Just why do we have this myth that new babies are brought to their parents by a stork? Why not an eagle, or a duck?
First, it's important to know a bit more about the stork! This bird is quite the family bird, very dedicated to its wife and child. Storks can live up to 70 years, and often care for sick friends or parents as well as their own children.
The Greeks named this loyal bird "storage", which meant "strong natural affection". That's where we get our current name stork from.
Storks were common in Scandanavia and would even nest on the rooves of homes. The Scandanavians felt that new baby souls came from a watery pool that storks lived in.
Combining these two ideas, the parents had a simple explanation for other children in the family. When a baby was about to be born, the parents explained that the loving stork would bring that soul from the pool to the new parents, dropping it down the chimney. When the siblings returned from Grandma's house after the birth, there was the new baby, all ready and fresh. Sometimes parents would even tell the siblings that the mom had been bitten on the leg by the stork, and that's why she had to rest in bed for a few days.
This story reached the rest of the world through the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Hans gathered up many classic tales in the 1800s and put them together in books. These books became popular world wide, and the tales that were once folk tales in quiet corners of rural countries now had an international audience!
In fact, even in modern days, some babies are born with red patches on their face where blood vessels have clumped. These fade over time as the baby grows, but they are often called "stork bites" and attributed to where the stork bit the baby while bringing him or her to the new mother.
