Swan

“ The colouring of the swan is pure; his attitudes are graceful; he never displeases you when sailing on his proper element. His feet may be ugly, his notes hissing, not musical, his walk not natural; he can soar, but it is with difficulty;—still, the impression the swan leaves is that of grace. ”

“ Reddish about neck and breast, graceful as a swan in form and motion, while not larger than a swallow, light as the lightest feather on the water, turning its curving neck and dainty head to look,—it seemed more like an embodied fancy than a creature inured to the chill of Arctic seas and the savagery of Arctic storms. ”

“ The swan is very properly entitled the peaceful monarch of the lake: conscious of his superior strength, he fears no enemy, nor suffers any bird, however powerful, to molest him; neither does he prey upon any one. His vigorous wing is as a shield against the attacks even of the eagle, and the blows of it are said to be so powerful as to stun or kill the fiercest of his foes. The wolf or the fox may surprise him in the dark, but their efforts are vain in the day. ”

“ We have seen a third swan spinning the thread of thought that is fastened from country to country round the world, so that the word may fly with lightning speed from land to land.
And our Lord loves the old swan's nest between the Baltic and the North Sea. And when the mighty birds come soaring through the air to destroy it, even the callow young stand round in a circle on the margin of the nest, and though their breasts may be struck so that their blood flows, they bear it, and strike with their wings and their claws. ”

“ The sinuous neck of the swan, its passionate jealousy, and the uncanny whistle, or else dumbness, found where, from so snowy an outside, melody might have been looked for, may have made this animal the type of a double nature. The treacherous brilliants of the serpent, or honey protected by stings, or the bright blossoms of poisons, would have trained the instinct which apprehends evil under the apparition of beauty. ”

“ Added to which, the snow-white form of the swan is imaged in clear waters, and is relieved by green foliage; and if the bird makes the river more beautiful, the river, in return, reflects its serenity and peacefulness upon the bird. Now all this we seem to see as we look upon the swan. To which of these facts separately will you attach this new intuition? And if you wait till all are assembled, the bird is already beautiful.
We are all in the habit of reasoning on the beautiful, of defending our own tastes, and this just in proportion as the beauty in question is of a high order. ”

“ The swan is white without a daily bath, and the raven is black without dyeing itself. When the pond is dry and the fishes are gasping for breath it is of no use to moisten them with a little water or a little sprinkling. ”

“ Those who bear the name skim as swans over the lotus-pond of heaven, or, laying aside their feather-dresses, bathe, as beautiful females, in the limpid flood. These swan-maidens are the houris of the Vedic heaven; receiving to their arms the souls of the heroes. Sometimes they descend to earth, and become the wives of mortals ”

“ Away flew the swan, spreading out her broad wings to enable her to rise above the surface. Instead of seeking the land, to my horror, she dragged me right out towards the middle of the pond; while the other swans, alarmed at seeing the extraordinary performance of their companion, flew off in all directions. Fortunately I was able to keep my head above the surface, but was afraid of getting a kick from the other leg of the swan as she struck the water with it to assist herself in making her onward way, but as I held her captive foot at arm’s length, fortunately she did not touch me. ”

“ Centuries will pass by, swans will fly forth from the nest, men will see them and hear them in the world, before it shall be said in spirit and in truth, "This is the last swan—the last song from the swan's nest." ”

“ A swan exercises on me something of the same fascination that a camel does; though far be it from me to compare the two in grace. They are both full of character, and both preserve a strictly critical attitude toward the human race. In the case of the swan, nature has perhaps dealt unfairly with him, for the curious little black cap, at the junction of bill and head, technically known as the "berry," gives him a fixed expression which he has no power to alter, even if he felt beaming with good humour. ”

“ Not a dark grey ugly duckling, but a beautiful swan! To be born in a duck's nest in a farm-yard, does not matter to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg. Yes, he too was a swan. Now he would have friends to love him, and nobody would scorn and ill-use him any more. Ho rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck and cried joyfully, "I never thought such good was in store for me when I was an ugly duckling." ”

“ The black-necked swan of South America is thought by many to be the most handsome of them all. Its bright white body and black neck make a pleasing contrast. When tamed this bird keeps to its own part of the pond, as if too proud to mix with common folks, and will fight them off if they come too near.
The Black Swan of Australia
In fact, the swan is always ready to fight if it is meddled with. ”

“ The ordinary white, or mute, swan, which graces our rivers and lakes, has been admired, and even protected by laws, for many centuries, and its plumage is so beautifully and uniformly snowy that we can hardly be surprised if people thought that all swans must be white, and should regard a black swan as impossible, like the two-necked swan sometimes painted upon inn-signs. But travellers have discovered many strange animals in unexplored countries, and we now know that there are not only black swans, but even swans that have a black neck and a white body. ”

“ When the hero or heroine becomes an aquatic bird, [466] when he becomes a swan, is drawn by a swan, or rides upon it, it means that he is traversing the sea of death, and that he is returning to the kingdom of the San Graal. When he comes on the swan to meet the beautiful maiden, no one must ask him whence he came. The swan awaits him and will draw him once more under its magic power, and into its gloomy kingdom, as soon as this kingdom is remembered by the living. ”

“ One of nature's grandest sights is the yearly flight southwards of wild swans from Norway to the great lakes in Turkey. The birds fly at the rate of about one hundred miles an hour, in vast flocks, shaped like the letter V, the sharp end foremost, as an arrow passes through the air. At the point flies the leader or captain, the strongest and wisest of the band, and ahead of the main army he sends a skirmishing swan to keep a sharp look-out. ”

“ The mother swan lays from six to twelve eggs, on which she broods for thirty-six days, while the father bird keeps at hand with a sharp lookout for meddlers. They make their own nests and take care of themselves, though a little island is often built up in the middle of the pond with a straw-lined shelter in which the nest may be made. After they are hatched, the little swans take boldly to the water and swim about in search of food. They are gray when born and do not gain their dazzling white color until they are two years old. ”

“ Among our large water-birds there are few more strikingly handsome and stately in appearance than this grebe in its full breeding-plumage, when viewed as it floats, unalarmed, on the secluded reed-fringed water it loves. The swan, in its immaculate white dress, with proudly arched neck and plume-like scapulars, when seen ‘floating double,’ is to many minds the most perfect type of a beautiful waterfowl ”

“ They are as awkward and ungainly in all their movements when on land, as they are graceful in the water. I know few prettier sights than that of a swan moving lazily along in summer on some calm lake or river; his reflection just broken now and then by the tiny wavelets that he makes in swimming.
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Swans build their nests on the bank of some river or piece of water, or still more frequently on some small island. In the nest the mother swan lays six or seven greenish-white eggs, on which she sits patiently for two months before the young cygnets appear. ”

“ The swan is tolled by a dog, that is taught to play about within easy call of his master, at the edge of the water; the hunter contrives to place himself behind a log, or some other cover well concealed, before he begins his operations, taking care to observe that the direction of the wind is not unfavourable to him, and that the flock he means to toll is near enough to distinguish such objects on the shore, and under no alarm at the time. ”

“ Swans support baskets for flowers and vases. There are swans in china, in marble, in alabaster, in gold and silver, on the tables, on the mantels and brackets, painted, embroidered on cushions and footstools,—everywhere you find them. A half-dozen of different sizes stand together on a small table, some of them large, some as tiny as the toy swan a child sails in his glass preserve-dish for a pond. There is a swan-fountain in the garden; a great swan on the stove in a reception-room.
King Louis can bathe every day in a gold bath-tub if he wishes. ”

“ The black swan of Australia, from which the Swan River takes its name, is not perhaps the ideal black swan of the poet, for, as a matter of fact, it has a good deal of white in its wings, although but little of this is visible when the wings are closed, as in the illustration. Moreover, the general colour of the plumage is brownish black, rather than pure black, while the beak is crimson with a white tip, and the eyes are scarlet. From all other swans this species differs by the curling feathers in the region of the shoulder, and the extreme shortness of the tail. ”

“ The swan just spoken of is by some naturalists named the mute or tame swan, to distinguish it from one to be presently mentioned, but it is the swan simply of the English language and literature. Scientifically it is usually known as Cygnus olor. Its large size, its spotless white plumage, its orange-red bill, surmounted by a black knob (technically the “berry”) larger in the male than in the female, its black legs and stately appearance on the water are familiar, either from figures innumerable or from direct observation, to almost every one. ”

“ They scourge themselves into action with a sword, lap the blood of the slain, and fly gorged with blood for forty years. In number they are forty, and yet they run together into one; so that at one time there is but a single swan-woman, at another the sky is dark with their numerous wings ”

“ I have dissected this, and find the trachea convoluted in a manner very similar to that of the crane.
There is a legend that when a swan is dying he becomes musical. The origin of this legend probably is the trumpeting of the wild-swan. This our friends can hear in the Zoölogical Gardens; it is a melancholy-sound, and may be thus written—"hwoo hwoo." The tame swan has not this structure of the windpipe, showing, therefore, that it is a distinct species. As the trumpet is useful to the crane, so also is it to the swan. ”

“ The swan affords a pleasing illustration of the love of the mother-bird for its young, and has been known to vanquish a fox who made an attack on its nest—showing that the instinct of motherhood kindles boldness and bravery in the breast of the most timid animals. The nest is generally made on an islet, and composed of reeds and rushes, and when the five or seven large eggs are hatched, the mother may be seen swimming about with the young ones on her back. ”

“ But as a type of academical chiaroscuro it will give you most valuable lessons on the other side—of warning.
Here, then, is the academical Dutchman's notion of a swan. [Pg 29] He has laboriously engraved every feather, and has rounded the bird into a ball; and has thought to himself that never swan has been so engraved before. But he has never with his Dutch eyes perceived two points in a swan which are vital to it: first, that it is white; and, secondly, that it is graceful. He has above all things missed the proportion, and necessarily therefore the bend of its neck. ”

“ A tradition of a swan carried away by some rising of the river from the Castle of Portumna, and swept down the lake till it found refuge in the little bay, had given the name to the place, and for more than a hundred years was it known as the Swan's Nest. The Swan, however, no longer existed, though a little thatched edifice at the water-side marked the spot it had once inhabited, and sustained the truth of the legend.
The owner of the place was a Dr. Lendrick: he had come to it about twenty years before the time at which our story opens,—a widower with two children, a son and a daughter. ”

“ At other times he gets near enough in the disguise of a deer or other quadruped—for the swan, like most wild birds, is less afraid of the lower animals than of man.
During the spring migration, when the swan is moving northward, the hunter, hidden under some rock, bank, or tree, frequently lures him from his high flight by the imitation of his well-known “hoop.” This does not succeed so well in the autumn.
When the swans arrive prematurely on their spring journey, they resort sometimes in considerable flocks to the springs and waterfalls, all other places being then ice-bound. ”

“ Within the building not only is the swan a prominent figure in the frescoed story, but whichever way one turns one sees a counterfeit presentment of the graceful [pg 415] bird. There is Lohengrin in his enchanted boat impelled by his beloved swan, an exquisite group in silver, and another like it in porcelain; swans are carved upon the furniture, moulded upon the dishes, painted upon cups and saucers, embroidered upon cushions and footstools: they serve as ornaments to antique goblets, as covers to match-boxes, as handles to vases. ”