swan

swan [OE swan, suan]. The large, long-necked amphibious bird (genus Cygnus, Olor) has played an important role in Celtic iconography and tradition from earliest times. The long-necked water birds pull model wagons in art surviving from the Urnfield (1500–800 BC) and Hallstatt (1200–600 BC) eras. Swans are less common during Roman domination, but one is featured in a sculpture of three mothers and three children in a boat found at Alesia in eastern France. A metal horse-goad from early Ireland found at Dunaverney, Co. Antrim, features swans with cygnets that can be turned in place, suggestive of augury. In early Irish literary tradition the swan is often depicted as the epitome of purity, beauty, and potential good luck. In Welsh stories swans are more likely to imply communication between the Otherworld and the world of mortals, as when swans doff their feathers and frolic in a lake as maidens. Yet a certain sexual association, perhaps suggested by the phallic long neck, is often implied. Derbforgaill (1) takes the form of a swan when she comes from Lochlainn with her maidens to woo Cúchulainn. Much earlier, a flock of destructive yet beautiful swans festooned with gold and silver chains ravages the area around Emain Macha when Cúchulainn is conceived. In still another story Cúchulainn returns to Emain Macha with a flock of swans, again in gold and silver chains, wild deer, and three severed heads. The chains of precious metal probably evoke the supernatural. Silver chains adorn Cáer (1), the swan-maiden in love with Angus Óg in Aislinge Óenguso [The Dream of Angus]. Not all humans taking swan form are female, however. In the third part of Tochmarc Étaíne [The Wooing of Étaín], the otherworldly Midir is transformed into a swan and flies through a smoke-hole in the roof after he wins an amorous embrace with Étaín, wife of Eochaid Airem. King Mongán also takes the form of a swan. Most memorably, the male and female children of Lir in Oidheadh Chlainne Lir [The Tragic Story of the Children of Lir] are transformed into swans, spend three watery exiles of 300 years each, are returned to human form, and are baptized Christians just before crumbling into dust. Irish oral tradition records the story of an old man who hides his money in the body of a swan he thinks dead, but it awakens and flies away with his hoard of coins. OIr. ela; ModIr. eala; ScG eala; Manx olla; W alarch; Corn. alargh; Bret. alarc'h.

Bibliography

See Anne Ross , Pagan Celtic Britain (London, 1967), 234–42.