Folklore of Seagulls – Myths and Old Stories
Sea Gulls Appear in the Legends and Lore of Various Cultures
Aug 24, 2009
Seagulls are so familiar to people of the northern hemisphere that it’s not surprising they’ve worked their way into many human tales and traditions.
The Folklore of Seagulls
According to Ernest Ingersoll, writing in 1923, gulls are regarded as foolish. A connection to English words like gullible and gulled is easy to make, but according to some authorities, those words have other origins. Perhaps gulls acquired their undeserved reputations simply because their name is similar. Historically, Native North Americans were a better judge of character—they cast the gull in the role of trickster, clever enough to get the better of the mythical hero Raven.
Many people, even today, watch seagulls near coastlines to predict the weather. Some believe that gulls wheeling high in the sky mean a storm is coming. Others watch for gulls moving inland in numbers to predict a storm approaching from offshore.
Old Stories of British Seagulls
British folklore of seagulls includes several charming old stories about gulls and their relationships with people.
- Ernest Ingersoll recounts the tale of St. Kenneth (p. 261 – 252), who was said to have been raised by Black-headed Gulls. The infant Kenneth, Ingersoll writes, was found floating off the coast of Wales in about the year 550, and carried to the gulls’ cliffside breeding colony. The birds built a feather bed and enlisted the aid of a doe to provide milk. An angel offered a cup. Kenneth grew up in the gull colony and became a joyful kind man. The Welsh peasants of the area bestowed the title of St. Kenneth upon him.
- Another gull story collected by Ingersoll involves a religious hermit of the Farne Islands known as St. Bartholomew (p. 263). St. Bartholomew lived at about the same time as St. Kenneth and he too made friends with birds, even getting a gull to eat from his hand. When a hawk killed the gull, St. Bartholomew punished the raptor by caging it, but soon let it go unharmed.
- The tale of St. Bartholomew may be true. John Hogg tells the story of Snow, a Herring Gull caught in Scotland as a nestling (p. 384 - 387). Snow was released into the garden of his captor, where he learned to hunt insects, caterpillars, and slugs, and to watch for prey unearthed during gardening activities. He befriended foraging pigeons and became adept at pretending to be one in order to get close enough to House Sparrows to catch and eat them. Snow was good at catching rats as well.
Native American Myth and Seagulls
Native American stories of gulls frequently involve the mythical character Raven, trickster and cultural hero:
- A Chinook story collected by anthropologist Franz Boaz tells of a battle of land birds against sea birds after the gull killed the raven. Both birds wanted to harvest poggies (small fish), cod and flounders on the beach, but the raven beat the gull to the bounty day after day and then lied about it. Determined to have the beach to himself, the gull killed the raven, whereupon the crow, raven’s sister, gathered an army of land birds and began killing the gull’s army of sea birds. The crow demanded low tide early in the morning so that she could forage for things swept up onto the beach. The land birds were winning and the gull was forced to concede.
- Another story of fishing conflict between Raven and gulls comes from the Tsimshian of Alaska: Raven had caught a number of small fish—olachen—which he was cooking over a fire. When he called the gull, many gulls came and ate all of the fish. Angered, Raven punished the gulls by throwing them into the fire, and that is why many gulls in Alaska have black wing tips.
Gulls in Culture
Their familiarity, beauty, graceful flight, and wildness in the midst of human communities have often made gulls the subject of stories, poetry and works of art. Robert Service wrote his famous poem Grey Gull about the unfettered freedom of a seagull.
A folktale of Utah tells of a swarm of crickets that were destroying crops until a miracle happened: a flock of gulls came and ate all the crickets, saving the harvest and giving Utah its state bird: the California Gull.
No doubt there are many more folk tales and stories of seagulls in the northern hemisphere, waiting to be collected.
Sources:
Birds in Legend Fable and Folklore. Ingersoll, Ernest. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.; 1923
Myths and Legends of Alaska. Judson, Katharine Berry. Bibliolife, 2008. p. 56
"Raven and Gull Myth." Boaz, Franz. Chinook Texts, U.S. Bureau of Ethnology Bulletin No. 20 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894), pp. 88-91
"The Gulls." Retold by S. E. Schlosser American Folklore: Utah. www.americanfolklore.net
The Parlour Menagerie. Hogg, John. London: John Hogg & Co., 1878
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