I found this cute Lullaby wich retains the totemic symbolism of the swan on the collection of folk poetry from the Western Isles of Scotland: Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations - Ortha Nan Gaidheal - Volume II -by Alexander Carmichael - [1900]
. Carmichael spent years collecting folklore from the vanishing
cultures of Scotland. Includes many incantations for luck, love and good health.
This volume also has numerous poems about plants and animals,
and extensive notes on the lore associated with them. They are a synthesis of Christian and pre-Christian
belief systems.
THE swan is a favourite bird and of good omen. To hear it in
the morning fasting--especially on a Tuesday morning--is much to be
desired. To see seven, or a multiple of seven, swans on the wing ensures
peace and prosperity for seven, or a multiple of seven years.
In windy, snowy, or wet weather swans fly low, but in calm, bright,
or frosty weather they fly high; but even when the birds are only specks
in the distant blue lift above, their soft, silvery, flute-like notes
penetrate to earth below.
Swans are said to be ill-used religious ladies under enchantment, driven from their homes and forced to wander, and to dwell where most kindly treated and p. 195 where least molested. They are therefore regarded with loving pity and veneration, and the man who would injure a swan would thereby hurt the feelings of the community.
A woman found a wounded swan on a frozen lake near her house, and took it home, where she set the broken wing, dressed the bleeding feet, and fed the starving bird with lintseed and water. The woman had an ailing child, and as the wounds of the swan healed the health of the child improved, and the woman believed that her treatment of the swan caused the recovery of her child, and she rejoiced accordingly and composed the following lullaby to her restored child:--
Swans are said to be ill-used religious ladies under enchantment, driven from their homes and forced to wander, and to dwell where most kindly treated and p. 195 where least molested. They are therefore regarded with loving pity and veneration, and the man who would injure a swan would thereby hurt the feelings of the community.
A woman found a wounded swan on a frozen lake near her house, and took it home, where she set the broken wing, dressed the bleeding feet, and fed the starving bird with lintseed and water. The woman had an ailing child, and as the wounds of the swan healed the health of the child improved, and the woman believed that her treatment of the swan caused the recovery of her child, and she rejoiced accordingly and composed the following lullaby to her restored child:--
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