The Pelican
A mother pelican feeding her young with her own blood: a medieval image of Christ's sacrifice and of the Eucharist.
What the Pelican means
The pelican is an image of Christ giving his own blood, and especially of the Eucharist. In art it appears as "a pelican in her piety": a mother bird piercing her breast with her beak to feed her young. It is found in church paintings, murals and stained glass, and in carved furnishings such as the pelican lectern of Durham Cathedral.
Legend, not natural history: the belief that a pelican feeds or revives its young with its own blood is an ancient legend. It appears in the Physiologus, an early Christian book of animal allegories probably written in Alexandria in the second century, which made the pelican a type of salvation through Christ's death on the cross, and it passed from there into the medieval bestiaries. Durham Cathedral's guide suggests the belief may have come from the bird's red-tipped beak resting against its white breast feathers.
The image entered Eucharistic prayer through the hymn Adoro te devote, attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, which addresses Christ as the Pelican who cleanses us with his blood.
