Gnarlybird

• gnarly: covered with knotty protuberances (as, for example, a tree); distorted, twisted

• gnarl: to growl; to make a harsh noise → the subsequent word bleakbardfields suggests blackbirds, hence cawing crows; and crows are mentioned further on (top of page 11)

• knolly → see knollyrock in the previous line, the form of which is mirrored by that of gnarlybird

• barley bird: the name given locally to various birds appearing about the time of barley-sowing, like the wryneck, siskin, greenfinch, and sometimes the nightingale

• The Hen: Biddy Doran, the hen that inhabits the yard behind HCE's tavern; here clearly associated with ALP → with the gnarlybird begins a paragraph full of allusions to birds and flight → the twelve numbers associated with the gnarlybird (runalittle, doalittle ... pelfalittle = 1, 2, ... 12) lead Joseph Campbell, A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake 41, to associate the gnarlybird with The Twelve (O), customers in HCE's tavern and citizens at the wake, as well as a form of the janitrix Kathe
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake

• early bird → (proverb) "it’s the early bird that gets the worm"

• whirlybird: used since 1951, after Joyce's death, for a helicopter; perhaps earlier there was a spinning, flying toy with that name?