Editing Pelican (section)

==== 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]]