The cranes' beauty and spectacular mating dances have made them highly symbolic birds in many cultures with records dating back to ancient times. Crane mythology is widely spread and can be found in areas such as India, the
Aegean, South
Arabia,
China,
Korea,
Japan, and Native American cultures of North America. In northern
Hokkaidō, the women of the
Ainu people performed a crane dance that was captured in 1908 in a photograph by
Arnold Genthe. In Korea, a crane dance has been performed in the courtyard of the Tongdosa Temple since the
Silla Dynasty (646 CE).
The
Sanskrit epic poet
Valmiki was inspired to write the first
śloka couplet by the pathos of seeing a male sarus crane shot while mating.
[10][11]
In
Mecca, in pre-Islamic South Arabia,
Allāt,
Uzza, and
Manāt were believed to be the three chief goddesses of Mecca, they were called the "three exalted cranes" (
gharaniq, an obscure word on which 'crane' is the usual
gloss). See
The Satanic Verses for the best-known story regarding these three goddesses.
In
China, several styles of kung fu take inspiration from the movements of cranes in the wild, the most famous of these styles being Wing Chun, Hung Gar (tiger crane), and the Shaolin Five Animals style of fighting. Crane movements are well known for their fluidity and grace.
The
Greek for crane is Γερανος (
geranos), which gives us the
cranesbill, or hardy geranium. The crane was a bird of omen. In the tale of
Ibycus and the cranes, a thief attacked Ibycus (a poet of the sixth century BCE) and left him for dead. Ibycus called to a flock of passing cranes, which followed the attacker to a theater and hovered over him until, stricken with guilt, he confessed to the crime.
Pliny the Elder wrote that cranes would appoint one of their number to stand guard while they slept. The sentry would hold a stone in its claw, so that if it fell asleep, it would drop the stone and waken. A crane holding a stone in its claw is a well-known symbol in
heraldry, and is known as a crane in its vigilance.
Aristotle describes the migration of cranes in the
History of Animals,
[12] adding an account of their fights with
Pygmies as they wintered near the source of the
Nile. He describes as untruthful an account that the crane carries a
touchstone inside it that can be used to test for gold when vomited up. (This second story is not altogether implausible, as cranes might ingest appropriate gizzard stones in one locality and regurgitate them in a region where such stone is otherwise scarce.)
Greek and Roman myths often portrayed the dance of cranes as a love of joy and a celebration of life, and the crane was often associated with both
Apollo and
Hephaestus.
In pre-modern Ottoman Empire, sultans would sometimes present a piece of crane feather [Turkish:
turna teli] to soldiers of any group in the army (janissaries, sipahis etc.) who performed heroically during a battle. Soldiers would attach this feather to their caps or headgears which would give them some sort of a rank among their peers.
[13]
Throughout Asia, the crane is a symbol of
happiness and
eternal youth. In Japan, the crane is one of the mystical or holy creatures (others include the
dragon and the
tortoise) and symbolizes good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years. The crane is a favourite subject of the tradition of
origami, or paper folding. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a
thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane. After
World War II, the crane came to symbolize peace and the innocent victims of war through the story of schoolgirl
Sadako Sasaki and her thousand origami cranes. Suffering from
leukemia as a result of
the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and knowing she was dying, she undertook to make a thousand origami cranes before her death at the age of 12. After her death, she became internationally recognised as a symbol of the innocent victims of war and remains a heroine to many Japanese girls.