TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

430 WISE WOMEN.
to assume what animal shapes they pleased, why, then the Celts
too seem to have known about swan-metamorphosis in very early
times, so that in French fay-legends we may supply the omissions ;
e.g., in Meon 3, 412 :
en la fontaine se baignoient
trois puceles preuz et senees,
qui de biaute sembloient fees :
lor robes a tout lor chemises
orent desoz une arbre mises
du bout de la fontaine en haut.
puceles senees 3, 419. bien eure"es 418. la plus mestre 413-5.
The shifts were stolen, and the maidens detained. In the Lai du
Desire the knight espies in the forest a swan-maiden without her
wimple (sans guimple). The wimple of the white-robed fay
answers to the swan-shift.
6. WOOD-WIVES.
We have seen that the wish-wives appear on pools and lakes
in the depth of the forest : it is because they are likewise wood-wives,
and under this character they suggest further reflections. The old
sacred forest seems their favourite abode : as the gods sat throned
in the groves, on the trees, the wise-women of their train and
escort would seek the same haunts. Did not the Gothic aliorunas
dwell in the woodland among wood-sprites ? Was not Veleda s
tower placed on a rock, that is, in the woods ? The Volundarqvifta
opens
with the. words :
meyjar flugo sunnan Myrkvift igognom,
invented in fairy-tale fashion, to suit the name of their daughter Berhta, the
in the
bright, white. Berhta marries Pepin, and gives birth to Charlemagne ;
Garin le Loherain, Pepiri s wife is said to be Blanchefieur of Moriane, but in the
story now in question she is the unnamed daughter of count Ruprecht of
Barria (Robert of
Berry), spoken of simply as diu gmtefrouwe (162. 1130), diu
guote (1575), la bone dame (3022), conf. bonadea, bonasocia, p. 283 her
;
husband, who steps into the place of the childless last king (Merovingian), is
Karelman (3020), and the only name that can suit herself is Berte, already
contained in that of her father Euodbert. The children of this pair are
Pippin der kleine (little) and
<
Karle der merre . (greater) The events in the
middle part of the story are quite other (more fully unfolded, if not more
pleasing) than those told of Flore and Blanchefleur but we ;
plainly perceive
how on the new Karling race in the freshness of its bloom were grafted older
heathen myths of the swan-wife, of the good wife (p. 253), of the mild woman
(p. 280), of the bona socia (p. 283), and of the bonne dame (p. 287) ; Conf.
Sommer s pref. to Flore xxvi. xxvii. xxxii.