Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



word from which grew the Latin name for the 

 stork, ciconia. The modern terms in Estho- 

 nian for swan are kuik and luig ; in Finnish 

 luiko and joutsen ; in Koibal and Karagash, 

 ku. Those parts of the globe which the musi- 

 cal wild swan still inhabits, Lapland, eastern 

 Siberia, Turkestan, are the same which from 

 primeval times have been the home of the 

 Finnic nations. In central Asia the swan is 

 still so sacred a bird that the Tatar who obtains 

 one rides with it to the nearest yurt, where his 

 neighbor gives him a horse in exchange for it ; 

 the neighbor then takes the swan and ex- 

 changes it for the horse of another, and so 

 on, until the poor bird is in such bad condi- 

 tion that no one is willing to swap a horse for 

 it more. Perhaps this may explain the use 

 of " swan " in an Early English poem quoted 

 by Halliwell (here modernized) — 



Teach it forthwith throughout the land 



One to the other that this book have now ** swan " — 



that is to say, prophetic power. 

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