The Melodious Swan

A nice swan picture.

Bibliotheque Municipale de Reims, ms. 993, Folio 155r

My Swan

Years ago, I lived in an apartment overlooking a small pond. Like many ponds, this one attracted creatures searching for food left by humans. Our rat-like landlord sarcastically referred to certain of the creatures as "wildlife," and forbade the leaving of bread. Of the many "non-wildlife" creatures calling the pond home, my favorite was an elegantly bad tempered swan who promenaded the grounds begging for handouts. He (or she) would loiter near my building's door, stretching its long neck and hissing menacingly if no treats were offered. Myth and folklore tell us

swans have a lovely voice. Though I never heard my swan sing, I'll hold my skepticism in check and take their word for it. What else does myth and folklore say of swans?

Two Swans

Photographer: Sangfroid

Greek Mythology

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, was symbolized by a swan. Regettably, the swan image was utilized in a not so lovely way by the unstopable seducer Zeus. Following a quick swan transformation, Zeus mated with Queen Leda of Sparta, hatching two children named Helen and Polydeuces. Yes, that's the famously beautiful Helen of Troy, who inadvertently started the Trojan War when kidnaped by Paris. The Greeks told more than one version of Zeus as ardent swan. A second account claims the problematic goddess Nemesis as the mother of Helen. The goddess of retribution morphed into a goose, gambling a hapless bid to fool Zeus. The unfooled Zeus became a swan, and deaf to the poor goddess's objections, shamelessly did as he pleased. The resulting egg, being rejected by Nemesis, was left in a swamp and later found by a passing shepherd. The shepherd gave the egg to Leda, who hatched it and became the mother of Helen anyway in the weird roundabout way of myths and life in general. 

Leda and the Swan

Artist: Theodore Gericault

Constellation

Swans don't merely swim in ponds. There is a constellation in the Milky Way called Cygnus, or The Swan. The Greeks had a number of different myths regarding how Cygnus found it's way to the night sky. One version features two friends named Cygnus and Phaeton. Though very close, the friendship didn't stop Cygnus and Phaeton from constantly attempting to best one another. Their contending reached its zenith on deciding to race around the Sun and back to Earth. In a fit of competitiveness, the friends streaked too close to the Sun and plummeted to Earth, clinging to their charred and disintrgrating chariots. Though Cygnus landed safely, Phaeton was tangled in tree roots at the bottom of the Eridanus River. Cygnus tried mightily to recover Phaeton's body for proper burial, but could not manage to reach it. Desperately, he asked Zeus for help. Zeus, in his usual god-like way, offered to transform Cygnus into a swan, thus enabling him to reach his friend at the bottom of the river. Naturally, there was a catch. Cygnus would need to give up his immortality, remain feathered, and live the short years of the swan. Not hesitating, Cygnus chose to become a swan. Zeus rewarded Cygnus by placing him in the night sky as the constellation Cygnus. There's nothing like a really good friend to make life worth living. 

Cygnus

The Swan in German Myth

Phaeton was not alone in taking the form of a swan. The Valkyries, twelve goddesses who attended Odin and oversaw wars, could transform themselves into swans at will. After choosing their favorite warriors, and aiding them to victory, the Valkyries lead the brave fighters to the feasting halls of Valhalla. The Valkyries sometimes shed their feathers and appeared to men as human woman. If a devious man snatched the feathers, the unfortunate Valkyrie was compelled to cater and serve until her feathers were returned. 

Valkyies with shed feathers.

     

The Valkyrie Kara

The Valkyries were perfectly capable of falling in love. The Valkyrie Kara had a human lover named Helgi who she followed into battle. Flying over the pitched struggle in full swan regalia, Kara sang a song so enticing Helgi's opponents laid down their weapons and ceased to fight. Sadly, during another battle, the lovely Kara accidentally came to an abrupt end by the business end of a sword. The truly tragic bit was the ownership of the offending sword. Her husband, Helgi, was never the same after that event. 

The Swan in Hinduism

The goddess Saraswati

Is the swan revered with more enthusiasm anywhere other than the Hindu religion? The swans' very grace creates comparisons to spiritual people gaining worldly detachment equaling the birds' water warding feathers. The most spiritual are often called Paramahamsa or the Great Swan, who glide effortlessly between spiritual worlds like a swan in flight. 

 In Hinduism, the goddess of knowledge is Saraswati. This consort of Brahma represents not only music, literature, and art, but the sciences as well. She's associated with the color white, and is frequently pictured by a river denoting her early history as a river goddess. As you can see in the illustration above, her vehicle, or vahana, is a beautiful white swan. It's said if a swan is offered a mixture of milk and water, it will filter the milk and leave the water. This symbolises the ability to distinguish good from evil. 

Saraswati is a favorite of mine due to her association with the written word. One of her four hands holds the sacred book of Vedas. The Hindus feel such respect for books, accidentally touching a book with the foot elicits an apology in the form of a hand gesture called Pranama. The clumsy person touches the offended book (or any written material) with the finger tips, then carrys the finger tips to the forehead or chest. I wonder if such respect now includes the Kindle? I don't see why not!

Celtic Swan Myth

The Children of Lir

Painting by: Shauna Bloomingdale

From India, we now travel across continents to Ireland. One legendary Irish tale is the Children of Lir. It features rivals to a thone, hapless children, swans, and an extremely evil step-mother named Aoife. It all started when the sea god Lir lost his bid for the kingship of Tuatha De Danann to Bodb Derg. To lessen Lir's disappointment, Bodb Derg offered a daughter (Aeb) in marriage to his former contender. The marrage produced four happy and healthy children. In the way of such tales, no one can stay happy for very long. Aeb died, and in her place, Bodb Derg sent another daughter to mother the grieving children. As the children loved one another, and their father, before all else, Aoife soon grew insanely jealous of the family bond that did not include herself. She tried wheedling a servant into killing the children, but the servant would have no part of her nefarious plans. The notion of killing them herself proved a wash, as she had neither the strength, the courage, or the stomach, to murder them personally. She then thought of the perfect solution. Using her special talent for magic, she turned her step-children into swans tethered together by a golden chain. When Lir learned of her actions, he hit the roof and transformed Aeb into an air demon with no hope for redemption. 

So what happened to the children? They spent 300 years as swans living on Lough Derrauaregh, 300 years in the Sea of Moyle, and finally 300 more years swimming the Imus Domnann. There's more than one version of their ultimate fate. One version records their returning to land and being blessed by a priest. Once again human and 900 years old, they died quickly, went to heaven, and were reunited with their mother and father. As for Aeb, she's still out there being an air demon. Yikes! 

One Last Little Thing! 

The Ugly Duckling

The Ugly Duckling

Art by: Fernl

A famous swan story is The Ugly Duckling. It tells of the hideous little duckling who turned into a beautiful swan.

If you'd like to read the story, go HERE. 

   

       

Manticore

Manticore - The History of Four-footed Beasts

Author: Edward Topsell

I've seen some creepy smiles in my time, but this is the creepiest yet. The creepiest of all creepy smiles belongs to a charming beast called the manticore. As you can see, the manticore has the body of a lion, a man's head with rows of shark-like teeth, and a tail covered in poisonous quills capable of being shot from a good distance away. The beast also has a voice like a trumpet, the ability to leap great distances, and the energy to keep going like the Energizer Bunny. Any unfortunate human captured by the manticore was consumed entirely, including bones, clothing, and items being carried. In some later stories, the manticore would query its intended meal with riddles before killing. To tell you the truth, if I saw a manicore, I wouldn't need to wait for the flying quills or riddles. I'd be dead without them! The manicore's name means man-eater. It's a good name and states the case.

 

Manticore - Bedeian Library

This poor manicore looks more buck-toothed than shark-toothed.

It's "man-eater" name orginated from the Middle Persian martya, "human, mortal being" and xwar, "to eat".  Understandibly, the manticore was considered the most deadly creature in Asia. Though the myth was of Persian origin, the manticore was believed to reside in India and Indonesia. It was mantained manticores were hunted on elephants in India while the creatures were young and without stings. The beast entered European mythology by way of Ctesias, a Greek doctor working at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II during the fourth century BC. Pausanias, in Description of Greece, said:

The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which says is called martichoras by the Indians and "man-eater" by the Greeks, I am inclined to think is a lion.  

What did our friend Pliny the Elder think?

   

Pliny the Elder

Unlike Pausanias, Pliny the Elder swallowed the manticore myth hook, line and sinker. In other words, he swallowed it whole. Quoting Ctesias he wrote:

The mantichora has the face and ears of a human with grey eyes, a triple row of teeth that meet like the teeth in a comb, a lions body of a blood-red color, and a voice like a pan-pipe blended with a trumpet. It stings with its tail like a scorpion. It is very fast and has a special appetite for human flesh.

Like Fox Mulder of the X-Files, Pliny the Elder wanted to believe. 

Manticore - Museum Meermanns

In medieval Europe, the manticore symbolized tyranny, envy and the devil. It was evil personified. As late as the 1930's, peasants of Spain thought the creature signified bad omens. It was a beast that kept going, and going and going! 

So if you hear of manticores in your neighborhood, grab the closest elephant and dispatch them while they're young. They're not nice to have around.

The Roc

The Roc is a mythological Arabic and Persian bird so large it could capture and eat elephants. Appearing in 1001 Arabian Tales, it became popular in the Sinbad the Sailor story when  unknowingly saving Sinbad from a shipwreak.

I like this picture, but not as well as the first. 

 Sinbad, finding himself in the Roc's nest accompanying an egg as large as"148 hens eggs," needed to find a way out as quickly and unintrusively as possible. Carefully tying himself to the Roc's leg with his turban, Sinbad flew off hanging on for dear life. The bird flew so high the Earth vanished from sight. Finally, Sinbad escaped when the Roc returned to Earth and flew by an island. That was one high flying bird! 

   

This looks larger than 148 hens eggs.

The origin of the Roc can be found in the mythological Indian story about a fight between the half-human, half-eagle Garuda (who loved to snack on snakes), and the serpent Naga. According to German historian Rudolf Wittkower, Naga is a word that means both snake and elephant. Since the elephant has a long snake-like trunk, this makes sense.

Garuda was so huge, he could block out the sun.

There's another story about Garuda flying off with an elephant and tortoise caught engaging in a massive fight. This story is found in both the Sanskrit Mahabharata and the Ramayana. After carrying the squabblers away, Garuda ate the malcontents. I have no idea why the elephant and tortoise were fighting. In Indian myth, the world rests on the backs of four elephants, who in turn, are all standing on the back of a tortoise. The whole crowd slowly travel through various examples of chaos. You'd think with such cooperation transporting the world, elephants and tortoises would get along better. Perhaps familiarity breeds contempt.  

  It's possible the Roc myth was encouraged by skeletons of the Aepyornis. Extinct since the 17th century, "Elephant birds" reached a height of over 10 feet and weighed nearly half a ton. These massive, though obviously flightless, birds may have been perceived as Aepyornis chicks. If that's the chick, I wouldn't want to meet the parents! The ostrich is another feasible baby Roc inspirer. 

     

An Aepyornis egg compared to a chicken egg.

I'll end this post with a quote about the Roc by Marco Polo (1254-1324). Polo was a merchant from the Venetian Republic who wrote extensively about Central Asia and China. 

Marco Polo saw many colorful things.

"It was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size, so big in fact that its quills were twelve paces long and thick in proportion. And it was so strong that it will sieze an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the bird swoops down on him and eats him at his leisure." 

The Roc was a tempermental bird best not to make angry. Keep this in mind if you ever encounter an unusually large egg. The huge Roc was known for destroying ships in revenge if its egg was tampered with. Confine yourself to chicken eggs for your breakfast meal.