Swan knight legend
The Swan Knight's legend is a medieval legend from the area of the Burgundian Netherlands that has been handed down in several variants . It received different forms in literature (such as the verse tale " The Swan Knight " by Konrad von Würzburg ) and served a number of ruling houses on the Lower Rhine as a genealogical legend of origin . In 19th century historicism , she provided Richard Wagner with the plot for the musical drama Lohengrin .
Epic forms
The oldest evidence of the legend goes back to the 12th century and connects the swan knight with the swan child legend and the genealogy of the Bouillon house . In the French chanson du chevalier au cygne et les enfances de Gaudefroy de Bouillon , the swan knight Elyas is the grandfather of Gottfried von Bouillon . In the late Middle Ages, the material was re-edited and the basis for numerous popular books. From around 1500 prints and translations into Dutch, English, and Spanish have appeared. a. in Antwerp, Salamanca, London and Paris. In German literature, the Swan Knight's legend is linked to the Grail theme , for example in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival , who calls the Swan Knight Loherangrin. The German versions bring the Swan Knight's legend without the Swan Child's legend.
Central building blocks
- The swan child legend
- The judgment of God
- The magic barge
- The ban on questions
Genealogical references
In the French versions of the 12th century, the swan knight Elyas appears as the grandfather of Gottfried von Bouillon and the central plot takes place at the time of Emperor Otto in Nijmegen on the Lower Rhine. The family itself does not seem to have claimed the legend of the swan knight for itself. The legend of the Swan Knight was transferred to Brabant because of the duchy of Lower Lorraine or the close relationship of the houses of Bouillon and Brabant. The older Brabant historians like Jacob van Maerlant or Jan van Boendale rejected the original legend and instead favored the descent of the Dukes of Brabant from the Trojans . Unlike the Bouillon-Boulogne and Brabant houses, the Kleve house with the Schwanenburg and the Geldern and Rieneck houses, which are related to Kleve, had an intensive swan memoria . In addition, other noble houses traced their ancestry back to the swan knight.
literature
- Frédéric de Reiffenberg (Ed.): Le chevalier au Cygne et Godefroid de Bouillon, poëme historique , Edition, Brussels 1846-1859.
- Kurt Ranke (Ed.) Et al .: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales , Volume 12: Schinden, Schinder - Sublimation. In it Lemma Schwan (en) ritter. Walter de Gruyter Berlin 2005–2007. ISBN 978-3-11-019936-9
