Black Grouse at Mummen’s Inn
Play birds in 18th century Sweden
The Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman describes in one of his poems from 1772 a black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) kept at a local inn. This interior picture from a late 18th century inn in Stockholm prompts questions about cage birds in Sweden at that time. Bellman has given us several examples of interesting insights in the use of song birds in cages and the view of wild birds at his time. Ethnobiologists can of course also derive valuable information of interest from descriptions in older novels and poems. To keep black grouses in cages was obviously not uncommon during Bellman’s time. His record is supported by other sources, which describes playing black grouse cocks kept in cages in Stockholm and in the vicinity.
