Far-fetched as this may sound, the grains of the myth have trickled through to modern society and these pied corvids have found it hard to shake off their undesirable image in much of Western Europe.

It was traditionally used as a warning for children who were out playing in nature – if a child saw a single magpie, they would recite this poem to ward off any potential bad luck. A longer version of the rhyme, which continues to map the significance of up to 13 Magpies, was popular in the English county of Lancashire, spelling out further potential good fortunes that you may encounter when seeing a larger number of Magpies, although you may wish you hadn’t counted 13 when you read the meaning below. I have a couple of crows that I’ve befriended on my dog walks so there is always a couple of magpies zooming about.

of them are broken because they don't even sing good, and can only manage just one awful shrill note. For example, some interpretations suggest that the magpie can be seen as an omen of good fortune and an invitation for positive change. In Sing Street, Conor sings a version of the rhyme while walking around Dublin with his friends, showing how timeless this classic is.

These examples show how deeply rooted this nursery rhyme is in popular culture – even after centuries of being passed down through generations, it’s still relevant today. In this way, the magpie rhyme serves as an educational tool and a source of joy and connection across generations. One for sorrow, two for joy: This is the most common superstition associated with magpies in the UK. The first written record of the Magpie rhyme dates from 1777, in John Brand’s “Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain” was a simple four-line verse, alternating between positive and negative fortunes. Bit over simplified to blame agriculture for decline in farmland birds as while it has had a influence just like things like more houses and car driveways and parking spaces,garden hedges pulled out for cars,industrial estates and lots of others the woodland birds have suffered even worse and cannot possibly be blamed on agriculture so obviously some other problem is involved with the decline in general.When other predators like cats and dogs strike, they take adult birds, which means no more broods of young. It’s widely supposed that the number of magpies seen together indicates good or bad luck, but not all versions of the familiar rhyme agree.