Folklore of seagulls- myths and old stories

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

Old stories of British 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.

Ernest Ingersoll recounts the tale of St. Kenneth, 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. 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. 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.

Interesting...