Wait, what? Well, let’s see.

For generations, the stork has been a symbol of birth and new life in many cultures around the world. The image of a stork carrying a newborn baby in its beak is a common motif in folklore, literature, and art. But have you ever wondered how this legend came to be?

Well, a Redditor recently proposed that the legend of storks delivering babies is rooted in a much darker reality than one would assume, and it appeared because the screams of the leverets (baby hares) hunted by storks resemble human babies crying.

Wow, that’s a rather horrifying theory and we decided to find out whether it could be true. So we did what everybody would probably do: we googled it and found – well, nothing. So we went on to ask OpenAI’s increasingly popular Chat GPT, and the AI readily answered our question:

“According to this theory, the legend of storks delivering babies originated in Europe, where storks are a common sight in rural areas. In the past, people noticed that storks often nested on rooftops and chimneys, and they believed that the birds brought good luck to the households where they lived. As people watched storks hunting for food, they noticed that the birds had a particular fondness for leverets, or baby hares. The screams of the leverets as they were caught and killed by the storks were often heard by people nearby.

It’s believed that this association between storks and baby animals led to the legend of storks bringing babies. As people heard the cries of the leverets, they may have imagined that it was the cries of human babies being carried by storks. Over time, the story was embellished and passed down from generation to generation, until it became a popular myth.”

Could the leveret’s scream be behind the legend of storks delivering babies? Image credit: Johnath

However, since we’ve had some interesting experiences with Chat GPT before, whereby it returned answers that weren’t factual, to put it mildly, we asked the AI to provide its sources, which it did: an article by National Geographic and another by Live Science, which were nowhere to be found though. Could it be that the AI even made the links up?

At this point, we started to doubt whether leverets scream at all, but they do. According to Hare/Leveret Info, “when a leveret is in severe pain or feeling immense fear they may make a high pitched scream, this is not at all pleasant to hear.” This was also confirmed by other sources, such as Durham University, for example.

Bingo, now at least we had some facts to support the leveret-scream theory. So we carried on searching but just couldn’t find any further proof and eventually gave up. (If you have any hard evidence though, don’t hesitate to share with us.)

There is, however, another explanation for the legend of storks delivering babies and it sounds somewhat more reasonable. This one has its origins in Europe, too. According to this version, in the Middle Ages couples often got married during the summer solstice as it was thought to be a period of fertility. This is also the time when white storks would begin their migration south to warmer African climates to spend the winter months there. And, they would return to Europe exactly nine months later to start their breeding season – right when many of those honeymoon babies would be born. Thus, the association was formed that storks were the ones who delivered the babies, and a legend was born.

Whichever version is closer to reality, it’s important to remember that such myths are often based on real-life experiences and observations. So the story of storks delivering babies could as well have originated from the screams of leverets, after all. Even if only one Redditor knows for sure.