch fish, becoming the best fisher of all. A myth from the Andaman Islands off the coast of Thailand has the kingfisher stealing fire from the gods and bringing it to the people.

Another legend claims the kingfisher was the second bird Noah sent to scout for land, but she flew too high and scorched her breast, thus accounting for her blue back and rust-colored breast feathers. Noah, exhibiting his wrath in the grand tradition of his Old Testament god, punishes her by making her catch her food from the water: thus the bird's beauty and skill become a bad thing. Note that in this particular legend the bird is specifically female: kingfisher males do not have rust-colored breast feathers.

In Arthurian myth, the Holy Grail is held in a remote castle by a custodian known as the Fisher King. Like Adonis, the Fisher King is wounded through the groin. He cannot be healed until the Grail, a universal symbol for the Divine Feminine, is brought back into the world.

Note: When I was a child, my nickname was "Bird" (because my last name was Siegel - as in sea gull - and because I was skinny.) By the time I discovered Charlie Parker - the real Bird - in my early twenties, my old nickname had fallen by the wayside. Beginning in early 1996, however, birds of all sorts began to assert themselves in my consciousness: through experiences of synchronicity involving them, by their appearance in my dreams, and by a dawning connection between them and me, eye to eye. I had felt a new name coming on for quite sometime, a broad shift in being that called for so broad a measure. When I discovered the Greek myth of the halcyon, I decided to take on the name Kingfisher. I liked the idea of the Goddess manifesting stillness around me when I create - that's something I have been blessed with in this life, especially since I moved to Hoofhaven, and the name serves both as thanks and a prayer. Beyond that, though, is the connection to the Fisher King, and that story's connection, via the Grail, to Avalon and the Vesica Piscis. The lost Grail represents our lost capacity to nurture, to love without fear or judgment: the Fisher King remains wounded as long as we remain silent. The name Kingfisher, then, is a vow not to be silent, to diligently work at actively loving and accepting all beings, to bring to the Fisher King the blessings of the Goddess. I took the name in a ritual at Hoofhaven on Yule of 1997. - Kf