photo #5889913

A postcard, circa 1900, depicts a stork delivering newborns. German folklore told of storks finding babies in caves or marshes and bringing them to households in a basket on their backs or held in their beaks. The babies would then be given to the mother or dropped down the chimney. Households would indicate when they wanted children by placing sweets for the stork on the windowsill. The legend is ancient, but was popularized by a 19th-century Hans Christian Andersen story called The Storks.