Name Meanings in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: From Covey to Capitol

Covey

Within Lucy Gray Baird’s “Covey” (a flock of birds), as is mentioned in the book, all are named for a ballad and a color (several double as jewel colors, suggesting preciousness). These ballads are English and Scottish, nodding to the old world of books and traveling players (several are Child ballads) as well as the Celtic culture that contrasts with the Roman one.

Lucy Gray is for the Wordsworth poem, as described. Her last name, Baird, suggests her bardic profession. “Lucy Gray” indeed sees the girl die and haunt the forest like a ghost, merged with nature and filled with its energy. It ends with a touching mystery:

Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living Child,
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome Wild.

Over rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.

This echoes Snow’s final thoughts of her: “Lucy Gray’s fate was a mystery then, just like the little girl who shared her name in that maddening song. Was she alive, dead, a ghost who haunted the wilderness? Perhaps no one would ever really know. No matter — snow had been the ruination of them both. Poor Lucy Gray. Poor ghost girl singing away with her birds.”