eagle and child

[hiflier]

Can anyone shed any light on the story that an eagle picked up a child in North Italy , May 1959, and deposited it, still alive, on a mountain top? This was supposed to have happened near the town on Vicarza, but there is no such place in Italy.

[Xanthippe]

The story was reported in the British press at the time, but I can only find a small reference to it at the bottom of the attached article. Hope it helps.

http://forums.skygaze.com/viewtopic.php?p=106& sid=ced4cf9a630898d1c4bd8e1cf3b5d8e5

[hiflier]

Every time I research this story, I get back to this man Stanley. I doubt that he invented the tale but it doesn't have any other source!

[Xanthippe]

It may well be a fake story akin to the Syrian Gazelle Boy on the attached site.

http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php? ch=gazelle

Please let us know if you have any better luck though because it sounds a very interesting story.

[Octavius]

Many such reports here.

http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9 711b&L=birdchat&P=5715

Whether they are factual or not I cannot say, but there is no reason why an eagle couldn't carry a young child away as carrion. Baby-snatching by eagles was once quite common in Scotland and the Isles.

In all the old tales of avian abductions, children who survived the journey through the air were mentally altered. Often they became the shaman or wise person in their society. A Persian boy, discovered in an eagle's nest, went on to become Shah.

[dot.hawkes]

that is the copy of a legend from nere where I live and there is a Pub here called The Eagle and Child but it is from the 1200s supposedly this happened.