Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



Legends and fairy stories abound, in which 

 men and women become swans for longer or 

 shorter periods. They are either permanently 

 swans or can change themselves for a time into 

 a bird that is at home in the water and the air, 

 a bird that fears neither darkness, nor cold, nor 

 the dizziest heights of the sky, nor the depths 

 of the sea ; that rejoices in snowy tracts of ice 

 and rears its young, like the halcyon of fable, 

 on masses of floating reeds. It may be that 

 the great river Elbe that springs from the 

 " sea-coast " of Bohemia, splits the realms of 

 Saxony and Prussia in two, and reaches ocean 

 in the ancient free commonwealth of Hamburg, 

 was first named from the magic bird whose 

 name was the same as elf Elb is still the 

 word for a fairy in German to-day, and Elb 

 or Elbschwan is the German name for a 

 variety of the bird, while in Northumberland 

 elk, Welsh elyrch, is a wild swan. 



Indeed it might be well to give up the 

 attempt to explain the name of the river 

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