Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



Elbe from the Latin word albus, white, and 

 seek nearer home for a word formerly and still 

 used in northern Germany. 



The swan is the sacred bird at the well of 

 Urda, the prophetess in the Edda. In the 

 Volundarquitha three magic women, seated on 

 the shore spinning flax, have by their sides 

 their alptar-hamir or skins of swan feathers. 

 When we come to speak of the Gralai, these 

 three swan women will emerge in quite another 

 land. 



Not a little curious is it that certain small 

 rudely-cast idols found during the last cen- 

 tury in Mecklenburg should have a swan or 

 goose on their heads. They were said to 

 have been dug up on the site of a famous 

 Vendish town called Rhetra, which in the 

 Middle Ages lay on several hills surrounded 

 by water from the Baltic. The waters have 

 retired since, leaving the valleys dry. Here 

 according to old historians was a temple of 

 the Vends in a grove ; it was destroyed by 

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