TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

SWAN-MAIDENS. 429
tant, as placing in a clear light the exact relation of these swanwives
to the walkuren, is a statement about them in Altd. bl. 1
128 : A nobleman hunting in a wild forest saw a maiden bathing
in the river, he crept up and took away the gold chain on her
hand, then she could not escape.
There was peculiar virtue in this
chain : dor iimme (on account of it) werden siilche frowen
married her, and she had seven
wunschelwylere genant . He
children at a birth, they all had gold rings about their necks, i.e.,
like their mother, the power of assuming a swan-shape. Swan-
children then are wish-children. In Gudrun, the prophetic angel
comes over the sea-wave in the shape of a wild bird singing, i.e., of
a swan, and in Lohengrin a talking swan escorts the hero in his
ship; in AS. poetry swanrdd (-road) passed
current for the sea
itself, and alpiz, selfet, alpt (cygnus) is akin to the name of the
ghostly alp, self (see SuppL).
We hear tell of a swan that swims on the lake in a hollow
mountain, holding a ring in his bill : if he lets it fall, the earth
comes to an end. 1 On the UrSarbrunnr itself two swans are
maintained (Sn. 20) ; another story of a soothsaying swan is-
communicated by Kuhn, p. 67, from the Mittelmark. A young
man metamorphosed into a swan is implied in the familiar West-
phalian nursery-rhyme :
swane, swane, pek up de nesen,
wannehr bistu krieger wesen (wast a warrior) ?
Another, of Achen, says :
krune krane, wisse schwane,
we wel met noh Engeland fahre ?
And the name Ssefugel in the AS. genealogies seems to indicate a
swan -hero.
The spinner Berhta, the goose-footed* queen, may fairly suggest
swan-maidens (p.
3
280). If those prophetic gallicenae were able
1 Gottschalk s Sagen, Halle 1814, p. 227.
2 The pentagram was a Pythagorean symbol, but also a Druidic as it ; goes
by the name of elfs foot, elf s cross, goblin-foot, and resembles a pair of goosefeet
or swan-feet, semi -divine and elvish beings are again brought together in
this emblem the ; valkyr ThruS is next door to a swan-maiden, and Staufen-
berger s lover likewise had such a foot.
3 The beautiful story of the Good Woman, publ. in Haupt s zeitschr. 2,
350, is very acceptable as shewing yet another way in which this fairy being
got linked with the hero-legend of the Karlings. The two children born on
one day at paske flourie, and brought up in mutual love (77 87), are clearly
identical with Flore and Blanche/bur, for these also are not real names, but