Halcyon
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( a.) Hence: Calm; quiet; peaceful; undisturbed; happy.
(2): ( n.) A kingfisher. By modern ornithologists restricted to a genus including a limited number of species having omnivorous habits, as the sacred kingfisher (Halcyon sancta) of Australia.
(3): ( a.) Pertaining to, or resembling, the halcyon, which was anciently said to lay her eggs in nests on or near the sea during the calm weather about the winter solstice.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
a mythological term equivalent to rest or quiet, especially applied to any season of repose; a figure drawn from the so-called "halcyon days," which are a fortnight, one half before and the other after the winter solstice, during which the bird halcyon, or kingfisher, was fabled by the Greeks to brood, the sea remaining calm during the time of incubation. The myth originated in the classical story of Halcyone or Alcyone ( Αλκυόκη ), a daughter of AEolus and Enarete, or AEgiale, who married Ceyx, and lived so happily with him that the two compared themselves to Jupiter and Juno, and were punished for their presumption by being changed into birds. A more literal version of the story is that Ceyx having perished by shipwreck, Alcyone threw herself into the sea, and was metamorphosed into a kingfisher.
