Also, the lines about птицы coming and going reminds me о ещё суеверии, якобы русском -- "about another superstition, supposedly a Russian one."

Говорят, что при казни Иисуса, воробьи повели себя особенно злобно, и сами собой притащили гвозди для Распятия на Голгофу! А ласточкам, наоборот, очень жаль было Иисуса, и они пытались украсть гвозди у римских солдатов.

("It's said, that when Jesus was being put to death, the sparrows behaved in an especially malicious way, and personally carried the Crucifixion nails to Golgotha/Calvary! But the swallows, on the contrary, felt very sorry for Jesus, and they tried to steal the nails away from the Roman soldiers.")

As far as I know, folktales about birds at the Crucifixion exist in many Christian lands, but the exact identities of the birds are different from one place to another -- sometimes it's crows, sometimes it's owls, and possibly in some countries it's flamingos. And in some cases there are other animals besides birds who either feel sorry for Jesus, or mock and torment him.

So my question for Russians is this -- are you familiar with the variant in which воробьи are the "villains" and ласточки are the "good guys"? And do you consider this to be a "truly Russian" folk belief, or would you guess that it's really of Ukrainian or Gypsy origin (or whatever), but is known in Russia?

Finally, some variants of the basic "птицы у Распятия" motif say that the wicked birds (whether sparrows or crows or geese or vultures or penguins, or whatever) were punished by God for their cruelty to Jesus. If you are familiar with the воробей-version, what was the punishment, if any?