Working with Goddesses pt. 3 ~ Swanmanes

Light and Love

Many of us have, in one form or another, known of the myth of the beautiful Swan Maidens. The Swan Maidens are a prominent creature in European mythology and may be described as spiritual shape shifters that have the ability to change form from a beautiful woman to that of an animal, often a swan. Some of the more popular contemporary interpretations of the Swan Maiden is the tale of Swan Lake or The Swan Princess but the legends of the Swan Maiden may actually be traced back to a mythological archetype that can be found in the folklore of almost every culture: of mysterious and beautiful women who can take the shape of various animals in order to cross the boundaries between their worlds and our's. In many of these legends, a young man spies the beautiful maiden who is often bathing or frolicking in a river with her sisters and schemes to steal the feather garment which allows her to transform back into a Swan. He eventually does so and thus prevents her from flying back to her realm and she is forced to be his wife. The story varies from this point on with the Swan Maiden staying with the man willingly and of her own accord in some instances, even going on to be the mother of his children, or eventually leaving him when she rediscovers the location of her stolen feather garment. The myth exists in various forms across the planet and are in many ways similar to the Selkies or Mermaids of Irish folklore and the Buffalo women of African folklore but perhaps find the most similarity in the story of celestial maidens a cross of East Asia who are either given the ability to fly between the human world and the celestial one through the use of a feathered garment or, like the European Swan Maiden, uses the garment to transforms into various species of birds. In many of these Eastern cultures, the Swan Maiden may also be considered a Tennin, or celestial being, which possess many similar qualities to Western conceptions of angels or fairies. Because of their association with small bodies of water and the skies, they have also been likened to the Apsaras of Hindu and Buddhist mythologies.

The Swan Maidens and many of their counterparts are considered to be the personification of grace and beauty and in many cases this is typified by their various animal forms. Their abilities to shape shift also grant them the knowledge and wisdom that comes from both sides of the great divide and they can be approached to act as guides for people who wish to bridge the gap between their conscious-human selves and their primal-animal natures. In doing so, the Swan Maiden and her Sisters are capable of helping one reach a state of enlightenment that can be found by attuning oneself to one's environment and a distancing of the natural self with the constraints of one's human existence. They are also sometimes depicted playing various musical instruments and are believed to be able to inspire musicians, dancers, or those otherwise invested in the arts with their exploits.  The Swan Maiden and her Sisters may be honored in many ways and invited to bless the lives of practitioners who venerate them but because they are not Goddesses into themselves they are often not worshiped as such in their own right. Rather, practitioners who choose to invite the Swan Maiden and her Sisters into their lives may set up small shrines to these spiritual entities around their houses, or decorate particular work spaces associated with art, music, or creation with various Swan Maiden imagery.

Valkyries of Norse Mythology are also sometimes depicted wearing swan skins. In the Völundarkviða, Wayland Smithand his brothers marry valkyries who dress in swan skins. 

A similar tale that can be found in Japan is that of the Crane Wife. In the folktale a man marries a devoted young woman who turns out to be a crane in disguise. To help the impoverished man make enough money to survive the winter, the Crane Wife plucks out of her own feathers to weave beautiful silk brocades which the man is able to sell but she becomes increasingly ill as she does so. When he finds out the true nature of his wife's identity and her illness she leaves as the conditions of her interaction with humans prohibits them from ever learning of her true identity.

Blessed Be
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