To whistle s.o. down the wind

Question

not being a native speaker, I've got absolutely no clue as to what this expression might mean: "She whistled him down the wind" - apart from the 'guts' paraphrase: 'she let him down and went away with another guy'. Am I completely mistaken?
As far as I know there's even a musical by Webber by that title? Thanks for your help!
Klaus Niebel-Bender

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[nq:1], not being a native speaker, I've got absolutely no clue as to what this expression might mean: "She whistled ... completely mistaken? As far as I know there's even a musical by Webber by that title? Thanks for your help![/nq]
I have never heard this phrase used other than when referring to the film, play and musical which are all named "Whistle Down the Wind". The film, made in England in the 1960s, concerns a tramp; some children find him and mistake him for the Second Coming of Christ. I'm not aware of any other use. And I've never seen it with "him" in the middle. I think that the meaning is that you can call for somebody by whistling and that the wind will carry your call.

So I could guess a number of meanings for your quotation but I cannot say what the writer meant.

David
==
I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.

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Actually, I came across this phrase when doing some research on William Blake's poem "Love's secret". I found it in the Preface (c. 1892) to The Works of William Blake: Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical, ed. Edwin J. Ellis and W. B. Yeats, 3 vols (1893)
http://www.csun.edu/~hceng029/yeats/yeatsprefacetoblake.html : "At this time also he (Blake) began courting one Polly or Clara Woods, 'a lovely little girl', who took walks with him here and there, and then whistled him down the wind. Many of his descriptions of 'Vala' and other symbolic women, and some few of the illustrations to the 'Prophetic Books',
such as the false, smiling face at the bottom of one of the pages of Vala (see WWB page 5 of the lithographs of Vala), and more than one of the lyrics, such as 'Love's Secret', may conceivably owe their inspiration to her."
Perhaps the phrase is just obsolete?
Thanks for your help anyway!
K. Niebel-Bender
"the Omrud" (Email Removed) schrieb im Newsbeitrag
[nq:2], not being a native speaker, I've got absolutely no ... 'she let him down and went away with another guy'.Am[/nq]
I

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[nq:1], not being a native speaker, I've got absolutely no clue as to what this expression might mean: "She whistled ... As far as I know there's even a musical by Webber by that title? Thanks for your help! Klaus Niebel-Bender[/nq]
The Oxford English Dictionary explains that the origin of the phrase is to be found in the practise of falconry:
"(whistle)
(With away, off, etc.) To send or dismiss by whistling (esp. as a term of falconry); also fig. to dismiss, cast off, or abandon lightly: so to whistle down the wind (the hawk being usually cast off against the wind in pursuit of prey, but with the wind when turned loose)."

Then follow several quotes, among which this one, taken from Trollope and dating back to 1860.
"Having accepted my love, you cannot whistle me down the wind as though I were of no account."

Isabelle Cecchini

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Amazing! - Thanks a lot: The OED entry really helps a lot - love and falconry have been metaphorically connected for centuries: just think of middle high German poetry such as "ich zoch mir einen valken mere danne ein
jar ..." (der Kürenberger).
K. Niebel-Bender
"Isabelle Cecchini" (Email Removed) schrieb im Newsbeitrag

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[nq:1]Amazing! - Thanks a lot: The OED entry really helps a lot - love and falconry have been metaphorically connected for centuries: just think of middle high German poetry such as "ich zoch mir einen valken mere danne ein jar ..." (der Kürenberger). K. Niebel-Bender[/nq]
Also in OED is the quote from Othello:
If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,
I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind,
To pray at fortune.
A haggard is a wild female hawk. Jesses are the straps tied to a hawk's legs.
Yer bard was very fond of hawking metaphors.

John Dean
Oxford

To whistle s.o. down the wind

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