SWANS. Related to the elements of both air and water, the swan is a symbol of breath, spirit, transcendence, and freedom. In many religious traditions it is interchangeable with the goose or duck in signifying the soul. Swans connote both death beneath the waters and rebirth, or victory over death, in the air. The complexity of the symbol is reflected in its alchemical representation as the union of opposites, the mystic center.

A prominent motif among origin myths is the cosmogonic dive, in which a swan or other aquatic bird is sent by God to the depths of the primordial waters to bring back the "seed of earth," from which God creates the world. This image existed in manifold versions among prehistoric populations of northern and eastern Europe and, from the third millennium BCE, among the peoples of America.

In Hindu iconography the swan personifies brahman-ātman, the...