SWANS are the Eliza Doolittle of the bird world: elegant and graceful in appearance but far from easy on the ear and always up for a fight. Yet despite this, there isn’t another bird so laden with symbolism. Sure, Christmas is replete with robins, the albatross augurs impending ill, and the dodo is a byword for dimness – but throughout history, different cultures have imbued the swan with myriad myths and meanings.
For while the Brits have long prized swans, other countries got there aeons before we did. Last year fossilised swan remains were found in Otago, New Zealand that are thought to be 19 million years old.heavily, and often sexually, in the folklore and literature of ancient cultures, such as in Ovid’s .
