"_Then sayd the pellycane
When my byrats be slayne
With my bloude I them reuyue (revive)
Scrypture doth record,
The same dyd our Lord,
And rose from deth to lyue._"
SKELTON, "Armory of Birds."
[Illustration: A Pelican in her piety, wings displayed.]
The character ascribed to the pelican is nearly as fabulous as that of the
phœnix. From a clumsy, gluttonous, piscivorous water-bird, it was by the
growth of legends transformed into a mystic emblem of Christ, whom Dante
terms "Nostro Pelicano." St. Hieronymus gives the story of the pelican
restoring its young ones destroyed by serpents as an illustration of the
destruction of man by the old Serpent, and his salvation by the blood of
Christ.
The Pelican in Christian Art is an emblem of Jesus Christ, by "whose blood
we are healed." It is also a symbol of charity.
The "Bestiarum" says that Physiologus tells us that the pelican is very
fond of its brood, but when the young ones begin to grow they rebel
against the male bird and provoke his anger, so that he kills them; the
mother returns to the nest in three days, sits on the dead birds, pours
her blood over them, and they feed on the blood.
[Illustration: Heraldic Pelican in her piety.]
Heralds usually represent this bird with wings endorsed and neck embowed,
wounding her breast with her beak. Very many early painters mistakenly
represented it similar to an eagle, and not as a natural pelican, which
has an enormous bag attached to the lower mandible, and extending almost
from the point of the bill to the throat. When in her nest feeding her
young with her blood, she is said to be IN HER PIETY.
The Romans called filial love piety, hence Virgil's hero is called the
"pious Æneas," because he rescued his father from the flames of Troy.
[Illustration: Crest, a Pelican vulning herself proper, wings endorsed.]
The myth that pelicans feed their young with their blood arose from the
following habit, on which the whole superstructure of fable has been
erected: They have a large bag attached to their under-bill. When the
parent bird is about to feed its brood, it macerates small fish in this
bag or pouch; then, pressing the bag against its breast, transfers the
macerated food to the mouths of the young ones.
The pelican in her piety is not an uncommon symbol upon monumental
brasses. That of William Prestwick, Dean of Hastings, in Warbleton Church,
Sussex, has it with the explanatory motto: "Sic Xtus dilexit nos."