The Many Myths of Swallows

Every year on March 19th, at the San Juan Capistrano Mission in California, the swallows come home. Like clockwork, the returning migrators fill the skies and the hearts of onlookers with the promise of spring. It’s a huge tourist spot. The birds are so entwined in the Mission’s history that fork-tailed barn-swallows decorate their stained-glass windows.

Except… every piece of that paragraph is a little bit off.

The returning swallows are cliff swallows, not the barn swallows depicted in stained glass.

March 19th is hardly ever the exact date that the swallows return.

And as overeager spectators nonetheless gather on the traditional date, they’re willing to call anything they see a swallow. Blackbird. Chickadee. Seagull. Eagle.

My point isn’t to pick apart a lovely and harmless tradition. It’s this: swallows seem to invite myths. 

They are the most widely distributed of the Passeriforme order of birds, which includes 60% of all bird species.

And of the 90 known species of far-flung swallows, the barn swallow is the MVP. Their worldwide territory covers 51.7 million square kilometres on all seven continents. All seven. The first one spotted in Antarctica was reported in November 1963. In 2011, they got photographic proof, on the South Shetland Islands.

Which is all to say: pretty much every culture and civilization on earth has, at some point, had to reckon with swallows. They pop up a lot in history and just as much in legend, where we try to invent fantastical origins for their behaviours or ascribe predictive and prophetic powers to them. So I thought it would be fun to skip across the surface of a few of those stories, to give an (incomplete and superficial) idea of how closely they’ve always been linked to us.

When swallows seemed to disappear without a trace at the onset of colder weather, early naturalists theorized that they hibernated by digging themselves into the mud of riverbanks. This idea probably started by watching swallows gather by the hundreds in reeds at the shoreline before their migratory departure. One day they were there, the next they disappeared. This theory gets misattributed to Aristotle a lot but in fact he wrote critically of it, along with dispelling some other bird myths.

But speaking of Aristotle, in Nicomachean Ethics he gave a proverb: "For as one swallow or one day does not make a spring, so one day or a short time does not make a fortunate or happy man.” This proverb would eventually find its way into Aesop’s Fables. In Aesop’s version, a man sees one swallow, decides spring has sprung, and sells his winter coat, only to be stuck shivering in the cold days later.

Their presence in your home has largely been seen as a blessing across history and cultures. A swallow choosing your roost is a sign of good fortune and protection from disease, curses and fires - from Europe to China. Their behaviour has long been used to predict weather. A low flying swallow means rain, a high flying swallow means good weather.

In Christian mythology, a swallow is said to have visited Jesus on the cross and offered him comfort - this may have come from their call sounding a little like ‘cheer up! Cheer up!’ which I’m sure made the crucified Jesus feel way better.

The exuberant flight and long migrations of swallows have also made them versatile nautical symbols for sailors. Swallow tattoos can mean completing a 5000 nautical mile voyage safely, sailing all seven seas, rounding the horn of Africa, or crossing the equator. If a sailor drowns, swallows will haul his soul out of the water and make sure it gets to heaven. Swallow tattoos can also mean you got out of prison recently, using the same symbology of freedom.

In North American myths, swallows are selfless allies to humankind. In a Hopi creation story, a swallow saves us from starvation by teaming up with the Spirit of Dew to bring us corn seed. 

Another myth says that the barn swallow’s tail is a permanent scar from stealing us fire from the gods. An angry deity fired a parting shot as the swallow escaped with the flame, singeing its tail feathers and leaving it forked forever.

And in another, the Great Spirit asks all the animals of there’s anything he can do for them. When it gets to Man’s turn, he complains that Serpent keeps feasting upon his blood. The rest of the animals kind of roll their eyes at this, like ‘we’re all part of the food chain here, buddy’. But Great Spirit admits Man has seniority over his other creations and asks Swallow to go figure out whose blood might be better for Serpent to drink so he can start going after them instead. Swallow goes through every other animal and comes to the unfortunate conclusion that Man’s blood really is the best for Serpent. Mosquito overhears this admission, but Swallow tears out Mosquito’s tongue. When Mosquito flies back to Great Spirit all he can do is buzz at him while Swallow says ‘Frog blood. Yep. Definitely Frog blood is better than Man blood.’ Swallows have done a lot for us.

They’re the national bird of both Austria and Estonia. In Estonia, it’s said that anyone who commits the sin of killing a barn swallow will go blind.

In Greek myth, a swallow is part of the bloody story of Procne involving rape, cannibalism, decapitation and finally transmutation as she is changed into a swallow by the gods to make a frantic escape. Three genera of swallows are named after her.

In 1888, Oscar Wilde published a book of children’s stories including ‘The Happy Prince’. A swallow left behind by his flock strips the bejewelled and gold-leafed statue of a prince (at the statue’s request) to procure food for the poor residents of a village. By the end the swallow has died from the effort and the statue is reduced to a broken metal heart, but these are taken up to heaven by an angel so it all kind of works out.

But one of the nicest stories about the swallow and their long history living alongside us is one that actually happened. 

The late 1800s produced some truly regrettable hats. There was a sort of arms race going on for the most opulently adorned chapeau. In part, it was a reaction to repression. Women’s clothes were pretty heavily codified, so they saw hats as the one part of their wardrobe with which they were free to express themselves. Which is nice! Unfortunately they did it by killing a whole lot of birds. Not just for feathers, it wasn’t uncommon to have an entire stuffed bird on your hat.

And with their small stature and often iridescent plumage, you can see how swallows would be a very popular choice for hat-adornment. 

When George Bird Grinnel (yep), the editor of Forest and Stream magazine, realized the extent of the indiscriminate slaughter of swallows for the fashion industry, he wrote a series of op-eds  in 1886 urging people to consider the unspoken price of their fancy hats. And they did. Women in New York took up the cause with protests, boycotts and informational tea parties (I wish those would make a comeback) which lead to the introduction of the Migratory Bird Act, finally forbidding the indiscriminate killing of birds.

It also lead to Grinnel starting the Audubon society in 1905, named for John James Audubon and dedicated to the protection of birds. That society is still going strong and doing vital conservation work today.

In myth, swallows have a history of being selfless martyrs. Turns out that’s who they are. Millions were slaughtered for hats to prompt a sea change in conservation practice, both in federal laws and private organizations. And for all their noble sacrifice, they still don’t get the limelight they deserve. The Audubon society, founded to combat their slaughter, chose for its logo: an egret.