Origin: a hybrid story? The "Swan-Children" appears to have been originally separate from the Godfrey cycle and the Swan Knight story generally. The tale in all variants resemble not only such
chivalric romances as ''
The Man of Law's Tale and Emaré, but such fairy tales as The Girl Without Hands. It also bears resemblance to the fairy tale The Six Swans'', 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. Geoffrey M. Myers defended that the "swan-children" tale (a narrative of probable Lotharingian origin) is an independent story due to the existence of variants collected from folk tradition, which folklorist
Joseph Jacobs considered to be a "well-known Continental folk-tale" (in regards to
The Seven Swans (or Ravens)). In the same vein,
Dáithí Ó hÓgáin suggested that the tale already existed in the Middle Ages, developing in the Netherlands and spreading to West Europe. Thus, according to
Sabine Baring Gould, the swan children tale was added to the Knight of the Swan to provide an explanation for the latter. 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 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 (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 Knight of the Swan, and the "Germanic fairy tale" about swan-children. Dutch folklorist
Jurjen van der Kooi was of the same opinion that Johannes "combined" three tales: type ATU 451, the story of the Swan Knight and the marriage between man and a "waterwoman" (which he calls "
Melusine motif").
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 is a story of the swan children which has served as a precursor to the poems of the
Crusade cycle. The tale was adapted into the French
Li romans de Dolopathos by the poet Herbert. The story is as follows: A nameless young lord becomes lost in the hunt for a
white stag and wanders into an
enchanted forest where he encounters a mysterious woman (clearly a
swan maiden or
fairy) 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, 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).” replacing the young lord who becomes lost with King Lothair, a ruler from beyond
Hungary 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 versions, the mother is also an avenging justice. In the Isomberte variants, the woman is a princess fleeing a hated marriage. ==Swan Knight==