The Mystique of the Swan/Myth Project
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This document summarizes the mythology and folklore traditions surrounding swans and swan maidens. It discusses how swan maiden stories often involve women who shed their swan skins to become human at night. The document also examines the story of Swan Lake, noting how it draws from and deviates from traditional swan maiden tales. Finally, it explores how myths and folklore from various cultures around the world have featured transformations between humans and swans.
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The Mystique of the Swan/Myth Project
- 1. The Mystique of the Swan Illustration by Trina Schart Hyman, from the book ‘Swan Lake’ by Margot Fonteyn, 1989.
- 2. • A variant of the animal bride tale • Often, the animal is transformed into a woman when it sheds its skin (Sax, 1998, p. 5). The Swan Maiden The Swan Maidens by Walter Crane, 1894.
- 3. • Swans remove feather robes and become maidens • The maidens bath in a body of water • A man steals the robe of one of the maidens and usually marries her • The couple have children • The wife repossesses the feather robe and flies away • The man often pursues her Primary Motifs of The Swan Maiden Stories
- 4. Swan Lake When we look at Swan Lake we see distinctive changes to the Swan Maiden story Illustration by Lisbeth Zwerger, from the book ‘Swan Lake’ by Lisbeth Zwerger, 2002.
- 5. • Maiden held captive as a swan by an evil sorcerer • Transformed from swan to maiden at night, back to swan at dawn • Body of water in a forest • True love needed to break the spell • Betrayal endangers love • Love triumphs, but only partially Primary Swan Lake Motifs
- 6. Where does the story of Swan Lake originate? • The sources for the libretto are unknown • It is comprised of a combination of several stories • Deviates from Swan Maiden stories in significant ways Illustration by Chris van Allsburg, from the book ‘Swan Lake’ by Mark Helprin, 1989
- 7. The Swan is an Ancient Mythological Motif , Photo by Susan Miville. Swan at Kykuit, 2011
- 8. From Snakes to Swans the Transformation of Imagery • Detachable skin • An ancient Lithuanian snake maiden tale • Swans migrate and are aquatic • Caught between the earthly and the heavenly
- 9. In Persian mythology, the Peri is a winged spirit that sometimes makes appearances on earth Peri, unknown artist, 19th century
- 10. Valkyries bath while their swan skins lie discarded on the river bank The three swan-maidens/Valkyries of Völundarkvioa with their swan-cloaks off by Jenny Nystrom, 1893.
- 11. Aonghus, the Irish god of love marries a swan maiden and becomes a swan himself Aonghus, God of Love and Courtesy, Putting a Spell of Summer Calm on the Sea by John Duncan, 1908.
- 12. In Japanese Mythology there are goddesses that fly The Legend of the Feathery Robe Tennin (Japanese angel), unknown artist. 13th century.
- 13. The oboe plays Odette’s theme Rothbart is portrayed by the horns Illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman, from the book ‘Swan Lake’ by Margot Fonteyn, 1989.
- 14. The mystique of the Swan lies in the mythic interplay between the human and the wild, between the visible and the invisible Illustration by Chris van Allsburg, from the book ‘Swan Lake’ by Mark Helprin, 1989
- 15. The Mystique of the Swan by Susan Miville Myth Project Critique LL ED563: Myths and Folktales in Children’s Literature Professor Elisa Hopkins December 7, 2015 Illustration by Lisbeth Zwerger, from the book ‘Swan Lake’ by Lisbeth Zwerger, 2002.
Editor's Notes
- We will explore Swan stories, both the original Swan Maiden tale and its variant, Swan Lake. Why do these stories have such an allure? What is their mystique? We will also examine how the Swan Lake varies from the Swan Maiden tales.
- The Swan Maiden stories are ancient in origin. They are a type of animal bride tale: an animal assumes the shape of a woman who is either forcibly or willingly wedded to a man. The couple lives together for many years and have children together The husband commits an error that is an affront to the wife: either he violates a prohibition or betrays a trust The wife resumes her animal shape and flees with her children back to her mythical origins (she (Sax, 1998, p. 5) In many versions the animal is transformed into a woman when it sheds its skin These stories, even with embellishments, follow a general pattern
- Swans change into maidens by removing feather robes and bath in a body of water A man steals one of the robes The maiden cannot fly and the man insists she become his wife The couple has children The maiden repossesses the feather robe and flies away, sometimes with her children and sometimes not The man pursues her and finds her (Hatto, 1961, p. 326) In some versions he stays with her; in others she returns with him; in a few they are not reunited and he dies from sorrow When the Swan Maiden is deprived of her skin and feathers, she is isolated from her friends or sisters (Leavy, 1993, P. 40)
- When we look at Swan Lake we see distinctive changes to the Swan Maiden story
- Instead of a swan in human form held captive by a man, there is a maiden in swan form held captive by a sorcerer The characters have names: Odette, the Swan Queen is the White Swan The sorcerer is von Rothbart an owl magician His daughter is Odile, the Black Swan Over time the duality between good and evil, passion and purity, as represented by the two Swans, black vs white, has become more pronounced The forest is the place where transformation occurs The lake has a mystical quality, emphasizing magic in the story Odette is betrayed, threatening her freedom: Siegfried betroths himself to Odile transformed into the image of Odette by her father This motif is known as the substitute bride: an evil woman replaces a good wife and fools the husband (Leavy, 1993, p. 216). An example can be found in the Russian tale The White Duck
- There are no notes regarding the source or origin of the ballet libretto It is a combination of several stories: German versions such as The Three Swans with Russian tales like The White Duck Transformation from swan to maiden combined with magical elements The focus changes from domesticating a wild creature to having love as an agent of freedom Without an existing record, we simply don’t know why certain choices were made
- Swans are creatures of the sky, of the heavens, and represent immortality, in contrast humans are of the earth and are mortal (Sax, 1999. P. 16) Birds seem liberated from the constraints of time and appeal to our imaginations as symbols of freedom and power We set ourselves distinct from nature yet long to be “wild” The Swan myth is an attempt to seek a lost sense of unity with nature The transformation in the Swan Maiden stories points back towards earlier mythological stories In these stories boundaries between human and spirit world are slight In some cases we see men become swans
- Swan Maiden stories found their first form in stories of snakes becoming maidens The swan skin that is detachable relates to the snake’s shedding of skin (Sax, 1998, p. 65). Snakes and swans are associated with water (Sax, 1998, p. 67). An old Lithuanian tale has a peasant encountering a snake that loses its skin and is changed into a maiden The story follows The Swan Maiden sequence, with marriage, children, and the wife finding the skin and resuming her snake form. We find aspects of this story in the German story The Three Swans Snakes were worshipped in ancient cults of the Middle East (Sax, 1998, pp 72 – 73) Why Swans instead of Snakes? One theory is that Swans are associated with the northern climates and the migration of birds Swan stories could have emerged as a way of explaining migration and the human response to it The Swan Maiden is neither truly swan nor truly human, but rather something in between (Hatto , 1961, p. 333)
- We come across winged spirts in the form of fairies or birds in many cultures In Persian mythology the Peri is a winged spirit who at times comes down to earth The Peri Wife is a Hindu-Persian version of The Swan Maiden written in the mid-seventeenth century Ali, the son of a merchant rests by a pond Four Peris in the form of white doves arrive and change into beautiful maidens They remove their dresses and swim in the water Ali steals their robes and hides them The youngest begs him to return their shifts; he agrees only if she will marry him He returns the shifts to the other maidens and keeps the dress of the youngest The three other Peris leave Children are born to the couple and all goes well until Ali’s father dies penniless In order to regain their money, Ali leaves his wife She puts on her Peri dress, changes back into a dove and flies away Ali returns; he is overcome with grief and goes mad
- Valkyries are reputed to fly down to earth in the guise of swans They discard their feathers and bath in a lake If a man discovers them and takes their plumage, they are forced to stay on earth and mate with him The myth, Wayland and the Valkyries Three brothers come upon three Valkyries swimming and steal their feather skins, forcing the maidens to marry them. After nine years, the Valkyries find their plumage, break the spell and leave The story is long and involved, but, ultimately, one of the brothers, Wayland the smith, otherwise known as Volund, finds his wife and lives with her until the end of time (Guerber, 1929, pp. 175 – 178)
- We find a variant of the Swan Maiden tale that follows a different sequence Aonghus, the god of love, dreams about the fairy Caer He falls in love and is obsessed by the thought of her Caer’s father cannot give his daughter to Aonghus in marriage because she is in the shape of a swan Aonghus must recognize her from all the other swans in the flock When the swans appear at the lake he calls out Caer’s name He, too, then becomes a swan. The couple flies off and marries (Cotterell, 1997, p. 27)
- The Feathery Robe tells the story of a heavenly goddess who, discovered by a fisherman, is forced to marry him when he hides her feather robe He offers to return the robe on condition that she perform the dance she and her sisters conduct when they fly She promises to do so if he gives her the robe first He refuses She is indignant that he should question her word as a goddess Then he gives her the rob The goddess dances and sings with magnificent grace and beauty while she ascends into the sky
- The struggle for Odette to remain in human form and return to being a swan is conveyed by the full orchestra One reason the ballet Swan Lake has a profound effect is Tchaikovsky’s music Odette’s theme, her musical motif, captures the transience of love in juxtaposition to the fateful call of the horns, representing the owl magician The music takes us directly into the emotional struggle of human longing for the immortal against the inevitability of mortality In the ballet it has become common for one dancer to portray both Odette and Odile, demonstrating what is different and what is shared in the two characters This portrayal emphasizes how hard it is to assimilate our passionate sexual nature with being reasonable and in control; we vacillate between the two
- The effort to tame what is wild can lead to traumatic consequences: we can never control nature The Swan in all of these stories is a symbol of the transitional object The older Swan Maiden tales have a cosmic quality Swan Lake and later variants use magical elements as story devices Perhaps the further we move from nature, the more need we have for magic The mystique of the Swan lies in the mythic interplay between the human and the wild, between the visible and the invisible