It’s the British version of an urban myth. It’s like an urban myth… but more British.

I emigrated to Britain. These sorts of things mystified me for the longest time.

Yes. Picture some British parents and their child on a walk near a pond, river, canal or whatever. The child sees a swan. The parents will say something like "don't get too close dear, it could break your arm".

Swans are aggressive so it's probably not terrible advice, but not because they go around breaking people's arms specifically.

Anecdotal reports, all of them true I'm sure:

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-24...

Lovely read!

Ye and the queen eats swans for breakfast or something like that.

Less often since September 2022.

We still have a queen, just not the one we want ;)

All swans are owned by the crown and the monarch has the exclusive right to kill and eat them.

Or at least that's the way I heard it, come to think of it I have no idea at all if that's true. Stops people killing and eating swans though. Not that many would anyway these days.

St John's College serves swan on formal occasions sometimes, because they have some connection to the royal family that means they have special permission. (Or used to in the Queen Elizabeth days, I don't know if they still do under Charles)

it is a custom more honour’d in the breach than the observance

Apart from the ones at Abbotsbury swannery. Those ones are privately owned. It is true to say all mute swans in Britain are owned by someone, though.

> All swans

Not all, just mute swans; so not Bewick’s or whoopers (if I remember correctly)

Edit:

“His Majesty specifically owns any unclaimed mute swan in open water in both England and Wales in a ceremonial fashion. This has been a law since medieval times. His ownership is shared with the Worshipful Company of Dyers, granted to them by the Crown in the 1400s.”

https://royalcentral.co.uk/uk/king/does-the-king-really-own-...

In the Netherlands we are also taught a swan could break your arm if you get too close. I don't know if it's true or not because I've been too scared to find out.

They're not going to hold you down and break it with a tire iron .. but I'll bet for certain that Swans are responsible for arms being broken.

They've got a pretty savage and scary charge to them, it's highly likely they've startled more than one person in a park who've turned to run, tripped and fallen across steps or rockery edges and come out badly injured.

They are also able to swing their wings quite rapidly while charging you. In this way they can throw a surprisingly hard punch. But not break bones in healthy humans - kids included.

https://outdoorswimmer.com/coach/myth-busting-can-a-swan-bre...

The beak is probably more dangerous, or at least give you a nasty pinch or nibbing.

Black Swans in Perth, herdsman Lake and elsewhere, in the 1980s during breeding season (and likely still today) fully charged people and had the mass to knock over more than one kid or small teenager .. and scare the bejeebus out of many adults.

As I said, and supported by your link, I can't see a swan directly breaking a human bone - but they sure as hell can knock one arse over by charging and causing a step back fall over. That'll do some damge in some cases, easy.

I've never been charged by a swan, but I have been knocked into a ditch by the slightly smaller but no less aggressive Canada Goose while biking. No broken bones, but I did have to straighten the alignment of the wheels on my bike.

Was bitten by a swan as a child. Painful by all accounts, but not enough for me to remember the pain, though I recall being more careful around swans afterward Probably more scary for my parents.

The smell test here is that swans are flying birds and a human is large(-ish) land mammal. Nature just cannot make a flying bird's bones strong enough because they have to be much lighter.

If we play conkers with each other's bones the swan will lose.

Upvote for the subtle reference to the conkers story (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41844545).

It's this thread, did you suffer HNception? :)

No, hit in the head by a black swan, thats all.

The idea that a swan can "break a man's arm with a blow of its wing" is (or was) ingrained enough into the British psyche that Peter Cook's comic creation, Arthur Streeb-Greebling, once said of his mother that she could "break a swan's wing with a blow of her nose."