The Portland daily press., 1880-11-08
Swan Legends.
The Romance Which Surrounds the
Graceful Bird.
TPall Mall Gazette I


In the northern legends swans play most
romantic part. Two separate currents may be
distinguished in the swan myths of Teutonic
and Scandinavian countries To one current
belong the various stories of swan maidens, to
the other those concerning the knights of the
swan. Here, again, both traditions of beast
worship and images of nature poetry may play
a part; though it is not clear that the swan
maidens of the north had any other origin than
the obvious one which would lie in process Of
imaginative reasoning like this: Swans are
beings all softness, grace and purity; so are
some rare maidens; therefore, some rare
maidens are in reality swans.
At any rate there was no question that such
supernatural beings existed. They were both
fairer and wiser than mortal women. They
could change from one shape to the other at
will. To assume the human shape they doffed
robes OF down or swanshirts, but retained in
variably gold or silver chain about their
necks. She whose swanshrt was carried off
by mortal could no longer while he kept it
safe, become bird again or resume it's free
dom. On the other hand she from whose
neck in her human shape the chain was taken,
Immediately became a swan again, and could
not recover her humanity until she got back
her chain.
Sometimes hunter approaching forest
pool would descry damSel of more than NOR
tai beauty bathing in its waters, would notice
the chain about her neck and the robe of down
hanging from a tree, would seize the robe and
bear the damsel home to live with him in hap
piness until one day he should forget the key
which kept her magic garment from her, and
return to find her flown forever. Or swan
brides would consort of their own accord with
warriors who had surprised them at dawn as
they sat spinning in human shape beside the
margin OF mountain turp, until after seven
years their hearts would change, and they
would fly away, leaving their husbands to sally
after them over the SHOWS in vain.
Another Icelandic story tells how Helgi aud
Olaf fought on the ice of frozen lake, and
how Kara, the mistress of Helgi, hovered over
the heads of the combatants in the likeness of
great swan, and by her magic blunted the
weapons of them that fought against Helgi,
until by chance he struck off leg of the swan
with his sword, and Immediately the fortunes
of the battle changed.
The other great swan myth of the north is
that of the injured damsel, to whose aid, in
her extremity, there comes sailing knight in
boat drawn by an enchanted swan, and who,
after the knight had rescued and made her his
bride, destroys her happiness by insisting that
he shall tell her who he is and whence he
comes. We are all familiar with this tale as
1T is told by Wolfram Won Eschenback, and
has in our own day been recast by Wagner
concerning Elsa of Brabant and Lohengrin,
the son of Percival.
The same story is combined with the myth
of the swan maidens in the well known ro-
nance of Helias and Clarissa of Bouillon.
This Helias is an enchanted knight, whose
mother, Beatrice, has borne him to Orient,
king of Lilisfort along with six other swan
children. Among these Helias alone escapes
the wiles by which their wicked grandmother,
Matabrun, divests the other six Of their chains
and their humanity together. At last he is
able to redeem all his brothers except one, and
that one, in the guise of a swan drawing a
shallop, by-and-by guides him along the Rhine
to the court of Otho, where he champions the
Duchess Clarissa, wins her hand, and repeats
with her the story of Lohengrin with Elsa.
These are but one or two out OF the many
stories of swan maidens, knights of the swan
and swan children, which filled the imagina-
ton of northern Europe in the early middle
age. Others add to the element of magic and
romance an element of magic and monkish
legend; like the Irish story of the children of
Lir, who were transformed by their stepmother
into swans, and in that form compelled to
abide, until the spell was broken at the sound
Of the first bell ringing in those countries for
Christian mass.