Editing Magpie (section)

==In legend==
*[[Magpies]] are the [[National bird]] of [[Bangladesh]].
*In [[England]], magpies were traditionally viewed as omens either of fortune or misfortune, depending upon the number of birds one saw. An English nursery rhyme known as "[[One for Sorrow (nursery rhyme)|One for Sorrow]]" recounts the tradition:
{{blockquote|<poem>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.<ref>{{cite book|author=P. Tate|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OFmORVI7x_EC&dq=%22one+for+sorrow%2C+two+for+joy%22+rhyme+magpie&pg=PT76|title=Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition|location=New York|publisher=Random House|year=2010|isbn=978-1409035695}}</ref></poem>|sign=|source=}}

John Brand was an English antiquarian and Church of England clergyman, who was appointed Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries, in 1784. His book, ''Observations of Popular Antiquities'', (1780), has the first-known record of counting Magpies to predict good or ill-fortune, in the description, and records only four lines:

"One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a funeral,
And four for a birth".
''Popular antiquities'' later became known as [[folklore]], (a term coined by [[William John Thoms]] in 1846).

In that year, the rhyme was added to ''Proverbs and Popular Sayings of the Seasons'',  by [[Michael Aislabie Denham]], an English merchant and collector of folklore. The following lines were added:-

"Five for heaven,
Six for hell,
Seven for the devil, his own self".
[[Sir Humphry Davy]] attributed the connection for the feeling of one, then two magpies to joy and sorrow in his, ''Salmonia : or Days of Fly Fishing'', (1828); he wrote:
"For anglers in spring it is always unlucky to see ''single'' magpies, but ''two'' may be always regarded as a favourable omen; and the reason is, that in cold and stormy weather one magpie alone leaves the nest in search of food, the other remaining sitting upon the eggs or the young ones; but when two go out together, it is only when the weather is warm and mild, and thus favourable for fishing."<ref>{{cite book |last=Paris |first=John Ayrton |date=1831 |title=The Life of Sir Humphry Davy: Volume I |location=London |publisher=H. Colburn and R. Bentley |page=468}}</ref>

* In sports, some teams that wear black and white striped kits are nicknamed the magpies, such as [[Newcastle United F.C.|Newcastle United]] and [[Notts County F.C.|Notts County]] from England. <ref>{{Cite news |last=Spiers |first=Tim |title=Villans, Cherries, Toffees and Tractor Boys: The origins of English football club nicknames |url=https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5753588/2024/09/09/english-football-nicknames-premier-league/#:~:text=The%20club's%20official%20nickname%20is,in%20the%201970s%20and%201980s. |access-date=2024-10-13 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=NOTTINGHAM COUNTY – whatsbehindthebadge |url=https://whatsbehindthebadge.com/index.php/nottingham-county/ |access-date=2024-10-13 |language=en-US}}</ref>