Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



Not the magnificence of the swan merely, 

 but this element of superstitious reverence 

 accounts for the frequency of the swan as a 

 crest and charge of coats of arms. Perhaps 

 the eagle alone surpassed the swan in popu- 

 larity for this purpose during the later Middle 

 Ages and the centuries nearer our time, when 

 heraldry began to affect the airs of an exact 

 science and most well-to-do people, whatso- 

 ever their birth and descent, thought it neces- 

 sary to set up a coat of arms. Thus in 

 heraldry does the swan run back through 

 heraldic devices to totemism. Among the 

 " oath birds " which the wizards of Lapland 

 called upon in their incantations the swan 

 often figured. The shaman would tell how 

 the saivo-lodde, or bird from the magic place 

 called saivo, carried him on its back to that 

 realm of mystery where he learned what is 

 hidden to ordinary mortals. Hardly less 

 potent than the eagle's feather was the feather 

 of a swan among his stock of talismans and 

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