Ἴυγξ in Greek Magic

Extract

The strange word ἶυγξ is familiar to all classical scholars from the first refrain in the Φαρμακεύτριαι of Theokritos, from two passages in Pindar, and a line in the Persai of Aischylos.

Aristotle in his ‘History of Animals’ gives a description of the bird and uses τρίζειν of its cry.

Anthol. Pal. 5, 205 may also be referred to; and the word occurs, naturally, in the Scriptores Erotici.

We see from these passages (1) Ἴυγξ that was the name of a bird, the wryneck, which stretched on a wheel was used in magic rites, cf. especially Pindar Pyth. IV. 213, the scholion on Lykophron, and ἕλκω αὐτήν in the passage of Xenophon: (2) that ἴυγξ was used in the sense of charm, cf. the passages of Aelian, Aristophanes, Diogenes and Pindar Nem.: (3) that ἴυγξ meant love or desire, cf. Lykophron, schol., and Aischylos Pers.