108 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 118. 



An American poet has the following beautiful 

 lines : 



« ' What is that, mother?' 



* The swan, my love ; 

 He is floating down from his native grove, 

 No lov'd one now, no nestling nigh : 

 He is floating down by himself to die. 

 Death darkens his eyes, and unplumes his wings. 

 Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings : 



Live so, my love, that when death shall come, 

 Swan- like and sweet it may waft thee home.' " 



G. W. DOANE.* 



Tennyson, with all that luxury of dreariness, 

 sadness, and weariness, which characterises his 

 masterpieces, has also sung of " The Dying Swan." 

 I subjoin an extract, wishing your limits would 

 admit of the entire : 



" The plain was grassy, wild and bare. 

 Wide, wild, and open to the air, 

 Which had built up everywhere 



An under-roof of doleful gray. 



With an inner voice the river ran, 



Adown it floated a dying swan, 



Which loudly did lament. 



It was the middle of the da\% 



Ever the weary wind went on, 



And took the recd-tops as it went. 



The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul 

 Of that waste place with joy 

 Hidden in sorrow : at first to the ear 

 The warble was low, and full, and clear : 

 And floating about the under-sky. 

 Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole 

 Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear : 

 But anon her awful jubilant voice. 

 With a music strange and manifold 

 Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold." 



So much for the melody of the dying swan. 

 That of the living swan also requires consideration. 

 Mr. Nicol, in his valuable Iceland, Greenland, SfC, 

 thus describes the Cygnus musicus which frequents 

 the lakes and rivers of Iceland : 



" The largest and noblest of this class [the natatorial] 

 Is undoubtedly the wild or whistling swan, with 

 pure white plumage, slightly tinged on the head with 

 orange-yellow. This majestic bird is five feet long, 

 and, with extended wings, eight broad. It is rarely 

 seen in Greenland, and appears merely to rest in Faroe, 

 on its journeys to and from Iceland in the spring and 

 autumn. Some of them, however, remain all the 

 winter in the latter, and during the long dark 



NIGHTS THEIR WILD SONG IS OFTEN HEARD aS thcy are 



passing in troops from one place to another. It ap- 

 pears to be a kind of signal or watchword to prevent 

 the dispersion of the party, and is described as remark- 

 ably pleasant, resembling the tones of a violin, 

 THOUGH somewhat HIGHER, each note occurring after a 



distinct Interval. This music is said to presage a 

 thaw, and hence the Icelanders are well pleased when, 

 in long-continued frosts, it breaks their repose." 



He adds in a note, "The account of the midnight 

 SONG OF THE SWAN is froni Olafsen, who says it 

 ' das allerangenehmste zu horen ist,' is very de- 

 lightful to hear." 



Henderson says of the river Nordura in Iceland, 

 near its confluence with the Hrita : 



" The bleakness of the surrounding rocks was greatly 

 enlivened by the number of swans that were swimming 

 and SINGING melodiously in the river." — Jcelandy 

 2nd ed. p. 277. 



In the Edda we find Njord, god of the winds 

 and waves, when he came back to the mountains 

 to please his wife, thus singing : 



" How do I hate the abode of the mountains ! There 

 one hears nothing but the howling of wolves, instead 

 of the SWEET SINGING OF THE SWANS who dwell On the 

 sea-shores." 



Waterton gives an account of the last moments 

 of a favourite swan which he watched, in hopes of 

 catching " some plaintive sound or other, some soft 

 inflection of the voice," but was " disappointed." 



Geronimo. 



• I am not sure whether this gentleman be the 

 American Bishop of New Jersey, or a namesake only. 



QUEEN BRUNEHir.DA."' 



(Vol. v., p. 40.) 



I am glad that C. B. has questioned the pro- 

 priety of the epithet " female monster," which 

 some of your correspondents have applied to 

 Queen Brunehilda. Knowing how the passion 

 and prejudice that characterise party spirit have 

 under our own observation been able to distort 

 facts and blacken characters, we should receive 

 with the greater caution the statements of those 

 who, if they were free, which is hardly possible, 

 from a strong bias, lived in an age when exact 

 information was hardly possible to obtain, and 

 when the most odious calumnies could defy refu- 

 tation. From the success with which Brunehilda 

 maintained the sovereignty of her husband's 

 kingdom through a long life, I should conclude 

 that she was a woman of great abilities as well as 

 energy; and the terms in which Gregory the 

 Great addresses her, tend to confirm this opinion. 

 And in reference to this it seems somewhat sur- 

 prising that it should not have struck those who 

 first raised this question, that the evidence of the 

 "wise and virtuous pontiff"" was at least as good 

 as that of the historian who might be neither wise 

 nor virtuous. Gregory is surely as powerful to 

 raise Brunehilda, as Brunehilda to pull down 

 Gregory. But the plain fact is, that there is a 



* Why do your correspondents adopt the barbarous 

 French corrupted form of this name, " Brunehaut?" ^ 



