Hello my beautiful souls!
Today, I'd like to tell you about the stork as a baby carrying and delivering service. Why would I talk about this here, you may ask? Well, because we can trace the origins of the myth back to Ancient Greece and further to Egypt. And guess what? Yes, a Goddess had a hand - excuse me, beak! - in it all!
Nowadays, we are so used to the story of the stork delivering babies that we don't even think twice when we see it on infant's clothes, cards and other places. We don't question where this story comes from. Why would we?
It is just a cute little tradition that doesn't mean anything, really. It was a convenient way for adults to tell children a fib in times when sexuality wasn't discussed when they asked where babies came from. Also, storks nest close to human habitation, often building their nests on chimneys because it is warm there, so to see what a devoted mother the white stork is, was easy.
But even though the baby-stork has become very widespread and popular following the publication of Christian Andersen's short story The Storks, the mythological origins go way back, disappearing in the mists of history and time...
In Greek/Roman mythology, Hera (Juno) had to endure her husband Zeus' (Jupiter's) continued infidelity and turned a rival, the mortal pygmy queen Gerena, into a stork and commanded her to fly away. Gerena didn't want to leave her newborn baby behind (which was likely fathered by Zeus), so she wrapped him in a blanket and carried him away in her beak while chased by her own people. It has now come to light that it is more likely that Gerena was turned into a crane, rather than a stork.
In Ancient Egypt, the human soul, the ba, was represented by a stork in hieroglyphic writing. Also, the Bennu bird, the ancestor of the phoenix as we know it today who was often depicted as a stork, or heron, which looks very similar and is therefore easily confused when interpreting artefacts, flew over the waters of Nun (the primordial waters of creation) and let out a cry after landing on a rock, determining what was to be included in creation. There was a type of heron, now extinct, coming from the Arabian peninsula that seems most likely to be the inspiration for the Bennu bird.
In Norse mythology, it is wrongly believed that storks mate for life, so they are also a symbol of conjugal fidelity and monogamy.
Many storks would be seen flying North around the time of the summer solstice, when many babies were born, thus making the connection between storks and babies being delivered.
In Catholic belief, the pelican, a mother feeding her babies from her beak, holds deeply symbolic meaning and could be yet another incident of mistaken identity over the centuries and millennia.
However, the belief that storks bring babies originated several centuries ago in Germany, in the Alsace, located around the Germany/France border region. Storks are migratory birds. They fly south in the autumn and return nine months later in the spring, then nest and care for their young with loving parental devotion.
The regional Goddess Holda, which was later, as is often the case in patriarchy, turned into a figure in Grim's fairytales, is the Goddess of Death and Birth. Her realm is that of the in-between where she welcomes the souls of the deceased and brings them back to life in new bodies as babies. These souls fall to earth with the rain and collect in bodies of water, awaiting their rebirth.
Holda had messengers that would guide elves in their silver boats to collect the souls with golden threads and then delivered to expectant mothers. In Germanic tradition, Holda was honoured on December 24th, on the winter solstice, thus symbolising the light returning after the darkness, as the days started to lengthen again. The Catholic church then turned this celebration into Christmas and in Western German tradition, the person bringing the presents is the Christkind, usually depicted as an infant or toddler, but this is not Baby Jesus.
In Germanic mythology, Holda travels in her magical chariot across the sky, adorned in white and red garments, on top of which is a cape made of goose feathers, in the starry sky of the night of the 24th of December, bestowing joy and gifts upon the land. Known also as the White Lady, Holda’s association with the winter season, characterized by its blanket of snow, added to her mystique as a figure of reverence and celebration.
In the fairytale, she was called Frau Holle, (Mistress Holle), which is known as Mother Hulda in the English-speaking world, and would shake bedding filled with goose downs out the window which made it snow on earth.
Tirza's Tarot Tuesday
Tirza's Tarot Tuesday is live and this week's reading features Hathor as Goddess of the week.
She is the Egyptian Goddess of of joy, motherhood and the performing arts.
Find out more and watch my weekly Tirza's Tarot Tuesday video here:
To read more about Hathor, click on the image:
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