History Main / MagpiesAsPortents

-->'''Eric Draven''': Seven blackbirds in a tree, count them and see what they be. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that's never been told. You're all going to die.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* The rhyme is used in the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2941935/1/A_Sorrow_of_Magpies A Sorrow of Magpies]]'' in a WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic kind of way.
** More specifically, the rhyme is as follows:
---> '''[[DeathDealer Luxord:]]''' [using [[TheGambler two dice]], but mentions magpies] "Two is for fresh luck, while three starts the play. Four means start running, five means you stay. Six earns you silver, seven earns gold. Eight for new allies, nine for the old. Ten wins good fortune, eleven risks all -- but twelve wins the match and there, stops the ball." When asked about one, which is an impossible result with a pair of dice, he says, "One is for sorrow, because it's always alone."
* In the ''FanFic/TrollCops'' {{Webcomic/Homestuck}} AU, there is a pair of stories called "One For Sorrow", which has:
-->''One is for Sorrow.
-->Two is for Mirth.
-->Three is for a Funeral.
-->Four is for a Birth.
-->Five is for Heaven.
-->Six is for Hell.
-->Seven's for the Devil himself.''

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder: Radio]]

* Several versions of the rhyme occur in Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/CarpeJugulum''. It's explained that none of them work very well, because nobody knows the version the magpies use. Also, the "modern" vampires of that book shape-shift into magpies rather than bats, which is a pun on their family name (de Magpyr).
** In "The Folklore of Discworld", Pterry bemoans the fact that Britain used to have hundreds of regional variations on this rhyme, but nowadays if you ask anyone they'll all give you the version from ''Magpie''. He got to know the book's co-writer, Jacqueline Simpson, because she answered "About fifty-seven?" to the question "do you know the magpie song."

* In the last episode of Series 9 of ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme'', Toby asks her dads about the magpie rhyme, and to Russ's horror, Alex unleashes one he devised when he was part of a comedy troupe, which just ''keeps going'', eventually freaking out about the sheer volume of magipies, and concluding with "One thousand for how long the Magpie Age will last, in years."

* The famous rhyme, with many variations. (Sometimes quoted for crows--but chiefly magpies.)