Editing Common cuckoo (section)

==In culture==
{{Further|Birds in culture}}

[[Aristotle]] was aware of the old tale that cuckoos turned into hawks in winter. The tale was an explanation for their absence outside the summer season, later accepted by [[Pliny the Elder]] in his ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]''. Aristotle rejected the claim, observing in his ''[[History of Animals]]'' that cuckoos do not have the predators' talons or hooked bills. These [[Classical era]] accounts were known to the [[Early Modern]] English naturalist, [[William Turner (naturalist)|William Turner]].<ref name="Davies and Welbergen 2008"/>

The  13th-century [[Medieval England|medieval English]] [[Round (music)|round]], "[[Sumer Is Icumen In]]", celebrates the cuckoo as a sign of spring, the beginning of summer, in the first stanza, and in the chorus:<ref>{{cite journal |author=Wulstan, David |date=2000 |title='Sumer Is Icumen In': A Perpetual Puzzle-Canon? |journal=Plainsong and Medieval Music |volume=9 |issue=1 (April) |pages=1–17|doi=10.1017/S0961137100000012 |s2cid=163146883 }}</ref>
{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-break}}
;Middle English
<poem>
Svmer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu
Groweþ sed
and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu
Sing cuccu
</poem>
{{Col-break}}
;Modern English
<poem>
Summer has arrived,
Sing loudly, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now,
Sing, cuckoo!
</poem>
{{col-end}}

In England, [[William Shakespeare]] alludes to the common cuckoo's association with spring, and with [[cuckoldry]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Cuckold |publisher=Online Etymology Dictionary |url=http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=cuckold&allowed_in_frame=0 |access-date=31 May 2015}}</ref> in the courtly springtime song in his play ''[[Love's Labours Lost]]'':<ref>{{cite web |last1=Shakespeare |first1=William |title=Song: "When daisies pied and violets blue" |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174378|publisher=Poetry Foundation|access-date=22 July 2015}}</ref><ref name="RhodesGillespie2014">{{cite book |last1=Rhodes |first1=Neil |last2=Gillespie |first2=Stuart |title=Shakespeare And Elizabethan Popular Culture: Arden Critical Companion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SxdnAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA178 |date=13 May 2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4081-4362-9 |page=178}}</ref>

:When daisies pied and violets blue
:::And lady-smocks all silver-white<!--indentation follows original-->
:And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
:::Do paint the meadows with delight,
:The cuckoo then, on every tree,
:Mocks married men; for thus sings he:&nbsp;
:::"Cuckoo;
:Cuckoo, cuckoo!" O, word of fear,
:::Unpleasing to a married ear!

[[File:Suomenniemi.vaakuna.svg|thumb|upright=0.7|Golden cuckoo in the coat of arms of [[Suomenniemi]]]]
In Europe, hearing the call of the common cuckoo is regarded as the first harbinger of spring. Many local legends and traditions are based on this.  In [[Scotland]], [[gowk stane]]s (cuckoo stones) sometimes associated with the arrival of the first cuckoo of spring. "Gowk" is an old name for the common cuckoo in northern [[England]],<ref name=ODBBN>{{cite book |title=The Oxford Dictionary of British Bird Names |last=Lockwood |first=W. B. |year=1993 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-866196-2}}</ref> derived from the harsh repeated ''"gowk"'' call the bird makes when excited.<ref name=BWP/> The well-known [[cuckoo clock]] features a mechanical bird and is fitted with bellows and pipes that imitate the call of the common cuckoo.<ref>{{cite web |title=Beginners Guide |url=http://www.cuckooclockworld.com/beginners.htm |publisher=Cuckoo Clock World |access-date=21 April 2016 |archive-date=6 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506000546/http://www.cuckooclockworld.com/beginners.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> Cuckoos feature in traditional rhymes, such as '"In April the cuckoo comes, In May she'll stay, In June she changes her tune, In July she prepares to fly, Come August, go she must,"' quoted Peggy. 'But you haven't said it all,' put in Bobby. '"And if the cuckoo stays till September, It's as much as the oldest man can remember."'<ref>{{cite book | last=Brazil | first=Angela | year=1915 | title=A Terrible Tomboy | url=https://archive.org/details/aterribletomboy38619gut | publisher= Project Gutenberg EBook #38619}}</ref>

''[[On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring]]'' is a [[symphonic poem]] from Norway composed for orchestra by [[Frederick Delius]].<ref name="Delius IMSLP">[https://imslp.org/wiki/2_Pieces_for_Small_Orchestra_(Delius,_Frederick) "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring".] IMSLP Petrucci Library. Retrieved 4 October 2019.</ref>

Two English folk songs feature cuckoos. One usually called ''The Cuckoo'' starts:
<blockquote>
The cuckoo is a fine bird and she sings as she flies,<br/>
She brings us good tidings, she tells us no lies.<br/>
She sucks little birds' eggs to make her voice clear,<br/>
And never sings cuckoo till the summer draws near<ref>Palmer, Roy (ed); English Country Songbook; London; 1979
</ref><br/>
</blockquote>

The second, "The Cuckoo's Nest" is a song about a courtship, with the eponymous (and of course, non-existent) nest serving as a metaphor for the [[vulva]] and its tangled "nest" of [[pubic hair]].

<blockquote>
Some like a girl who is pretty in the face<br/>
and some like a girl who is slender in the waist<br/>
But give me a girl who will wriggle and will twist<br/>
At the bottom of the belly lies the cuckoo's nest...<br/>

...Me darling, says she, I can do no such thing<br/>
For me mother often told me it was committing sin<br/>
Me maidenhead to lose and me sex to be abused<br/>
So have no more to do with me cuckoo's nest<ref>{{cite web |title=Song Lyrics with midi and Mp3: Cuckoos Nest |url=http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Cuckoos_Nest.htm |website=www.traditionalmusic.co.uk |access-date=14 November 2023}}</ref><br/>
</blockquote>

One of the tales of the [[Wise Men of Gotham]] tells how they built a hedge round a tree in order to trap a cuckoo so that it would always be summer.<ref>{{cite web |title=BBC - Legacies - Myths and Legends - England - Nottingham - Wise men of Gotham - Article Page 1 |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/nottingham/article_1.shtml |website=www.bbc.co.uk |access-date=2017-03-08}}</ref>

The theme music for film comedians [[Laurel and Hardy]], titled "[[Laurel and Hardy music#Cuckoo theme|Dance of The Cuckoos]]" and composed by [[Marvin Hatley]], was based on the call of the common cuckoo.