The Graceful Swan

Swans are large water birds of Anatidae family, which also includes geese and ducks.
The word swan is derived from Old English swan, akin to the German Schwan and Dutch zwaan and Swedish svan, in turn derived from Indo-European root *swen (to sound, to sing), whence Latin derives sonus (sound). Young swans are known as cygnets, from the Latin word for swan, cygnus. The male and female adults are known as cob and pen.

How do you tell one swan from another? Just looking at the swan will tell you a lot. Most adult swan are white, but there are differences in the bills, shape of the head, size of the body and sound of their voice. Each species of swan have differently shaped trachea, which gives each species a different sounding voice. Three species of swan live in North America: the tundra swan, the trumpeter swan and the mute swan.
Swans are one the most graceful and elegant animals in the world. They live in large nests made of reeds and water vegetation. A swan typically weighs 25 to 35 lbs. and stands at 4 feet tall with a wing span of about 10 feet.

Swans usually mate for life, though 'divorce' does sometimes occur, particularly following nesting failure. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight.

Many of the cultural aspects refer to the Mute Swan of Europe. Perhaps the best known story about a swan is The Ugly Duckling fable. The story centres around a duckling that is mistreated until it becomes evident he is a swan and is accepted into the habitat. He was mistreated because real ducklings are, according to many, more attractive than a cygnet, yet cygnets become swans, which are very attractive creatures. Swans are often a symbol of love or fidelity because of their long-lasting monogamous relationships.

In Greek mythology, the story of Leda and the Swan recounts that Helen of Troy was conceived in a union of Zeus disguised as a swan and Leda, Queen of Sparta. The Irish legend of the Children of Lir is about a stepmother transforming her children into swans for 900 years. Swans are revered in Hinduism, and are compared to saintly persons whose chief characteristic is to be in the world without getting attached to it, just as a swan's feather does not get wet although it is in water. The Sanskrit word for swan is hamsa or hansa, and it is the vehicle of many deities like the goddess Saraswati.

In the United Kingdom there is a popular belief that all swans are the property of the reigning Monarch. In fact their right to ownership of swans is restricted to unmarked Mute Swans on open water, and this right is exercised only on certain stretches of the River Thames and some of its tributaries between Windsor and Abingdon. However, strictly speaking the British swans are the property of the Queen, except for the Swans of Orkney. This is because of an old Udal Viking law that states that the swans are the property of the residents of the islands. This was proven in 1910 when an Orkney lawyer won the case of a man who shot a swan.

The swan bears messages of love and relationships, and a reminder of the blessings found in our relationships. The Swan holds a multitude of representations including love, grace, purity, beauty and sincerity. Another attribute of Aphrodite, the Swan also symbolized chastity. The Swan is also another symbol of the Virgin Mary and the purity and love she symbolizes.