Large Water Birds - Pelicans

 

The Pelican Portrait', by Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1573), in which Elizabeth I wears the medieval symbol of the pelican on her chest
The self-sacrificial aspect of the pelican was reinforced by the widely read mediaeval bestiaries. The device of "a pelican in her piety" or "a pelican vulning (from Latin vulno to wound) herself" was used in heraldry. An older version of the myth is that the pelican used to kill its young then resurrect them with its blood, again analogous to the sacrifice of Jesus. Likewise a folktale from India says that a pelican killed her young by rough treatment but was then so contrite that she resurrected them with her own blood.
The legends of self-wounding and the provision of blood may have arisen because of the impression a pelican sometimes gives that it is stabbing itself with its bill. In reality, it often presses this onto its chest in order to fully empty the pouch. Another possible derivation is the tendency of the bird to rest with its bill on its breast; the Dalmatian Pelican has a blood-red pouch in the early breeding season and this may have contributed to the myth.

 

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