Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



magical paraphernalia. In all the northern 

 and western part of Europe, in the marshy, 

 lake-strewn lands of Scandinavia, Russia and 

 Germany, as well as among the lake regions 

 of Greece and Turkestan, the swan was a 

 bird to conjure with. 



The large white swan, domesticated in order 

 to grace ornamental waters, is very nearly 

 mute ; but the somewhat slenderer whistling 

 swan (Cygnus musicus) sings a great deal, 

 and indeed is particularly loquacious when 

 wounded or dying. Observations of the mute 

 swan caused people to assign the song of the 

 dying swan to the most fabulous of fables ; 

 but modern bird lovers have heard the swans 

 of Russia singing their own dirge in the north, 

 when, having lingered too long before migra- 

 tion, reduced in strength by lack of food and 

 frozen fast to the ice where they have rested 

 overnight, they clang their lives out, even as 

 the ancients said. Chaucer in "Anelyda and 

 Arcite" had good reason to sing — 

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