Swan maiden
Swan maiden is the name of a female legendary figure who can transform into a swan by throwing on a swan shirt. On the one hand there are Valkyries , on the other hand it is also reported by elves .
One of the myths is that an unmarried young man steals a feather of her shirt from a swan maiden, thereby preventing her from becoming a swan again and from escaping him, and thus succeeding in getting her to marry him. The sequel usually includes the fact that she gives birth to a child from whom she finds out one day where the feather is hidden so that she can escape.
The motif of the swan girl was not only inspiring for music, especially for Tchaikovsky , but also for the visual arts. One of the most important masterpieces by Mikhail Alexandrowitsch Wrubel focuses on the swan girl.
The Middle High German Nibelungenlied briefly mentions two swan girls when Hagen von Tronje sank the treasure in the Rhine. They were a model for the three Rhine maidens in Richard Wagner .
In the Wölundslied of the Lieder Edda , the motif is expanded to the extent that three brothers marry swan virgins there, all three of whom flee their husbands after seven years. Wölund , who does not try to find his swan maiden, suffers a fate similar to her. He is forced to stay with his master, King Nnung, and can only free himself from this captivity by making wings.
The Chinese version has been documented since the 4th century. A man steals the winged robe of a bathing bird girl and marries her. Afterwards she gives birth to three daughters. After a few years the woman finds her robe and flies away. She later returns with three new wing garments and brings the daughters to her home. This motif can also be found in the Chinese Niulang Zhinü saga ( cowherd and weaver ).
In Japan there is the legend Hagoromo Densetsu ( Japanese 羽衣 伝 説 ), which can be traced back to the Ōmi - Fudoki from the 8th century. A man steals the feather robe ( Hagoromo ) of a bathing sky girl ( Tennyo ), without which she cannot return and forces her to marry him. After a few years, she gets the robe back, flies to the sky, and leaves her husband and children behind.
Similar motifs
A mixture of motifs of the swan girl and the mermaid can be found literarily elaborated by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in his story Undine . A snake's body often appears in the form of Melusine .
In the fairy tale ( AaTh 400), the woman's flight is often magical and the man goes on a hike in search of miraculous gifts . At the end there is often a fight with a rival for the marriage ( Grimm's Children's and Household Tales 92 , 93 , 137 , 193 , 59a ).
Web links
Illustrations, text versions and interpretations of Swan-Maidens on SurLaLuneFairyTales.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Clark Center for Japanese Art & Culture: Exhibition Spring 2005 - Drawn from Literature: Narrative Traditions in Japanese Art ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ Karl Florenz : Japanese Mythology. Nihongi. "Age of the Gods", along with additions from other old source works . In: Supplement to the "Mittheilungen" of the German Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia . Hobunsha, Tokyo 1901, p. 305–306 ( digitized version in the Internet Archive - called Afumi-Fūdoki there).
