Throughout history, storks have held deep symbolic meaning for many cultures. Early references to storks in the Bible considered these birds to be uniquely beautiful, and high praise for the time would have been to have your beauty compared to that of a stork! The ancient Chinese, influenced by the Buddhist and Taoist beliefs, saw the stork as a messenger of God and believed storks had the ability to ascend to the heavens, taking people with them. The symbol of the stork throughout recorded time has been one of innocence, beauty, protection, and a direct link to a higher power.
The image of a stork delivering a baby is one we all know and love, but how did that image get so inscribed on all of our brains? The word “stork” comes from the Greek word storge, meaning ‘strong, natural affection’. Because storks live for up to 70 years and are monogamous, they have a highly developed sense of devotion to their family members
Scandinavian biologists and naturalists report that tight knit families of storks routinely return to the same nesting sites, year after year, to raise their young. These nests were either on or near chimneys. Mysteriously, often the stork’s arrival into a town coincides with a distinct jump in the birth rate of the human population. This ignited human imagination and the Scandinavian story of childbirth by stork was born.
The Norse tale includes a stork delivering a baby through the chimney of an expectant mother’s home, then leaving her baby and biting her on the ankle before its exit. Since this story was told to curious children, the ankle bite gave parents a ready excuse for the children’s mother’s need to rest after the arrival of the newborn.
Birth announcements using the stork theme are some of the best selling birth cards in our collection. To find our stork birth announcements, please visit any of our birth announcement cards or go to the “search†bar and enter “stork†in the search area. You will be able to view all lots stork birth announcement cards at Stork Birth Announcements, Baby Boy Stork Announcements and Baby Girl Stork Announcements.