92 



British Birds with their Nests and Eggs. 



Swans. Jiipiter visited Leda in the guise of a S^^an. Cygnus, with its great 

 central star Deneb, is a prominent constellation in the heavens during much of 

 the year, low down in the spring, and then, as the months roll by, soaring Swan- 

 like to the zenith. Greek and Latin poets, and historians make frequent allusion 

 to the Swan. It was, however, more especially in the old Aryan mythology, that 

 the Swan held so conspicuous a place. Sacred to Freya, herself the goddess of 

 spring, when her great white favourites, sounding their loud bugle-notes, flew 

 northwards, then 



" Out of the morning land, 

 Over the snow-drifts. 

 Beautiful Freya came, 

 Tripping to Scoring. 

 White were the moorlands, 

 And frozen before her; 

 Green were the moorlands. 

 And blooming behind her." 



The birds, too, were lovety maidens — Swan-maidens — who could take upon 

 themselves the human form at will. And we find the same beautiful myth con- 

 tained in some of the romances of the middle ages, like that of Lohengrin and 

 Helias. Oaths, the most binding and sacred, were taken on the bird ; and an 

 order of the Swan was instituted in Germany. The Swan's bath of the Viking 

 was the North Sea. Swan-neck, as applied to a woman, expressed grace and 

 beauty. The simile recalls fair, pale Edith, with hair dishevelled, searching 

 through heaps of slain — Saxon Thane, and Norman Knight — on the bloody field 

 of Senlac, for her dead lover. 



" Round the red field tracing slow. 

 Stooped that Swan-neck white as snow; 

 Never blushed nor turned awa}-, 

 Till she found him where he lay." 



In some parts of Ireland there yet lingers a strong feeling against the killing 

 of a Swan, as it is believed the souls of the departed take possession of the bird's 

 body, so that a man might be guilty of slaying his nearest dead relative. Another 

 superstition is that women, who, whilst living, had been remarkable for the purity 

 of their lives, were afterwards enshrined in the body of these birds, and decked 

 with a plumage symbolical of the same. The S^^an, too, probably as an emblem 

 of a pure life, became the badge of the great Saint Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln. 



Mr. Gray says: — "a few years ago, a wounded Swan remained throughout 

 the summer on Loch Bee, and attracted much attention by the loud and melancholy 

 cries to which it gave utterance. An old crone, in telling me about this bird, 

 reiterated her conviction that it was the ghost of her grand-mother, who had met 

 with a violent death about sixty years previously. It was a bold image, though 

 I cannot but think that a Black Stuan would have been more appropriate." 



