Editing Pelican (section)

===Christian symbolism===
[[File:Bergatreute Pfarrkirche Hochaltar Vogelnest.jpg|thumb|Statue of pelican wounding its breast to feed its chicks]]
[[File:Poster The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Association.JPG|thumb|WWII 1944 Scottish [[blood donation]] poster]]

==== Myth of self-sacrifice ====
The ''[[Physiologus]]'', a didactic Christian text from the 3rd or 4th century, claims that pelicans kill their young when they grow and strike their parents in the face, but then the mother laments them for three days, after which she strikes her side and brings them back to life with her blood.<ref name="RS">{{cite web |last= Stracke |first= Richard |title= The Pelican Symbol |year= 2018 |website= ChristianIconography.Info |url= https://www.christianiconography.info/pelicans.html|access-date=6 June 2022}}</ref> The ''Physiologus'' explains this as mirroring the pain inflicted on God by people's [[idolatry]], and the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|self-sacrifice of Jesus on the cross]] which [[Salvation in Christianity|redeems]] the sinful (see the [[Five Holy Wounds|blood and water]] gushing from the wound in his side).<ref name="RS" /> This text was widely copied, translated, and sometimes closely paraphrased during the [[Middle Ages]], for instance by 13th-century authors [[William the Clerk of Normandy|Guillaume le Clerc]] and [[Bartholomaeus Anglicus]].<ref name="RS" />

The self-sacrificial characterization of the pelican was reinforced by widely read medieval [[bestiary|bestiaries]]. The device of "a pelican in her piety" or "a pelican vulning (from [[Latin]] [[wiktionary:vulnero#Latin|''vulnerō'']], "I wound, I injure, I hurt") herself" was used in religious iconography and [[heraldry]].<ref name="NSS" />

The legends of self-wounding and the provision of blood occur across cultures.<ref name="NSS" /> For example, an Indian folktale depicts a pelican that killed her young by rough treatment, but was then so contrite that she [[Resurrection|resurrected]] them with her own blood.<ref name="NSS" /> Such legends may have arisen because of the impression a pelican sometimes gives that it is stabbing itself with its bill. In reality, it often presses this onto its chest to fully empty the pouch. Another possible derivation is the tendency of the bird to rest with its bill on its breast; the [[Dalmatian pelican]] has a blood-red pouch in the early breeding season and this may have contributed to the myth.<ref name="NSS" />

==== Religious art and literature ====
In a newer, also medieval version of the European myth, the pelican was thought to be particularly attentive to her young, to the point of providing them with blood by wounding her own breast when no other food was available. As a result, the pelican came to symbolise the [[Passion (Christianity)|Passion]] of Jesus and the [[Eucharist]],<ref>{{cite book |author= Gauding, Madonna |title= The Signs and Symbols Bible: The Definitive Guide to Mysterious Markings |page= 263 |year= 2009 |publisher= Sterling Publishing Company |location= New York, NY |isbn= 9781402770043 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=SImTll3uupIC&q=pelican |access-date=20 September 2019}}</ref><ref name="Ox">{{cite encyclopedia |entry= pelican |year= 2005 |editor1=[[F. L. Cross]] |editor2=[[E. A. Livingstone]] |title= The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |edition= 3rd |via= oxfordreference.com |isbn= 9780199566716 |url= https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192802903.001.0001/acref-9780192802903-e-5250 |access-date=6 June 2022}}</ref> supplementing the image of the [[lamb of God|lamb and the flag]].<ref name="mcgrath">{{cite book |author= McGrath, Alister E. |author-link= Alister McGrath |title= In the beginning: the story of the King James Bible and how it changed a nation, a language and a culture |orig-year= 2002 |year= 2012 |publisher= Anchor Books, a Division of Random House, Inc. |location= New York |isbn= 9781444745269 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=lkM5AgAAQBAJ&q=pelican |access-date= 20 September 2019}}</ref> This mythical characteristic is referenced in the hymn "[[Adoro te devote]]" ("Humbly We Adore Thee"), where in the penultimate verse, [[Saint Thomas Aquinas]] describes Christ as the loving divine pelican, one drop of whose blood can save the world.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[United States Conference of Catholic Bishops]] |title= Catholic Household Blessings & Prayers |year=2007 |isbn= 9781574556452 |page=12 |publisher= USCCB |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yk11nPl7a3oC&q=pelican |access-date=20 September 2019}}</ref> Similarly, the 1678 [[Christian literature#Christian allegory|Christian allegorical novel]] ''[[The Pilgrim's Progress]]'' describes how "the pelican pierce[s] her own breast with her bill … to nourish her young ones with her blood, and thereby to show that Christ the blessed so loveth his young, his people, as to save them from death by his blood."<ref>{{cite book |last= Bunyan|first= John|author-link= John Bunyan|date= 1678 |title= The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come |location= New York|publisher= Pocket Books|publication-date= 1957|page= 227}}</ref>

The pelican is featured in many Christian artworks, especially in Europe. For example, the first (1611) edition of the [[King James Version|King James Bible]] contains a depiction of a pelican feeding her young in an oval panel at the bottom of the title page.<ref name="mcgrath" /> The "pelican in her piety" appears in the 1686 [[reredos]] by [[Grinling Gibbons]] in the church of [[St Mary Abchurch]] in the City of London. Earlier medieval examples of the motif appear in painted murals, for example, the mural in the [[parish church]] of [[Belchamp Walter]], Essex (c. 1350).<ref>{{cite web |title=The Pelican in its Piety at ''Painted Churches'' online catalog. Anne Marschall |url=http://www.paintedchurch.org/bwaltpel.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412101325/http://www.paintedchurch.org/bwaltpel.htm |archive-date=12 April 2016}}</ref>

[[File:Nicholas Hilliard (called) - Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I - Google Art Project.jpg|alt=Statue of pelican wounding its breast to feed its chicks|left|upright|thumb|Queen Elizabeth I: the ''Pelican Portrait'', by [[Nicholas Hilliard]] (''circa'' 1573), in which [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]] wears the medieval symbol of the pelican on her chest]]

==== Elizabeth I and the Church ====
[[Elizabeth I of England]] adopted the symbol, portraying herself as the "mother of the [[Church of England]]". A portrait of her called the [[Pelican Portrait]] was painted around 1573, probably by [[Nicholas Hilliard]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/13c-16c/elizabeth.aspx|title='Queen Elizabeth I: The Pelican Portrait', called Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1573)|year=1998|work=Walker Art Gallery|publisher=National Museums Liverpool|access-date=29 July 2012|location=Liverpool, United Kingdom|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416214748/http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/13c-16c/elizabeth.aspx|archive-date=16 April 2014}}</ref>