Any avian shapeshifters?

In one of the Earthsea books by Le Guin, Ged takes the form of a falcon and nearly loses himself and becomes one. Unfortunately, I've forgotten which book, but it's one of the first three.

BlueGecko said:

So yeah, basically, any books you know of about characters who shapeshift into birds? The only one I really know of is Animorphs, and it's been a while since I read that.

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In Lev Grossman's The Magicians, there's a memorable sequence where the entire college class is shapeshifted into geese for their field trip.

Buffysquirrel said:

In one of the Earthsea books by Le Guin, Ged takes the form of a falcon and nearly loses himself and becomes one.

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I think this exact same thing happened in the Howl's Moving Castle film, though I don't think it was in the book (by Diana Wynne Jones).

David Eddings - Garion does it when he needs to travel to an island fast. Belgarath does it periodically. His brother does it all the time. The Belgariad and the Malloreon - happens throughout both series

Many Native American tribes have myths about avian shapeshifters (usually evil), notably the Raven Mocker.

The only book I can think of offhand that features one is The Curse of the Raven Mocker by Marly Youmans.

Lots and lots in folklore and the Child Ballads.

Leda/Zeus

Early Modern Irish swan brothers and their sister
Various medieval Irish figures shift into and out of birds.
Swan maidens in Germanic languages
Patricia McKillip and Riddlemaster books--ravens or crows

Crow girls derived from Native American tales in De Lint

Not sure if this really counts, but an old tabletop RPG called 'Werewolf: The Apocalypse' by White Wolf had were-crows. Not sure if they pop up in the games literature.

If you're interested in bird humanoids too, there's one in Perdido Street Station (very dark. Avian pov is in italics though). Chaos Titan's uf has bird shifters, with one playing a large role in ... As Lie The Dead? The second book...

Laurell K Hamilton uses swanmanes and were-bats (these were only mentioned, never seen). The swans are all female and have one swan king who's suppost to look out for them. Another book I've read has an eagle shifting shaman, but I can't remember the title to save my life.

Also druids in World of Warcraft have a storm crow form, not entirely sure if that's relevant to what you're looking for though.

The Kiesha'ra Series by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has a bunch of bird shifters. I don't usually recommend the series, though, because it's pretty depressing and unnecessarily brutal and tragic, and I don't mean just for YA.

There are several Harry Potter fanfics with various bird animagi.

Alessandra Kelley said:

It's in the first, A Wizard of Earthsea. I think he becomes a sparrowhawk.

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Makes sense. Thanks .

I remember a fairy tale in which some brothers get turned into swans and their sister has to save them through various hideous trials. I always thought it was pretty unfair on her.

Posted by Buffysquirrel
In one of the Earthsea books by Le Guin, Ged takes the form of a falcon and nearly loses himself and becomes one.

Posted by dogfacedboy
I think this exact same thing happened in the Howl's Moving Castle film, though I don't think it was in the book (by Diana Wynne Jones).

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It's rumoured to happen in Terry Pratchett's Diskworld series, too! Sort of. And I think aerial shape-shifters who could get lost in the body also get a mention in George R. R. Martin's last book in the Song of Ice and Fire series.

I say sort of because, in these cases, a human body gets left behind while the mind goes wandering in the animal body. However, the human body can get killed and the human mind will persist in the new body, so it's kind of like shape-shifting. More like mind-shifting, I guess.

Somewhere in the Diskworld series, Granny Weatherwax puts her mind into a swarm of bees, too.

Fenika said:

Chaos Titan's uf has bird shifters, with one playing a large role in ... As Lie The Dead? The second book...

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Yep, my Dreg City books have bird shifters in them, starting with the second book, As Lie the Dead. They pop up over the next few books, too.

The fifth book of Rachel Vincent's Werecat books, Shift, has a fun species called thunderbirds.

There are some fairytales where people get turned into birds. But those stories don't really speak of how it feels like, so I'm not sure how helpful those can be.

jjdebenedictis said:

It's rumoured to happen in Terry Pratchett's Diskworld series, too! Sort of.

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Borrowing. I believe that's also what Granny Weatherwax calls it. The body doesn't change, but the mind enters another creature's mind and excerts influence so that the animal goes where the intruder wants.

In Equal Rites Esk does this with a bird but gets too caught up that she can't tell what is her and what is the bird. Her mind has to be untangled from the bird's by Granny.

The main characters in my short story "The Chapter of Bringing a Boat into Heaven" (Realms of Fantasy, February 1995) turn themselves into birds, but that is through use of acquired magic, rather than being "werebirds" of some sort.

sunandshadow said:

The Kiesha'ra Series by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has a bunch of bird shifters. I don't usually recommend the series, though, because it's pretty depressing and unnecessarily brutal and tragic, and I don't mean just for YA.

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See, now I'd actually recommend the Kiesha'ra series, or at least the first book Hawksong. And while yes, the series can be depressing, brutal, and tragic, it still has a decent ending. It's also quite philosophical in nature.

A short story I wrote over the summer dealt with Tengu, or a type of bird shifter from Japanese mythology.

Yttar

yttar said:

See, now I'd actually recommend the Kiesha'ra series, or at least the first book Hawksong. And while yes, the series can be depressing, brutal, and tragic, it still has a decent ending. It's also quite philosophical in nature.
Yttar

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Any positive resolutions were too little too late for this reader, my rule of thumb is no torture or permanent damage such as maiming or mentally destroying a character. And I probably disagreed with some of the philosophy; the part of the worldbuilding where some kinds of interbreeding resulted in the offspring being insane irritated me to no end.

Veela in Harry Potter are a good example, though not strictly human themselves. Most birds also can't throw fire.

Tamora Pierce's quartet The Immortals features Numair, a mage with the ability to turn into a large black crow (at least I think it was a crow), and Daine, a 'wild mage' who starts off with the ability to speak to animals which grows into the ability to shapeshift, including birds - she chases after the main villain of the later two books in bird form (he's a Stormwing, human-eagle with steel feathers), not even a specific bird at the end as she draws the best attributes from different species.

Erm, Swan Lake? Actually, there's lots of old stories about people being transformed into swans. Of course, they aren't willing shapeshifters.

I've always found this to be a good source for basic folk and fairy tales. Great resource for story ideas (and plot bunnies)

Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts (edited by D.L. Ashliman)

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html