
About two weeks ago, a compelling image appeared in my Facebook news feed. I later learned that it was an illustration by Adam Brockbank for a comic called MeZolith, pictured here on the left. The touching image was attached to an article that briefly discussed a Mesolithic era burial in Denmark of a young woman and her infant son, the child having been laid to rest on a swan’s wing. A few days before this, I had been researching the ritual pits found in the village of Saveock in Cornwall. Again on my Facebook news feed, I came across articles shared about swan maidens and swan and goose symbolism. A carved wooden swan sits on a shelf in a hutch in my kitchen, and it has been drawing my eye more than usual lately. Imagine also my shock to read, the night I began to write this article, that thousands of snow geese perished in Montana last week after a snowstorm forced them to land in a toxic lake. I rarely ignore this kind of synchronicity in my life, so I let the current guide me and began to delve more deeply into my exploration of swan lore. Although I have just begun to scratch the surface, I would like to share here some of the interesting things that I’ve come across in my research.