Halcyon (pronounced hal-see-uhn)
(1)
Calm; peaceful; tranquil.
(2)
Rich; wealthy; prosperous.
(3) Happy;
joyful; carefree, the best of times.
(4) A
mythical bird, usually identified with the kingfisher, said to breed about the
time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, and to have the
power of charming winds and waves into calmness.
(5) Any
of various kingfishers, especially of the genus Halcyon.
(6) In Classical mythology, Alcyone.
1350-1400: From the Middle English Alceoun, from the Latin halcyōn & alcyōn (kingfisher), from the Ancient Greek halkyṓn, a pseudo-etymological variant of ἀλκυών (alkuṓn). (kingfisher) of unknown origin. It replaced the Middle English alceon (or alicion), from the Classical Latin alcyōn, from the same Greek root. By the 1540s it had in English assumed the sense of "calm, quiet, peaceful" in the phrase "halcyon dayes", a translation of the Latin alcyonei dies, from the Greek alkyonides hemerai, the fourteen days of calm weather at the winter solstice, when a mythical bird (identified with the kingfisher) was said to breed in a nest floating on calm seas. In late fourteenth century Middle English, the fabled bird was known as the alcioun. The word intrigued etymologists and the orthodox explanation is the construct hals (sea; salt) + kyon (conceiving), the present participle of kyein (to conceive (literally "to swell")) was an ancient folk-etymology to explain a loan-word from a non-Indo-European language. The proper noun Halcyonidae describes the taxonomic family within the order Coraciiformes (tree kingfishers), sometimes considered a subfamily, as Halcyoninae. Halcyon is a noun & adjective, halcyonid is a noun and halcyonian is an adjective; the noun plural is halcyons.
The
Legend of Halcyone
In Greek mythology, Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus and she married Ceyx, son of Eosphorus (the Morning Star). Alcyone and Ceyx were very happy together in Trachis and according to Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, playfully they would often call each other Zeus and Hera. That was sacrilegious and so did it anger Zeus that one day when his mood was especially bad, seeing Ceyx at sea, the god cast a thunderbolt at his boat, sinking the fragile vessel and drowning Ceyx. That evening, Morpheus, the god of dreams, disguised himself as Ceyx and appeared to Alcyone as an apparition, telling her of her lover's fate, at which in her grief, determined to join Ceyx, she cast herself into the sea and died. In compassion, the gods changed them both into halcyon birds, named after her and by some accounts the kingfisher-like birds were granted the power to calm stormy, troubled seas and breed in nests floating on calm waters. Like much mythology from Antiquity, there are variations of the story. The Roman writers Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) & Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus (circa 64 BC–17 AD) both recount the metamorphosis of the pair after Ceyx's loss in a terrible storm, though neither make mention of the wrath of Zeus, blaming the tragedy on the stormy seas. Ovid also claims she threw herself into the ocean upon seeing his body washed ashore and Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) makes a brief mention of the affair, again without blaming Zeus.
The most common use of halcyon now is "halcyon days" meaning “the best of times”. Ovid and Hyginus both make Alcyone’s metamorphosis the origin of the etymology for halcyon days although for them it was something literally meteorological: the seven winter days when storms never gather. These were the fourteen days each year (seven days either side of the shortest day) during which Alcyone (as a kingfisher) laid her eggs and made her nest on the beach and during which her father Aeolus, god of the winds, restrained the winds and calmed the waves so she could do so in safety. The phrase has since come to refer to any peaceful time and this has supplanted the older meaning; that of a lucky break, or a bright interval set in the midst of adversity.
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