Alectryomancy

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.Alectryomancy is a form of divination in which the diviner observes a bird, several birds (or most preferably a white rooster or cockerel) pecking at grain (such as wheat) that the diviner has scattered on the ground. It was the responsibility of the pullularius to feed and keep the birds used. The observer may place grain in the shape of letters and thus discern a divinatory revelation by noting which letters the birds peck at, or the diviner may just interpret the pattern left by the birds' pecking in randomly scattered grain. In another version, the observer tethers the bird in the center of a circle, around the perimeter of which is marked the alphabet, with a piece of grain at each letter. For each grain the bird pecks, the observer writes down the letter which that grain represents. The observer also replaces each grain as the bird eats it, so that letters may be repeated. The sequence of letters recorded will presumably contain a message.