Black Swan Emblems and Popular Culture - European Myth and Metaphor

European Myth and Metaphor

The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote in 82 AD of rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno ("a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan"). He meant something whose rarity would compare with that of a black swan, or in other words, as a black swan did not exist, neither did the supposed characteristics of the "rare bird" with which it was being compared. The phrase passed into several European languages as a popular proverb, including English, in which the first four words ("a rare bird in the land") are often used ironically. For some 1500 years, the black swan existed in the European imagination as a metaphor for that which could not exist.

The Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh made the first European record of sighting a Black Swan in 1697, when he sailed into, and named, the Swan River on the western coast of New Holland. The sighting was significant in Europe, where "all swans are white" had long been used as a standard example of a well-known truth. In 1726, two birds were captured near Dirk Hartog Island, 850 kilometres (530 mi) north of the Swan River, and taken to Batavia (now Jakarta) as proof of their existence.

Governor Phillip, soon after establishing the convict settlement some sixty years later and 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) away at Botany Bay on the east coast, wrote in 1789 that "A black swan, which species, though proverbially rare in other parts of the world, is here by no means uncommon ... a very noble bird, larger than the common swan, and equally beautiful in form ... its wings were edged with white: the bill was tinged with red." A contemporary, Surgeon-General John White, observed in 1790, "We found nine birds, that, whilst swimming, most perfectly resembled the rara avis of the ancients, a black swan."

The taking of Black Swans to Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries brought the birds into contact with another aspect of European mythology: the attribution of sinister relationships between the devil and black-coloured animals, such as a black cat. Black Swans were considered to be a witch's familiar and often chased away or killed by superstitious folk. This may explain why Black Swans have never established a sizeable presence as feral animals in Europe or North America.

While the European encounter with the Black Swan along Australia's west coast in the late 17th and early 18th centuries led to the shattering of an age-old metaphor, their contact on the east coast in the late 18th and early 19th centuries merely confirmed the new post-proverbial view, before turning to account for the Black Swan as just one more curiosity in the South to be utilised in developing the colonies.

In Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, the sinister and seductive black swan, Odile, is contrasted with the innocent white swan, Odette.

Some Black Swan hotels in the United Kingdom are nicknamed Mucky Duck.