Hirondelles de Rabelais
Résumé
Dictionaries claim it was Rabelais who introduced the word hyrondelle into French. This article examines the occasional presence of this migratory bird in the Pantagruel. This trajectory leads back to certain zoological sources of Rabelais, whose Quart Livre plays with the semantic possibilities of the Greek word chelidon, a “swallow” belonging to the sea and the air.