Why Do People Salute Magpies? One for Sorrow Explained

The One for Sorrow rhyme

The belief behind the salute is a form of fortune-telling with birds. According to the rhyme, the number of magpies you see foretells what is coming. A common modern version goes:

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.

There are many regional variants, with different endings and sometimes darker lines about death or the devil. The earliest known printed version appeared in 1780, in a supplement to Samuel Johnson and George Steevens’s edition of Shakespeare. It had only four lines: one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. Longer versions were collected in the 19th century.

In Britain, a version set to music became the theme of the children’s television show Magpie (1968–1980). Many folklorists think its popularity helped this one version replace many local ones.

How people salute a magpie

Because one magpie means sorrow, the salute is a way of being polite to the bird and turning the omen aside. Common versions include:

• saying “Good morning, Mr Magpie” (or afternoon), often adding “and how is Mrs Magpie today?”;
• waving, nodding, tipping a hat or giving a small military-style salute;
• in older traditions, making the sign of the cross, crossing your fingers, or bowing.

Asking after “Mrs Magpie” has a clever logic: by acknowledging the bird’s partner, you turn one magpie into two, and two means joy. A 19th-century charm recorded in Shropshire was fiercer, telling the bird “Devil, devil, I defy thee” and spitting on the ground three times.

Most people who salute magpies today do it half in fun, as a habit picked up in childhood. Surveys and folklore collections show that the custom is still very widespread in Britain and Ireland.

Why are magpies seen as unlucky?

No single reason explains it, but folklorists point to several:

• Color. In British folklore, black birds such as crows and ravens were often linked with death and evil. The magpie’s mixed black-and-white plumage gave it an ambiguous, untrustworthy reputation.
• Behavior. Magpies are bold and noisy, chatter harshly when disturbed, and raid other birds’ nests for eggs and chicks.
• Legends. Folk tales claimed the magpie refused to enter Noah’s ark, or did not wear full mourning at the Crucifixion, explaining why it was half black and half white.
• Omens. In Scotland, a magpie near the window of a house was once said to foretell a death, and magpies were also linked with witchcraft in Sweden.

All of these are stories about people, not facts about birds. The real Eurasian magpie is a highly intelligent member of the crow family that does no harm to anyone who sees it.

Is there any truth behind one for sorrow?

Some old writers tried to explain the rhyme with real bird behavior. In 1828 the chemist Humphry Davy, a keen angler, suggested that a single magpie in spring meant cold weather, because in bad weather one bird stays on the nest while the other forages alone. A related country proverb said that “a single magpie in spring, foul weather will bring”.

There is a grain of biology in this. Magpies live in pairs on year-round territories, and during incubation the female sits on the eggs while the male brings her food, so lone birds are common in spring. But lone magpies are common in every season, because partners often forage apart. Seeing one magpie tells you nothing about your luck, or even about the weather.

Magpies as lucky birds in Asia

In East Asia the magpie has the opposite reputation. These birds are Oriental magpies, which scientists now usually treat as a separate species, Pica serica.

• China. The magpie is called xique, often translated as “bird of joy”. A magpie calling near a house is said to announce happy news. In the legend behind the Qixi Festival, magpies form a bridge across the Milky Way once a year so that the separated lovers, the cowherd and the weaver girl, can meet.
• Korea. The magpie, kkachi, is traditionally said to bring good news or the arrival of guests, and it appears in folk paintings beside a comical tiger.

Europe has a few positive beliefs too. An old Hungarian saying held that a chattering magpie meant guests were on the way. In much of Central and Eastern Europe, however, the magpie is above all a symbol of the thief, an image tested in do magpies steal shiny things?

Magpie superstitions at a glance

Whatever people believe, the magpie is a remarkable bird in its own right. Its intelligence is explored in can magpies recognize themselves in a mirror?