![Knight of the Swan P1010741 straightened contrasted](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Knight_of_the_Swan_P1010741_straightened_contrasted.JPG)
The story of the Knight of the Swan, or Swan Knight, is a
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
tale
Tale may refer to:
* Narrative, or story, a report of real or imaginary connected events
* TAL effector (TALE), a type of DNA binding protein
* Tale, Albania, a resort town
* Tale, Iran, a village
* Tale, Maharashtra, a village in Ratnagiri distri ...
about a mysterious rescuer who comes in a
swan
Swans are birds of the family (biology), family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form t ...
-drawn boat to defend a
damsel
Mademoiselle () is a French courtesy title, abbreviated Mlle, traditionally given to an unmarried woman. The equivalent in English is "Miss". The courtesy title " Madame" is accorded women where their marital status is unknown.
From around 1970 o ...
, his only condition being that he must never be asked his name.
The earliest versions (preserved in ''Dolopathos'') do not provide specific identity to this knight, but the Old French
Crusade cycle
The Crusade cycle is an Old French literary cycle of ''chansons de geste'' concerning the First Crusade and its aftermath.
History
The cycle contains a number of initially unrelated texts, collated into interconnected narratives by later redacto ...
of ''
chansons de geste
The ''chanson de geste'' (, from Latin 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th cen ...
'' adapted it to make the Swan Knight (''Le Chevalier au Cigne'', first version around 1192) the legendary ancestor of
Godfrey of Bouillon
Godfrey of Bouillon (, , , ; 18 September 1060 – 18 July 1100) was a French nobleman and pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade. First ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100, he avoided the title of king, preferring that of princ ...
. The ''Chevalier au Cigne'', also known as Helias, figures as the son of Orient of L'Islefort (or Illefort) and his wife Beatrix in perhaps the most familiar version, which is the one adopted for the late fourteenth century
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
''
Cheuelere Assigne''.
The hero's mother's name may vary from Elioxe (probably a mere echo of Helias) to Beatrix depending on the text, and in a Spanish version, she is called Isomberte.
At a later time, the German poet
Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach (; – ) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.
Life
Little is known of Wolfram's life. There are ...
incorporated the swan knight
Loherangrin into his
Arthurian
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a Legend, legendary king of Great Britain, Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
In the earliest tradition ...
epic ''
Parzival
''Parzival'' is a medieval romance (heroic literature), romance by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Percival, Parziva ...
'' (first quarter of the 13th century). A German text, written by
Konrad von Würzburg
Konrad von Würzburg (c.1220-1230 – 31 August 1287) was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century.
As with most epic poets of the age, little is known of his life, and his origin is disputed. There have been German s ...
in 1257, also featured a Swan Knight without a name. Wolfram's and Konrad's texts were used to construct the libretto for
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's opera ''
Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in Germany, German Arthurian literature. The son of Percival, Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which fi ...
'' (Weimar 1850).
Another example of the motif is Brangemuer, the knight that lay dead in a boat tugged by a swan, and whose adventure was taken up by Gawain's brother Guerrehet (
Gareth
Sir Gareth (; Old French: ''Guerehet'', ''Guerrehet'') is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He is the youngest son of King Lot and Queen Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother ...
or
Gaheris
Gaheris (Old French: ''Gaheriet'', ''Gaheriés'', ''Guerrehes'') is a knight of the Round Table in the chivalric romance tradition of Arthurian legend. A nephew of King Arthur, Gaheris is the third son of Arthur's sister or half-sister Morgau ...
) in the first Continuation to
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes (Modern ; fro, Crestien de Troies ; 1160–1191) was a French poet and trouvère known for his writing on Arthurian subjects, and for first writing of Lancelot, Percival and the Holy Grail. Chrétien's works, including ''E ...
' ''
Perceval
Percival (, also spelled Perceval, Parzival), alternatively called Peredur (), was one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. First mentioned by the French author Chrétien de Troyes in the tale ''Perceval, the Story of the ...
''.
Swan Children
Origin: a hybrid story?
The "Swan-Children" appears to have been originally separate from the Godfrey cycle and the Swan Knight story generally.
[ French scholar ]Gaston Paris
Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, 19 ...
identifies four groups of variants, which he classifies usually by the name of the mother of the swan children. The tale in all variants resemble not only such chivalric romance
As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric k ...
s as ''The Man of Law's Tale
"The Man of Law's Tale" is the fifth of the ''Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer, written around 1387. John Gower's "Tale of Constance" in ''Confessio Amantis'' tells the same story and may have been a source for Chaucer. Nicholas Trivet's ...
'' and ''Emaré
''Emaré'' is a Middle English Breton lai, a form of mediaeval romance poem, told in 1035 lines. The author of ''Emaré'' is unknown and it exists in only one manuscript, Cotton Caligula A. ii, which contains ten metrical narratives. ''Emaré'' see ...
'', but such fairy tales as ''The Girl Without Hands
"The Girl Without Hands" or "The helpless Maiden" or "The Armless Maiden" (german: Das Mädchen ohne Hände) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is tale number 31 and was first published in the 1812 edition of ''Children' ...
''. It also bears resemblance to the fairy tale ''The Six Swans
"The Six Swans" (German: ''Die sechs Schwäne'') is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' in 1812 (KHM 49). It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451 ("The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"), commonly found throug ...
'', where brothers transformed into birds are rescued by the efforts of their sister.
Scholarship seems to agree with the possibility of a combination of narratives. Commenting on a published version of '' The Children of Lir'' in his book ''More Celtic Fairy Tales'', folklorist Joseph Jacobs
Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore.
Jacob ...
wrote that the "well-known Continental folk-tale" of ''The Seven Swans (or Ravens)'' became connected to the medieval cycle of the Knight of the Swan.
Similarly, French scholar Gédeon Huet, complementing Gaston Paris's study on the tale, argued that ''Dolopathos'' reworked ''two'' folktales: "The Brothers Transformed into Birds" (future tale type ATU
Atu may refer to:
* Atu, a character in Samoan mythology
* Atu Bosenavulagi, an Australian rules footballer
* Atu, Iran, a village in Iran
* Atu Moli, New Zealand rugby union player
* Atu'u is a village on Tutuila Island, American Samoa
ATU may re ...
451) and " The Sisters Jealous of their Cadette" (future type ATU 707).
German scholar also claimed that the narrative was a combination of two parts: ''Genoveva'' or ''Calumniated Wife
The Calumniated Wife is a motif in traditional narratives, numbered K2110.1 in Stith Thompson's ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature''. It entails a wife being falsely accused of, and often punished for, some crime or sin. This motif is at the centre ...
'' (of possible Germanic origin) and the story of a sister rescuing her brothers from an animal transformation (of possible Celtic origin).
In the same vein, professor Anne E. Duggan remarked that the narrative seems to be a "hybrid story" that "fused" the theme of the Calumniated Wife
The Calumniated Wife is a motif in traditional narratives, numbered K2110.1 in Stith Thompson's ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature''. It entails a wife being falsely accused of, and often punished for, some crime or sin. This motif is at the centre ...
, the Knight of the Swan, and the "Germanic fairy tale" about swan-children.
Dolopathos
Included in Johannes de Alta Silva's ''Dolopathos sive de Rege et Septem Sapientibus'' (ca. 1190), a Latin version of the ''Seven Sages of Rome
The ''Seven Wise Masters'' (also called the ''Seven Sages'' or ''Seven Wise Men'') is a cycle of stories of Sanskrit, Persian or Hebrew origins.
Story and plot
The Sultan sends his son, the young Prince, to be educated away from the court in t ...
'' is a story of the swan children which has served as a precursor to the poems of the Crusade cycle
The Crusade cycle is an Old French literary cycle of ''chansons de geste'' concerning the First Crusade and its aftermath.
History
The cycle contains a number of initially unrelated texts, collated into interconnected narratives by later redacto ...
.[, Myer's essay, p.lxxxxi-] The tale was adapted into the French ''Li romans de Dolopathos'' by the poet Herbert.[, ''Dictionary of Medieval Heroes'', reprinted 2000, pp.247 "Seven Sages of Rome"] The story is as follows:
A nameless young lord becomes lost in the hunt for a white stag
A white stag (or white hind for the female) is a white-colored red deer, wapiti, sika deer, chital, fallow deer, roe deer, white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, reindeer, moose, or rusa, explained by a condition known as leucism that causes i ...
and wanders into an enchanted forest
In folklore and fantasy, an enchanted forest is a forest under, or containing, enchantments. Such forests are described in the oldest folklore from regions where forests are common, and occur throughout the centuries to modern works of fantasy. ...
where he encounters a mysterious woman (clearly a swan maiden
The swan maiden is a mythical creature who shapeshifts from human form to swan form. The key to the transformation is usually a swan skin, or a garment with swan feathers attached. In folktales of this type, the male character spies the maiden, ...
or fairy
A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, ...
) in the act of bathing, while clutching a gold necklace. They fall instantly for each other and consummate their love. The young lord brings her to his castle, and the maiden (just as she has foretold) gives birth to a septuplet
A multiple birth is the culmination of one multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such bi ...
, six boys and a girl, with golden chains about their necks. But her evil mother-in-law swaps the newborn with seven puppies. The servant with orders to kill the children in the forest just abandons them under a tree. The young lord is told by his wicked mother that his bride gave birth to a litter of pups, and he punishes her by burying her up to the neck for seven years. Some time later, the young lord while hunting encounters the children in the forest, and the wicked mother's lie starts to unravel. The servant is sent out to search them, and find the boys bathing in the form of swans, with their sister guarding their gold chains. The servant steals the boys' chains, preventing them from changing back to human form, and the chains are taken to a goldsmith to be melted down to make a goblet. The swan-boys land in the young lord's pond, and their sister, who can still transform back and forth into human shape by the magic of her chain, goes to the castle to obtain bread to her brothers. Eventually the young lord asks her story so the truth comes out. The goldsmith was actually unable to melt down the chains, and had kept them for himself. These are now restored back to the six boys, and they regain their powers, except one, whose chain the smith had damaged in the attempt. So he alone is stuck in swan form. The work goes on to say obliquely hints that this is the swan in the Swan Knight tale, more precisely, that this was the swan “''quod cathena aurea militem in navicula trahat armatum'' (that tugged by a gold chain an armed knight in a boat).”[
]
Crusade cycle: ''La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne''
The Knight of the Swan story appears in the Old French ''chansons de geste
The ''chanson de geste'' (, from Latin 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th cen ...
'' of the first Crusade cycle
The Crusade cycle is an Old French literary cycle of ''chansons de geste'' concerning the First Crusade and its aftermath.
History
The cycle contains a number of initially unrelated texts, collated into interconnected narratives by later redacto ...
, establishing a legendary ancestry of Godfrey of Bouillon
Godfrey of Bouillon (, , , ; 18 September 1060 – 18 July 1100) was a French nobleman and pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade. First ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100, he avoided the title of king, preferring that of princ ...
, who in 1099 became ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem ( la, Regnum Hierosolymitanum; fro, Roiaume de Jherusalem), officially known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Frankish Kingdom of Palestine,Example (title of works): was a Crusader state that was establishe ...
. Godfrey loomed large in the medieval Christian imagination, and his shadowy genealogy became a popular subject for writers of the period.
The swan-children tale occurs in the first or ''La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne'' branch of the cycle. The texts can be classed into four versions, 1) ''Elioxe'', 2) ''Beatrix'', 3) an Elioxe-Beatrix composite, and 4) Isomberte. Of ''Isomberte'' no French copy survives, and it's known only from the Spanish ''Gran conquista de Ultramar
The ''Gran conquista de Ultramar'' ('Great Conquest Beyond the Sea') is a late 13th-century Castilian chronicle of the Crusades for the period 1095–1271. It is a work of compilation, translation and prosification of Old French and Old Occitan ...
''.
(Gaston Paris
Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, 19 ...
also used a somewhat similar classification scheme for swan-children cognate tales which he refers to as Version I.)
Elioxe follows the ''Dolopathos'' tale closest, but tells a courtlier version of the story,[, Myer's essay, p.xciii-] replacing the young lord who becomes lost with King Lothair, a ruler from beyond Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
and the maiden with Elioxe. Lothair loses his way and stops by a fountain, and while asleep, is tended by Elioxe who comes out of the woodworks of the mountains. King Lothair decides to wed her, despite his mother's protest. However Elioxe foretells her own death giving birth to seven children, and that one of the offspring shall be king of the Orient.
While Lothair is absent warring, the queen mother Matrosilie orders a servant to carry the children in two baskets and expose them in the forest, and prepares the lie that their mother gave birth to serpents and died from their bites. The servant however had left the children by the hermit's hut, so they survive, and seven years later are discovered by a greedy courtier named Rudemart. Allured by the gold chains the children are wearing, he obtains instruction from the queen mother to steal them, but failing to take account of their numbers, misses the chain belonging to the girl. The six boys bereft of the chains fly out in swan form, and their father Lothair issues an order of protection. The king's nephew tries to hunt one of the birds to please him, but the king in a fit hurls a gold basin which breaks. Matrosilie then provides one of the necklaces to make the repair. Eventually the truth is untangled through the sister of the swan siblings. All the boys regain human form but one. While other seek their own fortunes, one boy cannot part with his brother turned permanently into a swan, and becomes Swan Knight.[
In the Beatrix variants, the woman had taunted another woman over her alleged adultery, citing a ]multiple birth
A multiple birth is the culmination of one multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such bir ...
as proof of it, and was then punished with a multiple birth of her own. In the Beatrix versions, the mother is also an avenging justice. In the Isomberte variants, the woman is a princess fleeing a hated marriage.
Swan Knight
Version II involves the Swan Knight himself. These stories are sometimes attached to the story of the Swan Children, but sometimes appear independently, in which case no explanation of the swan is given. All of these describe a knight who appears with a swan and rescues a lady; he then disappears after a taboo is broken, but not before becoming the ancestor of an illustrious family. Sometimes this is merely a brief account to introduce a descendant. The second version of this tale is thought to have been written by the Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
trouvère
''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French (''langue d'oïl'') form of the ''langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word ''troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to poet- ...
Jean Renart Jean Renart, also known as Jean Renaut, was a Norman trouvère from the end of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th to whom three works are firmly ascribed: two metrical chivalric romances, ''L'Escoufle'' ("The Kite") and ''Guillaume de ...
.
In Brabant Brabant is a traditional geographical region (or regions) in the Low Countries of Europe. It may refer to:
Place names in Europe
* London-Brabant Massif, a geological structure stretching from England to northern Germany
Belgium
* Province of Bra ...
the name of the Knight of the Swan is ''Helias''. It has been suggested that this connects him to the Greek solar god, Helios
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; grc, , , Sun; Homeric Greek: ) is the deity, god and personification of the Sun (Solar deity). His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyper ...
, but the name is in fact a common variant of the name of the prophet Elijah
Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books of ...
, who nevertheless was connected to the Greek solar god by orthodox worship because of his association to Mount Horeb and a fire chariot.
Lohengrin
In the early 13th century, the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach (; – ) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.
Life
Little is known of Wolfram's life. There are ...
adapted the Swan Knight motif for his epic ''Parzival
''Parzival'' is a medieval romance (heroic literature), romance by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Percival, Parziva ...
''. Here the story is attached to Loherangrin, the son of the protagonist Parzival and Condwiramurs, the queen of Pelrapeire. As in other versions Loherangrin is a knight who arrives in a swan-pulled boat to defend a lady, in this case Elsa of Brabant Brabant is a traditional geographical region (or regions) in the Low Countries of Europe. It may refer to:
Place names in Europe
* London-Brabant Massif, a geological structure stretching from England to northern Germany
Belgium
* Province of Bra ...
. They marry, but he must leave when she breaks the taboo of asking his name.
In the late 13th century, the poet Nouhusius (Nouhuwius) adapted and expanded Wolfram's brief story into the romance ''Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in Germany, German Arthurian literature. The son of Percival, Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which fi ...
''. The poet changed the title character's name slightly and added various new elements to the story, tying the Grail and Swan Knight themes into the history of the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
. In the 15th century an anonymous poet again took up the story for the romance ''Lorengel''. This version omits the taboo against asking about the hero's name and origins, allowing the knight and princess a happy ending.
In 1848, Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
adapted the tale into his popular opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
''Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in Germany, German Arthurian literature. The son of Percival, Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which fi ...
'', probably the work through which the Swan Knight story is best known today.
Legacy
A Hungarian version of the story was collected by Hungarian journalist Elek Benedek
Benedek Elek (eastern name order; western name order "Elek Benedek"; 30 September 1859 – 17 August 1929) was a Hungarian journalist and writer, widely known as "The Great Folk-Tale Teller" of The " Szekely Hungarian" Fairy-Tales.
Biography
...
, with the title ''Hattyú vitéz'', and published in a collection of Hungarian folktales (''Magyar mese- és mondavilág'').
Hungarian ethnographer and Austrian Slavicist
Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was prim ...
collected a Croatian language tale in Stinatz
Stinatz (Croatian language, Croatian: ''Stinjaki'', Hungarian language, Hungarian: ''Pásztorháza'') is a town in the district of Güssing (district), Güssing in Burgenland in Austria. According to the last census 62% of the population are memb ...
from informant Anna Sifkovits with the title ''Labudova dlvuojka'' (German: ''Die Schwanenfrau'', English: "The Swan Maiden"). In this tale, a count finds a girl in the woods; she takes off her golden chain, becomes a swan and bathes in the lake. He marries the girl and she has three children, two boys and a girl, but her mother-in-law orders the children to be replaced by three dogs, taken to the forest and killed. The servant spares them, but abandons them in the woods. Some time later, their grandmother discovers the children are still alive and orders her servant to steal their golden chains, to trap them in swan form forever.[Neweklowsky, Gerhard; Gaál, Károly (eds.). ''Erzaehlgut der Kroaten aus Stinatz im suedlichen Burgenland''. Bern, 1983. pp. 150–157. DOI: 10.3726/b12918.]
References
Citations
Bibliography
* Reprint: Boydell & Brewer 2000. , 9780851157801
preview
* (from the Medieval manuscript, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A.ii.)
* Baring-Gould, S. ''Curious Myths Of The Middle Ages''. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1880. pp. 430–453.
*
* (''Elioxe'' ed. Mickel Jr., ''Béatrix'' ed. Nelson)
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
''Cheuelere Assigne''
Middle English from British Library MS Cotton Caligula A ii., Modern English translation
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knight Of The Swan
Arthurian literature in German
German poems
Medieval literature
Swan maidens
ATU 400-459
ATU 700-749