A short biography of two very different birds. Because why not?

Here at The Simple Things, we love a woodpecker, so much so we dedicated one of our Magical Creatures pages to it back in February. You can buy that issue here.

And when we saw this wonderful illustration of one in this month’s ‘Cosy’ issue, it got us wondering why you don’t encounter many Woodpeckers in books or on the silver screen. They are sadly under-represented, we feel. To go some way towards righting that wrong, we’re celebrating two famous, but very different woodpeckers.

Picus, Greek myth

Picus (Latin for woodpecker) was a man originally known as Stercutus and was the first king of Latium. He earned his nickname for the fact that he was enormously talented in augury and used woodpeckers for his divination (best not ask how). He was a handsome chap and women, nymphs and a myriad of assorted other females couldn’t help but throw themselves at him. What’s a King of Latium to do? But he came a cropper when the witch, Circe, tried to seduce him and he turned her down with little care for her feelings. Well. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and the witch turned him into a woodpecker as punishment. And for good measure, she turned his friends into a variety of other creatures and his wife into a nymph. The wife went mad and wandered the forest for six days before laying down on the banks of the river and dying. And all because a simple ‘I’d love to but I’m washing my hair’ would not suffice. Lesson learned, chaps.

Woody Woodpecker, Universal Pictures

The inspiration for Woody arrived on cartoonist Walter Lantz’s honeymoon when an acorn woodpecker disturbed Walt and his wife’s peace repeatedly by boring holes in the roof. Walt was going to shoot the bird but his wife suggested he instead make a cartoon of him, and a star was born.

No one is quite sure what type of woodpecker Woody is, but his laugh has made many assume he is a pileated woodpecker. So now you know.

Woody, voiced by Mel Blanc (who also voiced Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and more) first appeared in the cartoon short Knock Knock on November 25 1940, in which he tormented two unassuming pandas.

Woody made the move to television in 1957 with The Woody Woodpecker Show, which was revived in the early 70s. And in 1999 he saw another renaissance when The New Woody Woodpecker Show ran for a few years on Fox Kids. A new series is available on YouTube now, where Woody continues to sweep back his quiff, bore holes in things he shouldn’t, irritate all creatures great and small and laugh his infamous laugh. And how is that laugh, written, we’d like to know? According to the lyrics to the Woody Woodpecker Song, it is notated, thus: