Editing Pelican (section)

==== 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" />