The Origin of Mute Swans

Today we’re going to find out why young swans are called cygnets, where a ‘swan song’ comes from, and how we got the Sahara Desert. On the way we’re going to untangle a weird contradiction in the middle of EB White’s 1970 novel The Trumpet of the Swan. It’s a winding road. So stay with me.

By 1970, EB White can already retire a legend: he’s written Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web. But he decides to go for a hat-trick and chooses one more animal to lionize (so to speak). This time, it’s a cygnet - a young swan - from Ontario.

Louis, the protagonist of ‘The Trumpet of the Swan’, is… a trumpeter swan. That makes sense, their native population in Ontario was just starting to make a comeback when White wrote the book. It also makes sense because part of the plot involves Louis’ father stealing a trumpet for him to play. Because in the novel,  Louis… is born mute.

Louis is a mute swan. But he is not a Mute swan. That’s a different, invasive species, also found in Ontario. 

So EB White is writing a children’s book about a mute swan who is in fact a Trumpeter swan, who needs a trumpet so he can sound like all the other swans. That’s how Trumpeter swans got their name, for their trumpeting call.

The weird thing is, ‘Mute’ swans also call. And it is just as boisterous, and just as trumpeting. So why do they get called ‘mute’ when they are anything but?

To find the answer, we’ll just have to go back a bit further than the 1970s when EB White is writing. Slightly past the 1870s when the Mute Swan is introduced to North America, to the year… 8. Just 8. 8 CE, when the Roman poet Ovid tells the story of Phaeton. 

Phaeton is a brash and extremely skilled chariot racer. He’s got the envy of everyone around him. He has the starry-eyed devotion of his lover Cygnus. Now he’s facing down the biggest race of his life, at the Isthmian games. Bigger than the Olympics.

And it’s not just glory he’s racing for. There’s a once-in-a-lifetime prize in the offer. Phaeton’s dad has promised the winner anything they ask of him. And he can deliver - because he just happens to be Apollo: the god of the sun.

Apollo has one of the most important jobs in the world: to haul the sun across the sky every day… by chariot. You can see where Phaeton gets it from. 

With those genetics, Phaeton isn’t even breaking a sweat in the Isthmian games. He wins the race handily, and he is anything but humble. He struts around basking in the glow of victory, bragging that he could win any race and drive any chariot in the world. His friends are getting really sick of this and start to mock him for all his hubris. Conveniently, Phaeton’s just won a gift from Apollo so he decides to put his money where his mouth is.

Phaeton tells Apollo he wants to drive the sun chariot. Apollo knows this is a really stupid idea. But one of the pesky rules of being a god is you are bound to your word. Apollo is obliged to hand those reins over to Phaeton.

For a hot minute, everything seems to be going OK. Phaeton is the best mortal chariot racer in the world, after all. But wouldn’t you know it, his ego gets the best of him. As he races across the sky towing the sun, he just has to look down to earth and make sure everyone is looking up at him in awe and envy. 

And in that moment when he lets the reins go to satisfy his ego, everything goes wrong. The chariot is yanked completely off course and dives toward the earth. Phaeton just barely manages to wrest control back as it skids over North Africa, leaving behind the Sahara desert where the sun fried everything to a crisp.

And that’s just the start. As he approaches the coast, the seas begin to boil. Poseidon, the king of those boiling seas, is not happy about this. He demands that Zeus put a stop to this idiot before he causes any more damage or deserts.

Zeus obliges. With a godly flick of the wrist he knocks Phaeton off the chariot. Apollo is so embarrassed by the trouble his son caused that he gives up sun-chariot duties entirely, handing over the reins to Helios (who it must be said has been performing flawlessly ever since).

And what about Phaeton? Well, you don’t get slapped off a chariot by Zeus and just dust yourself off and walk away. Phaeton skids to a stop next to a river bank. It’s clear he’s not long for this world. Cygnus rushes to his side, still utterly devoted to him. Cygnus’ grief is so overwhelming that his cries reach the gods. They hear his pure and heartfelt lamentations and all agree that this is incredibly irritating and they need to shut this guy up.

So Zeus smites him too. He turns Cygnus into… you guessed it. A swan. Hence: baby swans are known as cygnets.

But Cygnus doesn’t just get turned into any old swan. He becomes a Mute Swan. According to the myth, Zeus’ curse means to this day, Mute swans do not make a sound their whole lives. Only once, moments before death, do they let out one haunting and mournful song: their ‘swan song’.

So the idea of a mute swan has been with us since ancient Greece, though Mute swans have always been perfectly capable - overeager - to make a lot of noise. 

And the idea of a swan song has endured as well - the idea of one last great work by an  artist just before their death.

In EB White’s The Trumpet of the Swan, Louis does not get a swan song. He’s alive and well, trumpeting taps over the marshes of Ontario, by the end of the book. Along the way he’s wooed a female swan named Serena with his trumpet and befriended a human boy named Sam by learning to read and write on a chalkboard. It’s maybe not on the same level as weaving words into a spider web, but still impressive.

On the last page of the book he thinks to himself ‘how lucky he was to inhabit such a beautiful earth, how lucky he had been to solve his problems with music’. 

It’s a little anthropomorphic, but that’s a pretty nice summation of life as a bird. Inhabit a beautiful world and solve your problems with music.