animal
Swan
Swan as an animal people have named and used. Grace, fidelity, still water — one living kind, not a single symbol.
Hellenic religion
Swan appears in Hellenic religion.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses seats the swan among transformations (Cygnus and related swan-forms). A named swan in that poem, not Leda’s egg dump without a checked Leda entity and not a ballet dump.
from Ovid · Metamorphoses, 8 CE
appears in · sourced · documented
Vedic tradition
Swan appears in Vedic tradition.
The Ṛgveda names the swan/goose (haṃsa) among bird speech in hymn landscape. A named Vedic haṃsa in that corpus, not Ovid’s swan metamorphosis and not a ballet dump.
from Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation) · The Rigveda, 2014 (this translation); hymns much older
appears in · sourced · documented
Norse tradition
Swan appears in Norse tradition.
Völundarkviða in the Poetic Edda seats swan-maiden speech among the wives who wear swan-shape. A named swan kind in that poem, not a generic bird dump and not falcon as Freyja’s cloak bird.
from Anonymous (Eddic poems); Carolyne Larrington (translation) · Poetic Edda, medieval Icelandic compilation; Larrington trans. 1996/2014
appears in · sourced · documented
sources
- Metamorphoses · Ovid
Ovid, Metamorphoses.
- The Rigveda · Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation)
Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India.
- Poetic Edda · Anonymous (Eddic poems); Carolyne Larrington (translation)
The Poetic Edda, trans. Carolyne Larrington.