Folklore: no joke for ‘jesters of the sea’

There is no other bird as cute as a puffin. With the gait and colouring of a diminutive penguin, bumbling about on a pair of bright orange webbed feet, its radiant rainbow beak and beady eye accentuated by an exaggerated yet natural eyeliner, draws the gaze of all who have the chance to observe them.

The small puffins are truly pelagic and spend most of their year in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, only coming onto land in late March or April to rear their young. They pick the most remote, often uninhabited islands on our wild Atlantic coastline, free from mammalian predators. A male and female puffin habitually pair for life and both are involved in rearing their solitary foipín ‘puffling’.

On some islands such as the Blaskets and Skellig Michael, the puffins are not shy about commandeering a ready-made rabbit burrow and pushing the rabbits out. For such small and appealing birds, they can be quite boisterous and with their rather deep, loud and somewhat grating cries, one cannot blame the rabbits for their quick exit.

Rainbow-like beaks

In Latin, the puffin is fratercula ‘friar’ and in Irish canán ‘canon’, deriving from their similarity to the black and white attire of religious monks. Its most distinctive characteristic is, however, a spectacular, rainbow-like beak.

This attractive beak only develops each year as part of the mating activities on land and the amorous couple greet and entice each other by clapping and rubbing their beaks together. The two round, bright yellow dots at the side of their beaks are part of their mouths and such is the hinging mechanism of their beaks they can carry more fish to their young than other sea birds.

Often described as ‘sea parrots’ or ‘jesters’, their protruding bill has a distinct array of vibrant colours. It begins with a bright yellow band over the bridge of the beak that then merges into a panel of a contrasting, pastel slate blue. This dark patch extends through intermittent radiating lines of white to a colourful tip that finishes in radiant shades of orange and red. Amazingly, when the puffins repair to their pelagic mid-Atlantic, the colourful elements of their beaks fall off and only grow again when coming back to mate.

Comical feet

Their comical, webbed orange feet are equipped with sharp claws, and the puffins, if not repurposing a rabbit burrow will dig themselves a little shelter to make its hideaway.

The female will lay a solitary egg, and puffins have a small featherless spot on their tummies where their bare skin helps to incubate the egg for 40 days.

When the puffling hatches out, it is nothing but a small, soft, round ball of fluffy feathers but as it grows, so too does its insatiable appetite.

The parents take turns heading out to sea to fish for sprats, herrings and sand eels to feed their demanding youngster. To me, it is a small wonder how the plump puffins manage to fly at all.

Over the years, I have watched them bellyflop off the side of Skellig Michael, their short wings flapping intensely to get airborne. It is, however, in the sea that these stubby wings, along with their oversized flipper feet, turn them into the most efficient divers and skilful fishers.

What has me in mind of these beautiful and resilient seabirds, at this time of the year, is the Lenten custom of not eating meat, when people turned almost exclusively to a penitential diet of fish. As always there were a number of ways of getting around such restrictions and the humble puffin, considered to be more fish than fowl, was one of the species of pelagic birds, hunted, salted and eaten for such days of fast.

Charles Smith’s 1756 The Ancient and Present State of the County of Kerry speaking of the Skelligs outlines: “In the spring and the beginning of the summer months, the country people resort hither in small boats, when the sea is calm, to catch these birds, they eat the flesh, which is fishy and rank…The birds are exceeding fat, and the persons who take them, carry on a kind of traffic with them, by exchanging two salted puffins for peck of meal. The eat them in Lent, and on their fast days as well as fish.”

Whatever about giving up the small luxuries and surviving on a meagre diet over the 40 days, I am glad that salted puffin has long disappeared from the traditional Lenten menu.

Shane Lehane is a folklorist who works in UCC and Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus. Contact: slehane@ucc.ie