Where Does The Myth Of Storks Delivering Babies Come From?

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

One of the oldest, most specific myths involving storks and babies goes back to the Greeks. According to the story, goddess Hera was extremely jealous of Queen Gerena. Some versions say it was because Gerena was so beautiful, while other stories say it's because the queen was having an affair with the god Zeus, Hera's husband, and Hera was ready for revenge (per History Daily). In the end, Hera transformed Gerena into a stork so she would fly away. Gerena had a baby, perhaps fathered by Zeus, and before the queen departed she grabbed her baby and carried him off with her. Stork flying with a baby hanging from her beak?

However, author Rachel Warren Chadd in the 2016 book "Birds: Myth, Lore and Legend" says the bird in the myth was most likely a crane rather than a stork, but even that is hard to confirm as in ancient times, "storks, cranes and herons were often confused" (as reported via Live Science). 

The Greeks weren't the only ones with stork mythologies connected to babies, however. The ancient Egyptians used a stork to represent the soul (known as ba). So when a stork appeared after somebody's death, it meant that person's soul was about to be reincarnated, coming back as a new baby, according to Today I Found Out

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