Funny what people pick up on in a blog. Several emails came in about yesterdays blog in which I said that a rooster may have been the first fire alarm. I wrote that because when I was in Germany there are rooster statutes by fountains, roosters in stained glass windows, roosters in the squares, and roosters as weather vanes on churches. My fraternal grandfather was a Hahn and Hahn is the German word for Rooster, so I asked. A German friend told me that stylized rooster statues and other art were ubiquitous because they were the first fire alarms. If the rooster crowed in the middle of the night it might be because he saw the first flare of a fire. Of course having grown up with chickens and roosters I can attest to the fact that roosters crow whenever they want to and there doesn’t have to be a fire or even the dawn to get them going.
So I found this explanation several times on the internet without attribution so whoever wrote it I apologize for not giving you credit.
“Historically many Protestant churches in Europe placed a rooster atop their steeples to distinguish them from Catholic Churches. The rooster has been a Christian symbol since God used it to show the weakness of man with Peter and the triumph of Christ in the resurrection. Through the cross even the man who three times denied the Savior was forgiven, loved, restored and sent out to zealously live for the glory of God. There is hope in the Gospel for sinners everywhere.”
Nice idea but there are Catholic churches all over Europe that have roosters on their steeples too. Anyway this was fun but I am bored with the topic. I need to go back and marvel at the presses fascination with what one of the Presidential candidates says rather at what the other one actually does, or has done. So if any of you knows the reasons for the roosters all over the place in Europe let me know.
