31st December: Seven Swans a Swimming

Today is the Seventh Day of Christmas: in the song, that's Seven swans a swimming. So here are ten things you may not know about swans:

1. Swans belong to the family Anatidae within the genus Cygnus. There are six different species of swan, although the coscoroba swan is not one of them.
2. The word swan derives from the old European root word swen, meaning to sound or sing. An adult male is a cob, a female is a pen, and the young are called cygnets. A group of wild swans is a herd, a group in captivity is called a fleet. In flight, a group is called a bevy or a wedge. The fear of swans is Cygnophobia or kiknophobia.
3. The whooper swan is the national bird of Finland, and the mute swan is the national bird of Denmark.
4. Swans in the Northern hemisphere are always white, but in the Southern hemisphere there are swans with black necks, or even completely Black.
5. Swans mate for life, often forming pair bonds a couple of years before they reach sexual maturity. However, they don't pine away if one of the pair dies - they often find another mate, and "divorce" has been known to occur if they don't produce any young. The males help build the nest and help incubate the eggs.
6. In Elizabethan times, swan meat was a delicacy enjoyed by rich people and in particular, royalty. A recipe for baked swan survives from that time: "To bake a Swan Scald it and take out the bones, and parboil it, then season it very well with Pepper, Salt and Ginger, then lard it, and put it in a deep Coffin of Rye Paste with store of Butter, close it and bake it very well, and when it is baked, fill up the Vent-hole with melted Butter, and so keep it; serve it in as you do the Beef-Pie." Don't go trying it, though. Even if you manage to catch a swan, it's illegal to eat one now unless you're the Queen, one of her guests, or a fellow of St. John’s College Cambridge.
7. The fact that swans were once food gave rise to the swan upping ceremony which takes place on parts of the River Thames every July. The Queen owns all the unclaimed mute swans - she doesn't actually own every single swan because in the 15th century, the Crown split ownership of with the Worshipful Company of Vintners and the Worshipful Company of Dyers. Vintners Uppers wear white and black, and the Dyers Uppers wear dark blue during the census. The Queen's Swan Uppers wear traditional scarlet uniforms. Each group has two boats. The organisers of the Swan Upping are the Swan Warden and the Swan Marker, and the whole thing takes five days, over a 79 mile stretch of the river. When anyone spots a group of swans they yell "All Up" and grab as many as they can. The Dyers and the Vintners will mark their swans with a leg band while the Queen's remain unmarked. The Queen herself has only attended the ceremony once, but she is toasted with a glass of port every year before the boats set off. The Queen's title in this ceremony is Seigneur of the Swans. Far from being an archaic and useless exercise designed to annoy or frighten the birds, it's now a census and an opportunity to treat any sick or injured swans.
8. Swans can fly as fast as 60 miles per hour.
9. Swans have beaks with serrated edges that look like small jagged 'teeth' which help them catch their food. Swans are mostly herbivorous, but may eat molluscs, small fish, Frogs and worms.
10. Swans often appear in mythology. They are sacred to the god Apollo; Helen of Troy was conceived in a union of Zeus disguised as a swan and Leda, Queen of Sparta; the Irish legend of the Children of Lir is about a stepmother transforming her children into swans for 900 years; a swan is one of the attributes of St Hugh of Lincoln because he had a swan who was devoted to him. In Norse mythology, there are two swans that drink from the sacred Well of Urd in Asgard. The water of this well is said to be so pure and holy that anything that touches it turns white, including this original pair of swans and all others descended from them.