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Ibycus was a poet who lived around 550 BCE. "All that is known of him is the dramatic story of his death. He was attacked by robbers near Corinth and mortally wounded. A flock of cranes flew by overhead, and he called on them to avenge him." Later during a theatre performance, a flock of cranes appeared amongst the crowd and one of the robbers, panicked, yelled that the cranes were there to avenge Ibycus, thus giving himself up. He & the other robbers were put to death (Mythology by Edith Hamilton).
On the Quest for the Golden Fleece, the heroes were advised
"about the Clashing Rocks, the Symplegades, that rolled perpetually against one another while the sea boiled up around them. The way to pass between them... was first to make trial with a dove. If she passed through safely, then the chances were that they too would get through. But if the dove were crushed, they must turn back and give up all hope of the Golden Fleece" (Mythology by Edith Hamilton).
Saint Katherine of Alexandria was fed daily by a dove while imprisoned.
Procne was turned into a nightingale: "Of all the birds her song is sweetest because it is saddest. She never forgets the son she killed" (Mythology by Edith Hamilton).
The bird with wings of brown,
Musical nightingale,
Mourns forever; O Itys, child,
Lost to me, lost.
Philomela was turned into a swallow. The reason they don't sing is because her tongue was cut out.
The patron saint of mental illness who was martyred by her own father.
During her saintly imprisonment, she was fed daily by a dove. When she was later beheaded, either a milky substance or milk mingled with blood came from the wound.