84 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



and so did Athenaeus and others. Sir Thomas Browne 

 noted it among his "vulgar errors." But the call of 

 the hooper swan as it flies is very striking, and when 

 uttered by night may well have given rise to the 

 story. 



The mute swan, now seen either tame or half wild 

 all over England, is believed to have been first brought 

 from Cyprus by Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Conse- 

 quently, as the visits of the wild Arctic swans were 

 mainly confined to the coast, there was little material 

 in England for the growth of idealisation such as the 

 beauty, dignity, and whiteness of the birds suggest. The 

 early swan legends are all of Northern origin. Norse 

 story made them the sacred birds of the goddess 

 Freyr, and identified them with the form and colour 

 of her chariot in the clouds. The whiteness and 

 purity of the bird's colour naturally gave rise to the 

 myth of the swan maidens, too good for any one in 

 this world, and able at will to transform their shape 

 and take wing to the virginal snows. Lohengrin's 

 mysterious arrival and departure in the boat drawn 

 by a swan may naturally be traced to the riddle of 

 the silent and sudden coming and going of the 

 migrating swans, " coming no man knoweth whence, 

 and going no man knoweth whither." In the legend 

 of Helias all the other six brothers and sisters were 

 changed into swans in other words, were given the 

 power of safety and flight at will while the known 

 confidence of the birds in man (in the South, where 

 they were early half domesticated) typified their 

 willingness to return to human shape. 



