Editing Stork (section)

=== Associations with fertility ===
According to European folklore, the white stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. The legend is very ancient, but was popularised by an 1839 [[Hans Christian Andersen]] story called "The Storks".<ref name="sax">{{cite book |last=Sax |first=Boria |title=The Mythical Zoo |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-57607-612-5 |location=Oxford, UK |pages=153–154}}</ref> German folklore held that storks found babies in caves or marshes and brought them to households in a basket on their backs or held in their beaks. These caves contained ''adebarsteine'' or "stork stones". The babies would then be given to the mother or dropped down the chimney. Households would notify when they wanted children by placing sweets for the stork on the window sill.<ref name="Margolis72">{{cite journal |last1=Margolis |first1=Marvin |last2=Parker |first2=Philip |year=1972 |title=The stork fable−some psychodynamic considerations |journal=Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=494–511 |doi=10.1177/000306517202000304 |pmid=4116100 |s2cid=45301787}}</ref> Subsequently, the folklore has spread around the world to the [[Philippines]] and countries in [[South America]].<ref name="Margolis72" /> Birthmarks on the back of the head of newborn babies, ''[[nevus flammeus nuchae]]'', are sometimes referred to as stork-bite.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jacobs |first1=Alvin H. |last2=Walton |first2=Robert G. |year=1976 |title=The incidence of birthmarks in the neonate |journal=Pediatrics |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=218–22 |doi=10.1542/peds.58.2.218 |pmid=951136 |s2cid=245028603}}</ref> In [[Slavic mythology|Slavic mythology and pagan religion]], storks were thought to carry unborn [[Soul (spirit)|souls]] from [[Vyraj]] to [[Earth]] in spring and summer.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gieysztor |first=Aleksander |title=Mitologia Słowian |publisher=Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe |year=1982 |isbn=978-83-221-0152-0 |location=Warsaw |language=pl |author-link=Aleksander Gieysztor}}</ref> This belief still persists in the modern folk culture of many Slavic countries, in the simplified child story that "storks bring children into the world".<ref>{{cite web |last=Jakubiec |first=Z. |year=2009 |title=Dlaczego bocian przynosił dzieci? |url=http://bocianopedia.pl/bociany-i-bocki/bocian-i-czlowiek-czyli-nasz-powszechnie-lubiany-sasiad/dlaczego-bocian-przynosil-dzieci/157 |access-date=10 March 2011 |work=Bocianopedia |language=pl}}</ref><ref name="autonazwa12">{{cite journal |last=Szczepanowicz |first=Barbara |year=2005 |title=Ptaki Ziemi Świętej: Bocian, czapla, ibis |trans-title=Birds in the Holy Land: Stork, heron, ibis |url=http://basia.tomp.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=12 |journal=Ziemia Święta |language=pl |issue=rok XI 1(41) |access-date=8 February 2011}}</ref>

Famous is the role that the fable played in historical development of [[psychoanalysis]]: the name ‘chimney sweeping’, which the first of all patients gave to her talking cure, is a free association with the place through which the bird used to bring babies into house. Psychoanalyst Marvin Margolis suggests the enduring nature of the stork fable of the newborn is linked to its addressing a psychological need, in that it allays the discomfort of discussing sex and procreation with children. Birds have long been associated with the maternal symbols from pagan goddesses such as [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], to the [[Holy Spirit in Christianity|Holy Ghost]], and the stork may have been chosen for its white plumage (depicting purity), size, and flight at high altitude (likened to flying between Earth and Heaven).<ref name="Margolis72" />

There were negative aspects to stork folklore as well; a Polish folktale relates how God made the stork's plumage white, while the Devil gave it black wings, imbuing it with both good and evil impulses. They were also associated with handicapped or stillborn babies in Germany, explained as the stork having dropped the baby en route to the household, or as revenge or punishment for past wrongdoing. A mother who was confined to bed around the time of childbirth was said to have been "bitten" by the stork. In Denmark, storks were said to toss a nestling off the nest and then an egg in successive years.<ref name="Margolis72" /> In medieval England, storks were also associated with adultery, possibly inspired by their courtship rituals. Their preening and posture saw them linked with the attribute of self-conceit.<ref name="deVries76">{{cite book |last=de Vries |first=Ad |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofsymb0000vrie/page/445 |title=Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery |publisher=North-Holland Publishing Company |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-7204-8021-4 |location=Amsterdam |page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofsymb0000vrie/page/445 445]}}</ref> Children of [[African American]] [[Slavery in the US|slaves]] were sometimes told that white babies were brought by storks, while black babies were born from [[buzzard]] eggs.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bay |first=Mia |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195132793 |title=The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830–1925 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-19-513279-3 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195132793/page/120 120] |url-access=registration}}</ref>