title: Swan maiden

text: In an Arab tale titled "Histoire d'Ours de cuisine", akin to the swan maiden story, a king owns a fountain in his garden where a maiden with a feathery robe likes to bathe. One night, the king, taken with passion for the girl, fetches her garments from a nearby tree and intends to make her his bride. She consents, on the condition that the king blinds his forty queens.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Middle Eastern tale, a king's son finds work with a giant in another region and receives a set of keys to the giant's abode, being told not to open a specific door. He disobeys his master and opens the door; he soon sees three pigeon maidens take off their garments to bathe in a basin.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Metawileh tale reported in the "Palestine Exploration Quarterly", Shâtir Hassan, son of a merchant, pursues a bird-girl named Bedr et Temâm, daughter of the King of the Jân. The report described the tale as a version of the "Swan maiden" tale.


title: Swan maiden

text: A story from South Asia also narrates the motif of the swan maiden or bird-princess: "Story of Prince Bairâm and the Fairy Bride", when the titular prince hides the clothing of Ghûlab Bânu, the dove-maiden.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Tuvan tale, "Ösküs-ool and the Daughter of Kurbustu-Khan", poor orphan boy Ösküs-ool seeks employment with powerful khans. He is tasked with harvesting their fields before the sun sets, of before the moon sets. Nearly finishing both chores, the boy pleads to the moon and the sun to not set for a little longer, but time passes. The respective khans think they never finished the job, berate and whip him. Some time later, while living on his own, the daughter of Khurbustu-khan comes from the upper world in the form of a swan. The boy hides her clothng and she marries him, now that she is stranded on Earth. Some time later, an evil Karaty-khan demands that the youth produces a palace of glass and an invincible army of iron men for him - feats that he accomplishes thanks to his wife's advice and with help from his wife's relatives.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to professor Alan Miller, the swan maiden tale is "one of the most popular of all Japanese folktales". Likewise, scholar Manabu Waida asserted the popularity of the tale "in Korea, Manchuria and China", as well as among "the Buryat, Ainu and Annamese".


title: Swan maiden

text: In ancient Chinese literature, one story from the "Dunhuang manuscripts" veers close to the general Swan Maiden tale: a poor man named T'ien K'un-lun approaches a lake where three crane maidens are bathing.


title: Swan maiden

text: A tale from Southeastern China and near regions narrates the adventures of a prince who meets a Peacock Maiden, in a tale attributed to the Tai people. The tale is celebrated amongst the Dai people of China and was recorded as a poem and folk story, being known under several names, such as ""Shaoshutun"", ""The Peacock Princess"" or ""Zhao Shutun and Lanwuluona"".


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Chuan Miao tale, "An Orphan Enjoyed Happiness and His Father-in-law Deceived Him, but His Sons Recovered Their Mother", an orphan gathers wood in the forest and burns the dead trees to make way for a clearing. He also builds a well. One day, seven wild ducks light on the water. The orphan asks someone named "Ye Seo" about the ducks, who answers the youth they are his fortune and the he must secure a "spotted feather" from their wings. The next day, the youth hides near the well when the ducks arrive and plucks the spotted feather, which belongs to an old woman. He goes back to Ye Seo, who tells him he needs to get a white feather, not a spotted one, nor a black one. He fetches the correct feather this time and a young woman appears to become his wife. They marry and she gives birth to twin boys. For some time, both children cry everytime their mother is at home, until one day she asks them the reason for their sadness. They explain that their human father is hiding their mother's feather somewhere in the house and wears it on his head when she is not at home. She finds the feather, puts it on her head and flies away from home. The boys' human father scolds them and sends them to seek their mother.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to scholar Denise Paulme, in African tales, the animal spouse (a buffalo or an antelope) marries a human male already married to a previous human wife. The man hides the skin of the supernatural spouse and she asks him never to reveal her true name. When the husband betrays the supernatural wife's trust, the animal wife takes her skin back and returns to the wilderness with her children.


title: Swan maiden

text: Variants collected in Cape Verde by Elsie Clews Parsons (under the title "White-Flower") show the hero plucking the feather from the duck maiden to travel to her father's house.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Kabylian tale collected by ethnologist Leo Frobenius with the title "Die Taubenfrauen" ("The Dove Maidens"): a young hunter journeys and meets two women who invite him to live with them as their brother. One day, two doves land near their house and become maidens. They turn the man to stone, turn back to doves and fly away. The next time they land, the hunter's adopted sisters hide the dove garments and golden jewellery of one of the dove maidens, in return for changing their brother back. The dove maiden does. The sisters give the garments to the hunter. The dove maiden marries the hunter and bears him a son. Some time later, he wants to visit his mother in his home village. He takes his dove wife and son. The hunter gives his mother the dove wife's belongings and explains she must never let her leave the house and to hide the garments and jewellery. One day, the dove maiden goes out for a bit and a harvester becomes entranced by her beauty. The man tells the dove wife she must marry him. The dove wife begs her mother-in-law to give her belongings so she may escape. After getting the garments, she turns into a dove, takes her son and flies over to the village of Wuak-Wuak. The hunter returns home and goes after her. He fools three people fighting over magical objects, steals them and teleports to Wuak-Wuak. There, he finds his wife and son, but his dove wife explains the whole village only has females and if they see him, her sisters will devour him.


title: Swan maiden

text: The character of the swan maiden (and her variants) is spread among the many traditions of Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, such as in Micronesia. In this region, the bird maiden may be replaced for a sea creature, such as a fish, a dolphin (in Yap and Kei Islands), or a whale (in Puluwat and Satawal).


title: Swan maiden

text: There have been collected at least thirty-three variants from Papua New Guinea, published in local newspaper "Wantok Niuspepa", in a section about traditional tales. Sometimes the swan garment is replaced by a cassowary skin or a bird-of-paradise. For instance, the tale of "The Cassowary Wife" was stated by anthropologist Margaret Mead to be the local version of the Swan maiden.


title: Swan maiden

text: American anthropologist Donald Tuzin collected and published a tale from the Ilahita Arapesh: long ago, there was only one man. One day, he walks about and hears sounds coming from a nearby pond. He sees a group of cassowaries come to the water, taking off their animal skins and becoming human women. The man hides the clothing of the leader of the cassowaries, named Nambweapa'w, in a short bamboo tube. The cassowary women play and bathe in the pond until afternoon, when they leave, gather their animal skins and turn back into cassowaries, except for their leader. The man takes Nambweapa'w to his house and marries her. They have many children, both male and female. Their youngest child, a boy, cries a lot, so his father takes out the cassowary skin to frighten the boy into silence. The next day, the little boy shows his mother the cassowary skin, she puts it back and runs back to the forest, abandoning her human family. The tale continues with the adventures of the cassowary woman's sons, as an origin myth of the Arapesh.


title: Swan maiden

text: Professor Sir James George Frazer mentioned a tale of the Pelew Islands (Palau), in the Pacific, about a man who married a shapeshifting maiden by hiding her fish tail. She bore him a daughter, and, in one occasion, happened to find her fish tail and returned to the ocean soon after.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from Kairiru Island with the title "Stori Bilong Taim Bipo: The Dolphin Woman", a group of women are cutting bushes to make a garden. Suddenly, heavy rain begins to pour down and the women go back to their village. Once they are gone, a school of dolphins appear, take off their dolphin "bodies" and become human women to finish the work on the garden, then return to the sea as dolphins. Some time later, a man goes to the garden to wait for the rain, and sees the dolphins come out of the water and become women. He hides the dolphin skin of one of them; after the others are gone, the man takes the dolphin woman home and marries her. She bears him two children. One day, she is ready to return to the sea and tries to get her sons to go with her by changing them into dolphins with salt water. In another version, the man is named Mutabau. This second tale was reported by Michael French Smith, told by a man named Valentine Wamuk, a descendant of Mutabau.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from Losap, Chuuk, with the title "The Island of the Dolphin Girls", a chief's son named Anoun Farrang from the Lugenfanu clan is sailing on a canoe with other men, when their canoe is approached by a pod of dolphins (who are really girls in delphine skin). One of the dolphins hits Anoun with her tail and he falls overboards, forgotten by his fellow men. With his magic powers, he is oriented to dive underwater, until he reaches a small island with a pool in its middle. Anoun hides behind a bush and sees a pod of dolphins coming to shore, jumping into the pool, taking off their skins and becoming girls. While they play and splash water, Anoun takes the dolphin skin from one of them. The girls take back the skins, change into dolphins and go back to the sea, leaving only a girl on the island. Anoun comes to her and gives back her dolphin skin. The girl's pod comes back and smells Anoun's human scent, and, convinced by their friend, agrees to let the boy live with them. Some time later, Anoun begins to miss his human home, and the pod swims with him back to the surface.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale of the Musquakie people, some male youths bathe and play in the water while some beautiful girls approach them. One of the male youths gets one of the girls and the others, frightened, turn into black-headed ducks and fly away.


title: Swan maiden

text: Some tales from the Algonquins also tell of a young, unmarried hunter who approaches a lake where otherworldly women come to bathe to acquire the supernatural spouse.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale of the Cochiti people, a coyote (possibly the Coyote of legend) helps a youth in getting a wife: one of three pigeon girls who bathe in a lake. In a variant, the coyote leads the youth to three dove maidens.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from the Tewa, collected by Elsie Clews Parsons, the youth Powitsire hunts a deer, which suggests the boy find a wife and reveals that three duck girls come to bathe in a nearby lake. In a second Tewa story (a retelling, in fact), the son of the cacique wishes to travel to the Land of Parrots to obtain a parrot. His mission is successful and he returns home with a "Parrot Girl" that helps him on the homeward journey. When he arrives at his parents house, the Parrot Girl becomes a beautiful human girl and marries him.


title: Swan maiden

text: Charles Frederick Hartt claimed that a tale from the "Paitúna" contains a version where the bird maiden is a parrot. She is found by a human male and becomes the mother of a new tribe.


title: Swan maiden

text: German ethnologue locates the story of the "Vulture Wife" in Guyana and northern South America, among the Warrao, Arawak, Camaracoto, Taulipang, Makushi, Carib and the Caliña of Surinam.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from Guyana, "The man with a vulture wife", a young hunter comes across a large house where people were playing sports and dancing to music. In reality, they were vultures that shed their skins to decorate the place. The youth becomes entranced by one of the maidens and captures her. Their marriage is not a happy one, and the tale ends on a darker note. A similar tale is attested from the Warao people, in Venezuela.


title: Swan maiden

text: Dutch cartographer Claudius de Goeje transcribed a tale from the Arawak, about a medicine man named "Makanahoro". In this tale, Makanahoro disguised himself as a carrion deer to attract vultures. He manages to capture a female king vulture who has taken off her vulture plumage and makes her his wife. Some time later, Makanahoro goes with his wife to visit her family in the sky, but his in-laws try to test his mettle by forcing him on some tasks. Makanahoro accomplished the tasks (which vary according to the account) with the help of animals. De Goeje reported similar tales from nearby indigenous populations: the Kaliñas, the Macusis, the Warau (Warao), the Taulipangs, the Tembes and the Chané-Chriguanos.


title: Swan maiden

text: Explorer Everard im Thurn provided another account from Guiana: an Indian man marries a female king vulture and - as it is an Arawak custom - goes to live with his wife's family. After some time in the sky-realm, he longs to visit his human family back on Earth, which enrages the vulture people. The vulture in-laws drop the hunter on top of an awarra-palm, a plant known for its thorny appearance, and there he stays for some time, until some spiders take pity on him and weave a web for him to climb down the tree. Some birds take the man back to the sky realm and wage war on the vultures. In a more detailed version, the vulture father-in-law is named Anuanima and he is identified as the ruler of this race that lives in the sky.


title: Swan maiden

text: German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg collected a version of the Vulture Wife from the Taulipangs. In this story, which he titled "Der Besuch im Himmel" ("A Visit to Heaven"), after a war between rival tribes Kuyalakog and Palawiyang, only a man named Maitchaule survives. He has dreams about a beautiful woman, and captures the daughter of the vulture king. He brings her home and orders her to become a woman. Maitchaule goes to hunt, fish and harvest vegetables and fruit. While he is away, the vulture becomes a woman and does the chores, but as the man comes home, she turns back into a vulture. One day, Maitchaule discovers her human form and convinces her to live with him as if they are husband and wife. Time passes, and the vulture wife wants to visit her vulture family. The vulture wife comes back with two brothers and takes her human husband to visit his father-in-law, the vulture-king called Kasanapodole. The vulture-king is introduced to his son-in-law and orders him on difficult tasks: first, the human is to dry out the Kapöpiakupö Lake in two days; second, to build a house on a rock; thirdly, to build a bench with two heads. While in Heaven, Maitchaule is helped by small animals in his tasks.


title: Swan maiden

text: Koch-Grunberg published a version from the Tembé people which he titled "Die Tochter des Königsgeiers" ("The King Vulture's Daughter"): some king vultures take off their feathers to bathe in a lake. A human man builds a hunting lodge and waits for the vulture women to return the next day. When the vulture women return, the man hides the vulture feathers from a woman and takes her as his wife. They have a son. Some time later, the vulture wife wants to visit her family, and fashions makeshift wings for her human husband and human son with Janiparana leaves. With one of her feathers, she turns the leaves into vulture feathers and the three fly to the skies. They pass by the house of the Sun and the house of the Moon and reach the King Vulture's house. Later, the King Vulture orders his son-in-law to carve a large canoe in one day; then, the next day, to block a river and bring him the Trahira fish (which are alligators); and lastly to raze a forest to the ground.


title: Swan maiden

text: John Bierhorst summarized a tale from the Camaracoto, in Guyana: the protagonist is a culture hero named Maichak. He uses a rotten meat bait to draw the vultures in hopes of making contact with their chief, but he attracts the vulture chief's daughter, who becomes a woman. The vulture woman takes Maichak to the vulture realm, and their chief agrees to have the human as his son-in-law, as long as he fulfills three tasks: to catch all fishes in a lake, to build a house on a ledge, and to carve a shaman's bench. With the help of animals, Maichak fulfills the tasks.


title: Swan maiden

text: Walter Roth published a tale from the Warao, from Guyana, which he titled "The Man with a Vulture Wife", the middle of three brothers, who is a good hunter, finds a gathering of people in a house the forest. These people are dancing and playing the "makuari" in their instruments, but in reality they are vultures who have taken off their feathers. The next day, the hunter returns to that same spot, intent on getting one of the women as his wife. He sneaks behind one girl and grabs her, as the people, the house and everything disappears. The girl agrees to be the man's wife, so long as he does not thrash her. They live together, and, strangely, the girl does not eat the meat as soon as it brought home, waiting until the next day to eat it. However, the man beats her in three different occasions, despite his previous promise. The girl lends her vulture feathers to her husband to visit his father-in-law. Some time later, the man's wife notices that her daughter-in-law is strange, and the man keeps beating his wife. Fed up with her human husband's behaviour, she turns back into a vulture and flies back to the vulture realm. The human husband tries to catch her in midflight, to no avail, and misses his wife, so much so he returns to the spot in the forest where the house once stood.


title: Swan maiden

text: Roth also published other two Guyanan tales. In the first, from the Arawak, titled "How the Birds Obtained their Distinctive Markings", the man marries a vulture wife and visits his father-in-law in the vulture realm. He spends some time there, but after a while, begins to miss his earthly home, and wishes to return to visit his mother. In another, titled "The Medicine-Man and the Carrion Crows", the protagonist is a medicine man named Makanauro, who captures a vulture woman in human form and marries her.


title: Swan maiden

text: American anthropologist Charles Wagley collected a tale from the Tenetehara people which he titled "The man who married the vulture". In this tale, a Tenetehara man brings home a female king vulture ("Gypagus papa") and raises it. Time passes, and the man sighs over the lack of a wife, and wishes the bird could become one. He leaves to the garden and returns at night, and sees a meal prepared for him. This situation many times, and he discovers that the vulture take off the feather garments, become a woman and cook his food. He enters the house and hides the vulture's feather garment. The (now human) vulture explains she wanted to be kind good to him now that she is grown. They marry. Later, he wishes to pay a visit to her relatives, but she warns him against it, since her father, the vulture king, is a dangerous creature. He insists and she takes him to the vulure realm. Once there, the vulture king orders his human son-in-law to perform tasks for him: to build a canoe in one day (done by woodpeckers); to clear a garden in one day (again done by the woodpeckers), and to start a fire in the middle of the clearing. In the third task, a spider protects the human until the fire burns. Then, the Tenetehara man asks for the help of the hawks against his father-in-law.


title: Swan maiden

text: In two Argentinian variants, "Las tres palomas hijas del diablo" ("The three pigeon daughters of the devil") and "Blanca Flor", the prince is a gambler who bets and loses against a devil antagonist. To find the devil's house, a donor tells him he should steal the garments of the three daughters of the devil, who come to bathe in the form of doves.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Mexican tale, "Blanca Flor" ("White Flower"), youth Juan loves to gamble and wins the devil's favor to grant him unbeatable luck for the period of five years. When the date is due, the youth must find the devil "in the Plains of Berlín at the "Hacienda" of Qui-quiri-qui". He goes on a pilgrimage and asks three hermits (the king of fishes, the king of animals of the earth and the king of birds of the air) its location. The eagle, answering its sire's question, knows where it is. The eagle carries Juan to the Plains of Berlín and informes that three doves, the devil's three daughters, will come to bathe.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected by John Bierhorst from a Yucatec Mayan source, with the title "The Bird Bride", something is destroying his father's fields, and he tasks his three sons to guard it. A little toad appears to all three brothers and begs for some food, but only the youngest agrees to share his. The little toad and the youth discover the culprit: a bird - an enchanted maiden - comes to eat in the cornfield. The toad disenchants the maiden and she marries the youth.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected by Sílvio Romero in Rio de Janeiro ("Cova da Linda Flôr"), a king gambles with another monarch. He loses everything and consults with a hermit on how to proceed. The hermit advises to kill a special kind of bird from which a piece of paper will drop with instructions: three princesses, daughters of the monarch, in the form of ducks bathe in a lake, and the king should take the duck skin of the youngest (whose name is Cova da Linda Flôr).


title: Swan maiden

text: Marco Haurélio, contemporary writer and folklorist, collected two versions in Brazil wherein the hero steals the bird-maiden's clothes: "Guime e Guimar" (Guime e Guimar), published in the book "Contos Folclóricas Brasileiros" (Brazilian Folk Tales), in which the princess is enchanted in a paw, and "Guimar e Guimarim" (Guimar and Guimarim), published in the book "Vozes da Tradição" (Voices of Tradition), both classified under type 313A in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (The Girl as Helper in the Hero's Flight).


title: Swan maiden

text: Despite the near universality of the tale of the swan maiden (or maiden who transforms into any other kind of bird), there are tales where the human male still holds the maiden's garments, but the narrative does not mention whether she transforms or not.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale titled "The Iron Eagle", a young hunter reaches the sandy shores on the edge of a forest. He then sees three maidens arriving in a flash of light to take a bath "in the golden sunrise". The hunter steals their clothing, unaware that one of the maidens is "The Daughter of the Sun". In exchange for her garment back, she will grant one out of four wishes.


title: Swan maiden

text: The tale of the swan maiden is believed to be attested in "Lady Featherflight", a tale obtained from an English storyteller (an old aunt). Lady Featherflight helps the hero against her giant father and both escape (ATU 313 "The Magical Flight").


title: Swan maiden

text: Emmanuel Cosquin collected a French tale titled "Chatte Blanche" (English: "White Cat"), where the hero Jean is informed that "Plume Verte", "Plume Jaune" and "Plume Noir" come to bathe in the lake in the Black Forest, and is tasked with getting the robes of "Plume Verte".


title: Swan maiden

text: On his comments on English fairy tale "Lady Featherflight", W. W. Newell commented that in the French counterpart of the story, "La Plume Verte" (English: "The Green Feather"), the name is an indication of her status as bird-maiden. However, it has been noted that, as it happened in both versions, the swan maiden's feathery cloak was replaced by the garment, yet a reminiscence of it is retained in their names.


title: Swan maiden

text: A similar occurrence appear in a fairy tale from Brittany, "La Demoiselle en Blanc" ("The Lady in White"), collected by Paul Sébillot: the young man sees three human maidens bathing, and nearby there are three dresses, a white one, a gray one and a blue one. It has been noted that the tale contains a nearly identical episode of the maidens bathing, instead of the bird-maidens.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Brittany tale, collected by François-Marie Luzel, "Barbauvert, ou Le Prince qui Joua la Tête et la Perdit" ("Green Beard, or The Prince that gambled his head and lost it"), prince Charles, son of the king of France, gambles and loses a bet against Barbauvert. The man asks the prince to find his castle. Charles meets a hermit that tells him that three maidens will come in three golden chairs and will descend near a lake. One of them is Koantic, the youngest daughter of the Green Beard and who will help the prince with her father's tasks.


title: Swan maiden

text: In Irish tale "Yellow Lily", the son of the king of Erin gambles his head against the cruel Giant of Loch Lein, and must travel to the giant's castle after losing the bet. During his travels, he meets an old woman in a hut who informs that the three daughters of the giant, Blue Lily, White Lily and Yellow Lily, will come to bathe in a near lake, and the he should steal the garments of the youngest, Yellow Lily.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Irish tale "The King's Son in Erin and the King of Green Island", collected by Jeremiah Curtin and later published by Séamus Ó Duilearga, the son of the king of Erin loses to a small gray man and he orders him to find his castle in Green Island within a year and a day. After a long journey, an eagle directs him to the three daughters of the king of Green Island and steals the bracelet of the youngest of them. He returns it to her, they fall in love and she agrees to help him in her father's tasks.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Norwegian variant, a stranger named "the ninth Momorius" helps the hero and he has to find his house as payment. The hero meets one of the sons of Momorius, and he directs him to his youngest sister, who lives by a lake. When he arrives, the hero steals the clothes of Momorius's daughter and asks her help. Norwegian folklorist Reidar Thoralf Christiansen recognized that the stealing of the sister's clothes was "clearly a much worn down use of the Swan-maiden incident".


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Galician tale, "Brancafrol", a gambling youth bets and loses his soul, and receives a deadline to surrender his soul to the winner. After giving alms to an old lady, she informs him of three magical maidens bathing in the sea: two Moorish women, and a Christian woman, who have set their dresses on the shore (the Moorish women's green ones and the Christian woman's white one).


title: Swan maiden

text: Francisco Maspons y Labrós collected a Catalan variant titled "Lo castell del Sol" ("The Castle of the Sun"), where a young count bets and loses his wealth and must find his way to "The Castle of the Sun". Not knowing of its location, he is helped by an old lady and her sons, who tell of a lake where three maidens come to bathe. When escaping from her family, the count calls his wife ""Rosa florida"".


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Austrian (Tirol) tale collected by Joseph and Ignaz Zingerle, "Der gläserne Berg" ("The Glass Mountain"), a forester's son, while hiding in the bushes, sees three maidens bathing, and fetches their cloaks. Later, the maidens arrive at his house and ask for their garments back. He returns to two of the maidens, retaining the youngest's and marrying her. The couple live quite happily until, one day, the husband forgets to lock the cabinet where he hid her cloak garment, and she finds it. The maiden writes him a note saying that, if he loves her, he should seek her in "The Glass Mountain".


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Swiss tale from Unterengadin, "Der Glasberg oder Das Glasschloss" ("The Glass Mountain or the Glass Castle"), a youth and his widowed mother live in a house in the wood. One day, he is cutting some wood, when he sees ten flying maidens alighting near a lake and taking off their wings to bathe. The youth is astonished by such a sight. The next day, he watches the scene and convinces himself the maidens are real, intending to take one of them, the youngest, as his wife. The third time, he digs a hole and hides in it to steal the maiden's wings as soon as she descends. He is successful and the maiden is presented to his mother as his wife. He hides the clothing in a locked compartment and gives the key to his mother, but one day she forgets to lock it. So the maiden regains her wings and tells the old woman that her son should find her "in the Glass Mountain". The youth, now inconsolable, goes on a quest to get her back. He visits the abode of the Moon, the Sun and the Wind and obtains their help. He finally reaches the Glass Mountain and meets his mother-in-law, who asks him to perform three tasks, the last of which is to recognize his wife from her nine identical sisters. He is also successful. Soon after, the pair escapes from the Glass Mountain (ATU 313, "The Magic Flight") and returns home.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Polish tale by A. J. Glinski, "O nahajce wykonajce, butachsamoskokach, czapce niewidce, i ogórze miedzianej" ("The Princess of The Brazen Mountain"), the hero is a prince who steals the pair of wings of the titular princess and proposes to her. On their wedding day, she is given back the wings and flies back to the Brazen Mountain.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected by Francis Hindes Groome ("The Witch") from a Polish-Gypsy source, the prince dreams of a place where lovely maidens were bathing. He decides to travel the world to find this place. He does so and hides the wings of the youngest maiden. After his wife escapes, he follows her to her family's home, and must work for her sorcerous mother.


title: Swan maiden

text: In Russian folktale "Yelena The Wise", the titular princess and her maid, both possessing wings, were made prisoners by a six-headed serpent, until they were accidentally released by Ivan, the soldier. Ivan informs the six-headed serpent of her escape and the monster says the princess is cunning. Hot on her trail, he uses a flying carpet to reach a beautiful garden with a pond. Soon after, Yelena and her maid arrive and take off their wings to bathe.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Wallachian tale collected by Arthur and Albert Schott, "Der verstoßene Sohn", a youth shoots a raven, which falls in the snow. The striking image makes the boy long for a bride "of white skin, red cheeks and hair black as a raven's feathers". An old man tells him of such beauty: three "Waldjungfrauen" ("forest-maidens") will come to bathe in the lake, and he must secure the crown of one of them. He fails twice, but succeeds in his third attempt. The youth and the forest maiden live together for many years, she bears him two sons, but, during a village celebration, she asks for her crown back. When she puts on her head, she begins to ascend in flight with their two children and asks her husband to come find them.


title: Swan maiden

text: Von Hahn also collected similar stories from Ioannina and Zagori, and called the swan maiden-like character "Elfin".


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected from a Dagur source, in China, a man tells his three sons of a dream he had: a white horse that appeared, circled the sun and vanished into the sea. His sons decide to find this horse. The youngest succeeds in capturing the horse, but it says it will feel lonely away from its home, so the horse decides to bring one of his sisters with him. The youth and the horse await at the beach for the arrival of ten fairies, who take off their clothes to play in the sea. Soon enough, the youth seizes the clothing of the youngest.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected in the Konkani language, "The Bird Princess and the Boy", a king with seven sons asks them a question: who are they most afraid of? The older six boys answer: "the king", which pleases him. When the youngest says he most fears God, the king whips him eight times and abandons him in the forest. The boy wanders about and reaches an old lady's cottage. He works as a goatherd and is warned about not going beyond the garden. He disobeys and sees a lake where two princesses are bathing, their dresses that allow them to fly cast off nearby. He steals the dress of one of them but the maiden regains it. On the second day, he manages to steal the clothing of the second one and hide beneath the house floor. A king dies and three elephants carry the crown to the boy. He marries the flying princess. When the old lady dies, the princess finds the magical clothing and flies back to her kingdom. On his way there, the boy rescues frogs, mongooses and flies, whose help he uses to fulfill three tasks before winning back his wife.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Algerian tale, "La Djnoun et le Taleb", the "taleb" Ahmed ben Abdallah arrives at the edge of a lake and sees a beautiful "Djnoun" bathing in the water. He soon notices the "dove-skin" of the maiden and hides it. They marry and raise a family with several children. One day, one of their children finds their mother's magical garment and delivers it to her.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected from the Sahaptin, a boy becomes poor. Later, he plays cards with a Black storekeeper. The boy wins the Black man's store and livestock. He then bets himself: if he loses, he becomes the boy's servant. The Black man wins back the store and the livestock, "and" the boy as his servant, but the Black man dismisses him and tells the boy to go to a place across the river. An old woman stops him from crossing the river and tries to help the boy by "ask[ing] different things": the dishes, the spoons, the cat, the rooster and the geese. The woman translates what the geese informed: the boy must seek some bathing maidens and he must secure the "blue-green garters" of the last bathing girl.


title: Swan maiden

text: J. Alden Mason collected a tale from the Uintah Utes from Whiterocks, Utah, with the title "Nṍwintc's adventure with the Bird-Girls and their people". In this tale, a man named Nṍwintc wanders in the wilderness and tries to hunt a deer, but the animal pleads for its life and tells the hunter about a nearby lake where two women are bathing. Nṍwintc goes to verify the deer's story and finds two women "that looked something like birds", one yellow, the other green, and steals their garments. Both women want their garments back, and Nṍwintc gives them back. They play and frolic for the night, then go to sleep, but, since the women pretend to be asleep, they sneak off in the dead of night. The next morning, Nṍwintc goes after them; on the way, he meets some boys who give him eagle-feathers and a veil that grants invisibility. Nṍwintc meets the green girl and her family first, who wants to get rid of him and impose trials on Nṍwintc. The human hunter prevails, marries the green girl and they have a daughter. Nṍwintc, however, wants to visit the yellow girl, and meets her family, and a similar event happens to him. Nṍwintc also marries the yellow girl and they have two sons. Eventually, both families meet.


title: Swan maiden

text: Anthropologist Robert H. Lowie collected a tale from the Shoshone with the title "The Supernatural Wife": a human hunter (Ute) tries to kill a deer, but the animal pleads for its life and directs the hunter to a lake where two women are bathing, one with a red dress, and the other with a white dress. The human hunter meets the maiden in white garments, and she gives him a ring. They lie together for the night and the next morning, the couple finds themselves in a nice house. A white man sees the house and the woman and reports to the town governor, who conspires with the white man to kill the Ute and take his house and his wife. The governor, then, imposes impossible tasks on the Ute hunter: to get the blood of a soldier, the "yaɣa'pwa'tu" (tears of the birds), and to bathe in boiling water. With his wife's help, he triumphes over the governor. However, one day, the woman asks her Ute husband not to call her "Piñon-cones-on-the-ground-woman", but the man forgets and calls her that. She disappears the next morning and he goes after her. On the road, he steals three objects from two girls and a boy: a club, a woman's leggings and a hat - all sent by his wife. He finds his wife in her mother's house and his mother-in-law forces him on some chores. The woman, however, convinces her Ute husband to escape from the house.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Jamaican tale, "Jack and the Devil Errant", protagonist Jack loses a bet against the titular Devil Errant and is ordered to find him in three months. An old man helps him by informing that the Devil Errant's three daughters will come to bathe in a lake, but he should only steal the clothing of the youngest.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Jamaican tale, with a heavy etiological bent and possibly starring legendary trickster hero Anansi, the protagonist, a young man, wins against a "headman" (an African king) and the youth's nurse warns him that the king may be planning some trap. The nurse, then, advises the youth that he should take "the river-road" and reach a stream where the king's youngest daughter will be bathing. He steals the clothing twice: the first time, the youth lies that a thief was nearby; the second time, that a gust of wind blew them away.


title: Swan maiden

text: A tale was collected in 1997, from a 65-year-old Belizean storyteller, Ms. Violet Wade, that focuses on the backstory of the maiden's father. In this story, "Green Seal", an orphaned prince becomes a king, rescues a princess and marries her. Years later, they have three daughters (one of which Green Seal), to whom the king, a wizard, teaches magic. The three maidens fly to a river to bathe and a poor boy, Jack, steals Green Seal's clothes. They agree to marry, but first Jack must perform tasks for her father.


title: Swan maiden

text: A second format of the supernatural wife motif pertains to tales where the maiden isn't a shapeshifting animal, but instead a creature or inhabitant of Heaven, a Celestial Realm, or hails from the place where the gods live. Western works commonly translate these characters as "fairies" or "nymphs".


title: Swan maiden

text: Japanese folklorist Seki Keigo names this story ""The Wife from the Upper World"," in his index of "Types of Japanese Folktales". Similarly, scholar Kunio Yanagita titled it "The Wife from the Sky World". Professor Alan L. Miller calls it ""The Divine Wife"", which can also refer to the Swan Maiden tales. East Asian scholarship also names this group of tales as "The Legend of the Winged Robe" (or "Tale of the Feathered Cloak") and "Celestial Wife".


title: Swan maiden

text: Korean scholarship supposes that the bird wife and the animal transformation were replaced by a human-looking supernatural woman with a pair of wings or a magical garment in regions that lacked contact with swans, for instance, India, Southeast Asia, Korea and Japan.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to scholarship, the motif of the celestial bride whose clothes are stolen by a mortal warrior is popular in Indian literary and oral tradition.


title: Swan maiden

text: The motif of the swan maiden is also associated with the Apsaras, of Hinduism, who descend from Heaven or a Celestial Realm to bathe in an earthly lake. One example is the ancient tale of apsara Urvasi and king Pururavas. In another tale, cited by folklorist Edwin Sidney Hartland, five apsaras, "celestial dancers", are transported by an enchanted car to take a bath in the forest.


title: Swan maiden

text: A folk song collected from the state of Chhattisgarh, "The Ballad of flower-maid Bakaoli", contains the episode where a male (Lakhiya) is informed by a "sadhu" about the seven daughters of Indra Rajá (one of which is Bakaoli) who bathe in a lake.


title: Swan maiden

text: A tale of Dravidian origin tells the story of Prince Jagatalapratapa, who has an encounter with the daughter of Indra and her maids in a grove in forest. A second story of "The Dravidian Nights Entertainment", by Natesa Sastri, shows the episode of the prince stealing clothes from a celestial maiden, as part of the prince's search for a special flower.


title: Swan maiden

text: A story obtained from Santal sources ("Toria the Goatherd and the Daughter of the Sun") tells of goatheard Toria. After the Daughters of the Sun descend to earth on a spider's thread, the maidens invite Toria to join them in their leisure in water. The goatherd, then, convinces the girls to see who can stay underwater for so long. While they are distracted, Toria hides the clothing of one of them – the one he found most lovely – and flees home with it.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Bengali tale, from Dinajpur ("The Finding of the Dream"), prince Siva Das receives a premonitory dream about a maiden. Some time later, he is informed by a sage that, on a night of full moon, five nymphs descend from the sky to play in a pond, and one of them is the maiden he saw in a dream, named Tillottama.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from the Karbi people, "Harata Kunwar", the youngest of seven brothers, flees for his life from home, after his brothers and father threaten to take his life, and takes refuge with an old lady. After doing his chores, he plans to take a bath in the river, but was told not to go upstream. He does so and sees the six daughters of the King of the Great Palace descending from the heavens and undressing their clothings to bathe and frolic in the water.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Indian tale of unknown source, "The Perfumer's Daughter", the prince's wife asks for her ring and flies off to unknown parts. Burdened with grief, the prince wanders the world until he finds an old ascetic master. The ascetic tells the prince that, on the full moon night, his wife and her handmaidens will descend from the heavens to bathe in the lake, and the youth must acquire his wife's shawl.


title: Swan maiden

text: The Indian folktale collection "Kathasaritsagara" contains at least two similar tales involving Apsaras: the tale of Marubhúti who, instructed by a hermit, steals the clothing of one of some heavenly nymphs who came to bathe in the river, and the hermit becomes the mortal husband of the Vidyadhara. In a second story, deity Bhairava commands Thinthákarála to steal the garments of the Apsaras that were bathing in "the holy pool of Mahákála". After the deed is done, the Apsaras protest and beg for their garments to be returned, but the youth sets a condition: he will return them in exchange for the youngest Apsara, Kalávatí, daughter of Alambushá, to become his wife.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Indian tale, "The Wood-seller and the Seven Fairies", the wood-seller takes a moment to rest in the forest, and soon sees seven fairies bathing a well. He soon steals their garments and asks for their help in order to impress a visiting queen he wishes to marry.


title: Swan maiden

text: Professor Margaret Kartomi stated that "countless versions" of the tale of the human male who marries one of seven heavenly females (or angels) after stealing her clothing appear in "insular and mainland Southeast Asia".


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from Laos, "The Faithful Husband", Chow Soo Tome, a lord, sees seven winged nymphs bathing. They notice his presence and flee, except one. They marry and his mother hides her wings, so she cannot fly back. The head "chow" sends Soo Tome to war and the nymph, out of sorrow, asks her mother-in-law for her wings back. She dons her wings and flies back to her father's kingdom of Chom Kow Kilat. Chow Soo Tome discovers his wife fled and goes on a quest to win her back.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Vietnamese tale, a woodcutter finds the spring where the fairies ("Nàng tiên") come to bathe. He hides the clothes of the youngest fairy and marries her. The youth hides the garment in the rice shed, but his wife finds it and goes back to the upper world. However, she leaves her child with her comb, as a memento.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to linguist Sidney Herbert Ray, the Sanskrit word "vidyādhari" was borrowed into the Malayo-Polynesian languages of the region. Thus, it appears as "bidadari" in Malay and Makassar and as "widadari" in Javanese, both denoting a nymph or fairy.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the story ("hikayat") of "Hikayat Inderaputera", prince Inderaputera (Indraputra) travels the world in other to find a cure for a king's childlessness. He obtains information from a peri that Princess Gemala Ratna Suri and her seven nymph attendants will come in seven days to bathe in the lake, and he should steal the flying jackets of the maidens to advance in his quest.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Malay "hikayat", Prince Malim Deman has a vision in a dream about a holy man pointing to a place upstream where he can find a wife. There he will find seven heavely maidens who descended to the mortal realm to play in the pond of the fairy woman Ninek Kebayan. The prince meets Ninek Kebayan, who helps him steal the clothing of the most beautiful of the heavenly maidens, Puteri Bongsu (Poeteri Boengsoe), and make her his wife. In another version, provided by a "respected ancestor" named Bujang XI, protagonist Malin Deman marries Dewa Indurjati. Otherwise, the tale shows the same ending, with the celestial maiden regaining her clothes and returning to the skies.


title: Swan maiden

text: A similar plot can be found in another hikayat, named "Hikayat Malim Dewa", where prince Malim Dewa marries the heavenly nymph (princess) Poetroë Boengthoe, whose magical garments he stole to prevent her return to the celestial abode.


title: Swan maiden

text: The narrative of the swan maiden or heavenly wife was noted to be found "all across the Philippines", being told in the following ethnic groups, according to professors Hazel Wrigglesworth and Richard Dorson: Tinguian, Amganad Ifugao, Kallahan Keley-i, Casiguran Dumagat, Mamanwa, Binukid, Ata of Davao, Dibabawon, Sindangan Subanon, Siocon Subanon, Ilianen Manobo, Livunganen Manobo, Sarangani Manobo, Maguindanao, and Tausug.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the tale "Kimod and the Swan Maiden" ("Pitong Maylog"), from the Mansaka (Philippines), Kimod, a young hunter, captures the garments of one bathing maiden and marries her. Some time later, the maiden discovers its hiding place: inside her husband's blowgun. She wears it again and rejoins her sisters in the skyworld. Kimod, then, goes on a quest to bring her back. According to Herminia Q. Meñez, versions are reported to have been found in other groups in Mindanao and northern Luzon.


title: Swan maiden

text: Other variants from Filipino folklore include: "The Seven Young Sky Women"; "Magbolotó", a tale from the Visayan. A version of the tale was also found in the oral narratives of the Agta people of the Philippines ("How Juan got his Wife from Above").


title: Swan maiden

text: The heavenly maidens are also known in Indonesia as "Bathing Beauties" or "The Seven Nymphs", tales wherein a male character spies on seven celestial maidens (Apsaras) bathing in an earthly lake. Indonesian scholarship states that the tale is "widespread in almost all parts of Indonesia": North Sumatra, Maluku, Bengkulen, East Kalimantan, Madura, West Sulawesi, Java and Bali. In that regard, professor James Danandjaja acknowledged this wide diffusion, but emphasized the existence of the story "among the ethnic groups that were influenced by Hindu-Buddhist and Han (Chinese) cultures".


title: Swan maiden

text: One famous version from Indonesian history is titled , from the island of Java, starring legendary Javanese hero Jaka Tarub, who marries the heavenly nymph ("Bidadari") Dewi Nawang Wulan. This story is said to be popular on this island, especially in East and Central Java.


title: Swan maiden

text: Similar tales were collected from North Sulawesi and Minahasa Peninsula (formerly known as "Celebes Islands"). One is the tale of Kasimbaha and Utahagi: Kasimbaha fetches the garments of Utahagi, a "heavenly nymph" who was bathing in a lake, and, later, after his wife returns to her celestial abode, he climbs a special tree to ascend to the heavens and find her again.


title: Swan maiden

text: A second tale is interesting in that it differs: instead of bathing in a lake, the heavenly maidens descend to Earth and steal the yams of a human farmer named Walasindouw.


title: Swan maiden

text: In Bengkulu, in the island of Sumatra, the legend of "Malin Deman" is quite close to the motif of the "Celestial Wife": hero Malin Deman steals the wings and the clothes of the youngest of "Seven Angels" who have come to the terrestrial plane to bathe. They soon marry and have a child, but, years later, she returns to her celestial realm. Another Sumatran tale is the story of Lidah Pahit and Puyang Bidodari (Putri Bungsu).


title: Swan maiden

text: Amongst the Karo people of Indonesia, the tale of hero Si Mandupa tells of his marriage with one of seven "anak dibata" ("children of divinity") by stealing her clothing. Some time later, her husband gives back her clothes and she flies back to heaven, which prompts an arduous quest to bring her back home.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Madura tale, , the titular hero marries one of seven "angels", named Tunjung Wulan. One day, the angel wife tells her husband not to visit her in the kitchen whenever she is cooking. He breaks this prohibition and she departs back to her sisters.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from the Aceh region, , published by M. J. Melalatoa and translated by Krishna, orphaned youth Malim Dewa ventures through a thick forest near the Pesangan river, in search of a golden-bodied maiden he saw in a dream. He dreams of seven golden-bodied maidens bathing and frolicking in a river nearby, then he wakes. He soon meets an old lady named Inen Keben, who reveals that the seven maidens bathe in Atu Pepangiren on Mondays and Thursdays, and tells him if she secures her garment, she shall remain on earth. The plan works and the maiden, named Putri Bensu, is taken by Inen as another companion. Malim and Putri Bensu meet in person, marry and have a son, named Amat Banta. One day, the child plays with the ashes in Inen's hut and Putri Bensu discovers her stolen garment. She dons it again and leaves the hut with the child back to the skies.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from South Kalimantan, "Telaga Bidadari", a man named Awang Sukma becomes a "datu" (a title of rulership). One day, when playing on his flute, he notices a noise nearby and goes to investigate. He sees seven angels or nymphs bathing in a lake (Sungai Raya or Bidadari Lake). He falls in love with the youngest and steals her garment. When it is time to depart, six of the women wear their clothes, but not the youngest, Putri Bungsu. They leave her there, but she is found by Awang Sukma. They marry and have a daughter named Kumalasari. Their happiness is short-lived when Putri Bungsu finds her stolen garment in the garden and flies back to the heavens.


title: Swan maiden

text: A similar story is reported to act as a foundational myth of the historical kingdoms of North Maluku: a man named Jafar Sadek arrives from Arabia to the coast of Tarnore. There, he sees seven bathing maidens (heavenly maidens), and falls in love with the youngest, named Nur Safa. He steals her winged robe and strands her on Earth. He hides her clothing, marries her and she bears him three sons and four daughters. One day, Nur Safa finds her garments and flies back to the skies, leaving her family behind. Jafar Sadek learns of her disappearance and is taken by an eagle to the Sky Realm. There, he meets his father-in-law and is put to a test: he must identify Nur Safa amid a parade of identical maidens.


title: Swan maiden

text: A story from the Bugis people attests the descent of seven celestial nymphs to bathe in an earthly lake, and a man that steals the garments of the youngest to make her his wife.


title: Swan maiden

text: Other tales are attested in the many traditions of the archipelago: from the Island of Halmahera, the episode of "stealing maiden's clothing while in a bath" occurs as part of the quest of the youngest of seven brothers for a remedy for his father; from the Island of Bali, the story of Rajapala and vidyadhari Ken Sulasih, parents of hero Durma; the heroic poem Ajar Pikatan, narrating the quest for celestial maiden Suprabha; "The Legend of Pasir Kujang", from West Java; "Raja Omas" and "Mahligai Keloyang".


title: Swan maiden

text: A tale from Lew Chew was related ca. the beginning of the 19th century by Envoy Li Ting-yuan: a farmer, Ming-Ling-Tzu, who owns a pristine fountain of the purest water, sights a maiden fair bathing in the water source and possibly soiling it. He notices the maiden's garments, of a "ruddy sunset colour", draped nearby in a pine tree. He gets her garments and does not return it to her. The man marries the maiden, they live together for ten years and have a son and a daughter. One day, when her husband is away, the mysterious maiden climbs a tree and ascends to the sky, leaving her human family forever.


title: Swan maiden

text: The Korean version of the "Celestial Bride" story corresponds to the folktale of "The Fairy and the Woodcutter" (Korean: "Seonnyeowanamukkun" or 선녀와 나무꾼). Scholarship separates four kinds of narrative, according to the continuation of the story: (1) the celestial maiden escapes and never returns; (2) the husband reaches the celestial realm through a vine or another type of ladder to the upper world; (3) the husband reaches the upper realm and is forced to perform tasks for his wife's family; (4) the husband returns to Earth because he misses his mother. The third narrative is considered to be the most collected type of the tale in Korea. Another classification focuses on the fate or decision of the celestial wife: she is stranded on Earth forever; she finds her flying garment and returns to the Heavens; she still finds the garment, but decides to stay for the sake of her child(ren).


title: Swan maiden

text: A local version of the "Cowherd and Weaver" story, titled "Weaver and Herdsman: Chik-Nyo and Kyun-Woo", is related to the "Chilseok" festival.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the tale "Son-Nyo the Nymph and the Woodcutter", a woodcutter lives at the foot of the Diamond Mountain, in Gangwon Province. In the woods, he hides a deer from a hunter. In gratitude, the deer tells she is the daughter of the Mountain God and directs the woodcutter to a pool where seven nymphs, the "son-nyo", will bathe. He steals the robe of one of them and marries her. Years later, after the birth of their third child, the maiden insists on wearing her robe to show her children. The husband returns the robe and she flies back to the skies with the children. Dismayed, the deer tells him of a way to reach the skies: by entering a bucket they use to draw water from Earth. He does and reaches the Heavens to be with his wife and children. However, after a while, the woodcutter begins to feel homesick and wants to visit his mother, but his wife warns him that he might not return. This tale is classified as type 400.


title: Swan maiden

text: Another related tale is the Chinese myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, in which one of seven fairy sisters is taken as a wife by a cowherd who hid the seven sisters' robes; she becomes his wife because he sees her naked, and not so much due to his taking her robe. In some versions of the story, the Cowherd character has a brother and a sister-in-law, and a buffalo guides the youth to the place where the heavenly maidens are bathing (either the Weaver Maiden alone, or a group of maidens).


title: Swan maiden

text: A similar story is the tale of "Tian Xian Pei", also known as "The Fairy Couple"; "The Marriage of the Fairy Princess" or "Dong Yong, the Filial Son". According to professor Wilt Idema, there is a sequel to the story of Dong Yong, where his son, Dong Zhong, discovers his mother is the heavenly fairy who will come down to earth to bathe in the Anavatapta Pond. He is instructed to steal his mother's magical robe.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to professor Hiroko Ikeda's "Index of Japanese Folktales", the international type 400 is equally classified as type 400, with the title "The Man on a Quest for his Lost Celestial Wife", "Hagoromo" or "Tennin Nyoobo". In the Japanese legend of Hagoromo, it is a heavenly spirit, or Tennin, that comes to earth and has her robe stolen by a human hunter. Some tales even cross over with the legend of the "Tanabata".


title: Swan maiden

text: Professor Hazel Wigglesworth wrote that there were 46 versions of the tale collected in Japanese oral sources, and the oldest register of the tale is present in the "Fudoki", an ancient book on provincial and oral accounts. Ikeda, on the other hand, reported 59 versions found across Japan, while Japanologist Carmen Blacker asserted its wide diffusion "from Aomori to Kyūshū".


title: Swan maiden

text: Comparative scholarship on the Japanese variants points that at the beginning of the story, the human male goes near a lake for a variety of reasons (a prayer to the gods for a wife; a vision sent in a dream; a grateful animal points him the way). Over the course of the story, the human partner reaches the celestial realm where his wife and her family live. Once there, he is forced to perform tasks before they reunite. At the end of the narrative, the husband breaks a taboo (he should not eat a certain melon/gourd, but he does and is washed away) and he and his celestial wife are separated, only to reunite again during the night of July 7.


title: Swan maiden

text: James Danandjaja related the Japanese tale of "Amafuri Otome" ("The Woman who came from the Sky"), as a similar tale of the unmarried mortal man, named Mikeran, who withholds the kimono from a bathing lady in exchange for her becoming his wife. He also compared it to the Swan Maiden and to the myth of "The Cowherd and the Weaver". As the tale continues, Mikeran fashions a thousand straw sandals to reach the sky world and find his wife. When he meets his parents-in-law, the father-in-law forces him to perform some tasks, and tricks the human with cutting a thousand watermelons in one day. The human's sky wife knows it is a trap, but he does it anyway and is washed away by a flood created from the watermelons. Thus, they can only meet on the night of the "Tanabata" festival.


title: Swan maiden

text: Tales collected from Ōmi Province ("Ika no Woumi") and Suruga Province ("Miho Matsubara") are close to the human husband/swan spouse narrative, whereas in a story from Tango Province ("Taniha no Kori") it is an elderly couple who strand the celestial maiden on Earth and she becomes their adopted daughter to keep them company. In addition, versions collected from Omi Province also show that the celestial maiden or divine fairy character became entwined locally with Shinto deity Sugawara no Michizane.


title: Swan maiden

text: A heavenly maiden with a "hagoromo" (a robe or garment) has also been proclaimed as ancestress of the Kirihata family. In this ancestor myth, the forefather is named Tayu Kirihata, who marries a celestial maiden.


title: Swan maiden

text: The Northeast Asia region (more specifically, Manchuria) also records the tale of the swan maiden, but in the form of the "Heavenly Maiden". In a published tale, the heavenly maiden descends to earth to bathe in a lake, marries a human man and becomes "the primeval ancestress of the Manchu".


title: Swan maiden

text: In one version of the origin of the Dörbed, a hunter climbs up Nidu Mountain, where a lake is located. When he approaches the body of water, he sees four "goddesses" playing in the water. He returns home to fetch a net, and climbs the mountain again. Lying in wait to spring a trap, he uses the net to capture one of the goddess while the other escaped back to the heavens. The goddess and the human marry, but later they must part, and she returns to her heavenly realm. Once there, she realizes she is pregnant, and descends to earth to give birth to her child, a boy. She sets a cradle for him on the tree branches and a bird to look after the child. Now finished, she flies back to the heavens.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from the island of Efate, the "people of the sky" descend to earth to fish during the night, drop their white wings ("inlailaita" or "thin sails") on the shore, and leave before dawn. One day, a man witnesses their coming and, after they land, hides a pair of wings in the stem of a banana plant. After the sky-people finish their activities, they depart to the skies, except one woman, who was the owner of the pair of wings. She and the man marry and have two boys, "Maka Tafaki" and "Karisi Bum". The human/sky girl relationship turns sour. Later, she regains the wings and returns to the skies. Their tale continues as the brothers reach the sky land years later and visit their grandmother. The tale also serves to explain the introduction of several types of yams among human populations.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from New Hebrides, a man named Tagaro spies on winged women, named either "Banewonowono" ("web skin", possibly referring to bat-like wings), or "Vinmara" ("dove skin"), who descend to bathe in a lake. The man takes the wings of one of them. One day, when gathering yams, Tagaro's brothers scold her and she cries, her tears washing away the soil that covered the hiding place of her wings. She puts them on and returns to the skies.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a similar story, collected from Maewo Island (Aurora Island), in Vanuatu, with the title "The Winged Wife", the hero's name is Qat. In this version of the story, the maiden from the sky has "bird-like" wings. After she is stranded on Earth, Qat's mother scolds her, she cries and finds her hidden pair of wings. She returns to the sky realm and her husband, Qat, goes after her.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from New Guinea, originally collected by Jan de Vries and translated into Hungarian with the title "A tíz égi asszony" ("The Ten Celestial Women"), an old woman lived near a coral reef in Tidore, where ten women from heaven come to bathe. One day, a shipwrecked sailor is rescued by the old woman and told about the ten beautiful women that come to bathe. The man decides to spy on them. He decides to marry the youngest, so he hides her wings before she flies back to the skies (as the old woman advised) and gets her as his wife. She bears him two sons. While he away fishing for his family, the celestial wife finds her stolen pair of wings and returns to the skies. The human asks the bird to help him reach the Sky Realm. There, he has to identify his true wife from a queue of identical sky women, which he does. The man, then, is given an empty bamboo cane, filled with many types of cereal grains, and he must find the barley grains - a task he accomplishes with the use of feathers. At last, he and his wife return to Earth, and their four sons become rajahs of Djilolo, Bahtjan, Ternate and Tidore.


title: Swan maiden

text: The narrative of the Sky-Maiden was collected in song form from the Ndau people, titled "Legend and Song of the Sky-Maiden": the daughter of a powerful chief who lived in the sky and her attendants go down to Earth to bathe, and it becomes a dare amongst the royal princes to see who can fetch her plume/feather – the symbol of her otherwordliness. The victor is a poor man who, as a subversion of the common narrative, gets to live with his sky-wife in her abode. A version of the tale in narrative form was given as "The Sky-People" ("Vasagole") by Franz Boas and C. Kamba Simango in the "Journal of American Folk-Lore".


title: Swan maiden

text: In "Tshinyama's Heavenly Maidens", two winged maidens descend from the heavens to an earthly watering hole – an event witnessed by a mortal man.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Malagasy tale, obtained from Vàkin-Ankarãtra ("The way in which Adrianòro obtained a wife from Heaven"), the hero Adrianoro is informed that three maidens bathe in a lake, and tries to set a snare (trap) for them by shapeshifting into fruits or seeds.


title: Swan maiden

text: Researcher E. Dora Earthy reported tales from the Lenge people about the "maidens from heaven": they marry mortal men and, depending on the tale, either escape back to Heaven or decide to remain with them.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Yuchi tale, "A Hunter Who Captured a Woman from the Sky", collected in 1931, a man was hunting when he saw something descending from heavens carrying people with it, some pretty women among them. He captured and married one of the women.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Creek tale from Alabama, "The Celestial Skiff", recorded in 1929, a group of people descend from the sky in a canoe. At one time, a man manages to capture one woman of that group and has many children with her. Years later, the woman tries to climb onto the canoe to return to the sky.


title: Swan maiden

text: A third occurrence of the supernatural spouse from above is the Star Women or, in the words of E. Hartland, "The Star's Daughter". Scholars see a possible relation of this character with the Swan Maiden legend.


title: Swan maiden

text: The motif of the Star Maiden can be found in Native American folklore and mythology, as the character of the Star Wife: she usually descends from heaven in a basket along with her sisters to play in a prairie or to bathe in a lake, and a mortal male, entranced by her figure, plans to make her his own. It is later discovered that she is a maiden from the stars or a star herself who came down to Earth.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to Anthony Wonderley, despite the "very close similarity" between both tales, ethnologue John Bierhorst calls this North American tale the "Sky Maidens": a group of maidens descend from the heavens in a basket to dance of play ball. Wonderley locates the tale in the Southeast, among the Shawnee, the Pawnee and possibly among the Iroquois (since the Iroquois tale was written down after 1900).


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Sioux legend, the human hunter marries the Star Wife and fathers a son. Mother and child escape to the Star-realm, but begin to miss the human father. Her father suggests they bring him there to reunite the family, and they do so.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a third variation, an inversion occurs: the hunter is taken in a basket to the Star-country in order to live with his Star Wife. However, he begins to miss his human mother. So, with the aid of a pair of red swan's wings for him and his wife, they return to the human world.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale attributed to the Wyandot people, seven Star Sisters (the Pleiades) descend to Earth in a basket. One day, a human hunter captures the youngest by her girdle while their sisters escape in the basket. The maiden promises to become the hunter's wife, but before that he must accompany her to the sky ("the Sun's lodge").


title: Swan maiden

text: Author Macleod Yearsley provided the summary of a similar Algonquin tale: a hunter sees twelve maidens descend from the sky in a basket. When he tries to approach them, the basket is pulled back to the sky. The next day, the hunter assumes animal shape (a mouse) to create a false sense of safety for the sky girls. The basket descends and the hunter captures one of the maidens. He marries her and they have a son. Some years into their marriage, the sky maiden weaves a new basket, takes her son with her, and uses the magic song to elevate herself and her son back to her sky realm. The hunter goes after them. In other versions of the same tale, the protagonist is named Waupee, the White Hawk, and the story has been variously sourced: a version titled "The Daughters of the Star", from Canada, or from the Ojibwes; "The White Hawk", from the Shawnee; "The Star-Maiden", from the Chippewa; "Waupee White Hawk and His Family", from Ohio.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Peruvian tale collected by ethnologue with the title "The Boy who Rose to the Sky", a youth is sent to guard his family's potato plantation from whoever is stealing their yield. At night, three stars descend from the sky in form of glowing maidens. The youth captures one of them as the others escape, and makes her his wife. After some time, the star maiden flees from her human husband and returns to her sky realm. Still on Earth, the human husband decides to follow her and convinces a condor to take him there, by feeding the bird with two llamas on the way to the heavens. The llama meat is not enough to feed the condor, and the youth slices a bit of his leg to feed his transport on the last part of the journey. He meets his star wife once again, but has to return to earth after his wife expels him.


title: Swan maiden

text: Philippine academic E. Arsenio Manuel, among others, stated that the character of the "Star Maiden" is prevalent in Filipino folklore.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected from the "Nabaloi" (Ibaloi people, an indigenous ethnic group in the Philippines), "The star wives", the stars themselves descend from heaven and bathe in a lake in Batan. The local males hide the stars' clothing, which allow the stars to fly, and marry them. Eventually the men grow old, but the stars retain their youth, regain their clothings and return to the skies.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another tale, collected by Fay-Cooper Cole from the Tinguian (Itneg people), in the Philippines, the star maiden Gaygayoma descends from the sky with other stars in a sugar-cane field to eat the produce. The plantation belong to a human named Aponitolau, who had a mortal wife, Aponibolinayen. One night, he goes to the fields to check on the bamboo fence and sees many stars, "dazzling lights" falling from the sky, and one that "looked like a flame of fire" who left her garment near the fence. The human farmer Aponitolau frightens the many stars, which return to the skies, and sits on the maiden's garment. She introduces herself as the daughter of Bagbagak and Sinag, two celestial beings, and reveals she wishes to take him as her husband.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected from the Bontoc Igorot with the title "The Stars", the stars descend to eat a sugar-cane plantation that belongs to a human farmer. The human captures the star maiden and marries her. After bearing him five sons, she spends her time sewing back her wings to wear them and return to the sky.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected from a Bontok woman from Tukukan village and published with the title "Tokfefe, the Star Wife", some stars descend to bathe in a terrestrial lake; a man steals the wings of one of them and marries her; she later discovers the hiding place of her wings (her husband's granary shed), retrieves them and flies back to the sky.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from the Ifialig of Barlig, titled "Siblaw Taraw" ("The Star Maiden"), a bachelor climbs up a mountain to reach the enchanted lake of Siblaw. That night, he sees some celestial maidens coming down from the heavens to bathe in the water, after they take off their garments and wings. The next night, the human hides the wings of one of them and strands her on Earth, while her companions returns to the skies. He marries the star girl, now named Taraw ('Star') and she bears a little girl. One day, when her daughter is 15 years old, Taraw finds her lost wings and, saying goodbye to her daughter, departs back to the skies.


title: Swan maiden

text: Similar characters to the Swan Maiden are attested in Greek and Balkanic traditions. These figures are known in South Slavic areas (namely, Slovenian, Slovak, Serbian and Croatian) as "víla", in Bulgarian as "samodiva" and in Macedonian as "samovila" - all of them described as beautiful, otherworldly maidens who dance in groups in the forests. In South Slavic folklore, these female beings can be forced to marry mortal men if they are able to secure a maiden's clothes, wings or accessories, which grants their magical powers. After the marriage, the fairy maiden either regains or discovers the stolen belonging, wears it and departs, leaving her human family behind.


title: Swan maiden

text: Romanian folklorist Marcu Beza noted that a story about a shepherd stealing a fairy maiden's clothes, marrying her and she later asking for them back "spread all over the Balkans", barring minor differences: the shepherd is described as a skilled flute player, and the garments are replaced by a kerchief, a veil, or a scarf.


title: Swan maiden

text: Commenting on a South Slavic tale collected by Friedrich Salomo Krauss, Walter Puchner noted the motif of the theft of the Vila (Neraida, in Greece)'s clothes occurred all over the Balkans.


title: Swan maiden

text: Scholarship draws attention to the fact that the Balkanic vilas are associated with the colour white, either in her clothes or in her physical appearance. Likewise, British classicist H. J. Rose compared the Vila, who wears white garments, to the Greek "neraidas": they are described as "ἁσπροφὀραις" ("bearing white clothes"), an inversion of the usual naked depiction of Greek nymphs of old.


title: Swan maiden

text: Scholars on the cultural history of the Balkan region have argued that these fairy- or nymph-like characters (Vilas, Samovilas, Samodivas, and Nereids) "in many respects" mirror similar figures of Graeco-Thracian origin, and possibly originate from the belief in female nature spirits.


title: Swan maiden

text: The counterpart to the Swan Maiden in the Bulgarian tale corpus is the Samodiva: ambivalent (both helpful and malevolent) ethereal maidens of great beauty, who appear in mountains and forests near water courses. Their robes or wings can be stolen by humans to entrap them in the mortal realm. As such, the international type ATU 400, "The Man on a Quest for the Lost Wife", is known in the Bulgarian Folktale Catalogue, organized by Liliana Daskalova, as "Самодива-Невяста" ("The Samodiva Bride").


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Bulgarian folk song, "The Samodiva married against her will", three girls, not related to each other, doff their magical garments to bathe, but are seen by a shepherd that takes their clothing. Each girl separately try to plead and convince the youth to return the clothing. He does so – but only to the first two; the third maiden he chose to wed after she revealed she was an only child. After the wedding, the village insists she dances for the amusement of everyone else, but the samodiva says she cannot dance without her garment. Once her husband delivers her the clothing, she flies away.


title: Swan maiden

text: Romanian author Marcu Beza reported a version of the tale "among the Vlach" of (then) Macedonia. In this story, a shepherd named Gógu plays his pipe, as a gathering of nymphs or fairies appear to dance to the song near a pool or a fountain. The ethereal maidens either take off their rings, counting them one by one, or their garments. In the version with the garments, the shepherd steals the maiden's garments and forces her to marry him. Some time after the wedding, during a celebration in the village, the maiden asks for her raiment back. She puts it on and vanishes back to the skies. He also stated that this version is parallel to a Romanian tale titled "Ion Buzdugan", collected by fellow folklorist I. C. Fundescu.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Macedonian tale, "The Shepherd and the Three Vilas" ("Ovčar i tri vile"), a poor shepher takes his sheep to graze in the woods and spies on three maidens bathing. For three days, he spies, and on the third day, he steals their garments to convince one of them to marry him. The maidens reveals they are vilas, magical spirits of great power, and it will do him no good to marry one. Still, he insists on marrying one of them, and chooses the youngest. The young vila's sisters regain their garments and fly away, leaving the other maiden to her fate. She marries the young shepherd. One year later, during a celebration on the village, the local women invite the vila to dance with them the kolo. Since vila can only dance with their complete outfits, the vila wife asks his husband for it back. After the dance, the vila wife begins to ascend to the skies, but begs her husband to search for her in the village of Kuškundaljevo. This tale was previously published by linguist August Leskien in German with the title "Der Hirt und die drei Samovilen" ("The Shepherd and the three Samovilas"), and sourced as from Bulgaria. In regards to the location "Kuškundaleo", Leskien supposed the name was of Turkish origin, but his colleague professor Stumme presumed that the name was a compound term in Slavic, meaning "The Bird Catcher Village".


title: Swan maiden

text: I. C. Fundescu collected a Romanian variant titled "Ion Buzduganu": youth Ion works as a goatherd and walks into the forest one day. There, he sees three maidens bathing in a pool of crystalline water. He steals the garments of the first two maidens, who begs him to give it back. He gets the clothes of the third and youngest and makes her his wife. During a celebration in the village, the maiden asks for her garments back, so the people can see her dance. When she puts it, she says to her husband Ion he must seek her out, then disappears. Ion, now, has to go on a quest to win her back.


title: Swan maiden

text: In "The Youth and the Vila", the youngest son, who is considered a fool by his two elder brothers, manages to pluck the golden hairs of a vila who has been eating the silver pears of his father's garden. In a second tale, "The Vila in the Golden Castle", a father asks his three sons to guard his flower garden at night, because swans have been eating the flowers (in reality, the vilas were). The youth plucks the hairs of one of the vilas, and she lives with him for a week, before she departs to the Golden Castle. The youth goes after her and, after reaching the Golden Castle, has to work for her old Vila mother before he marries her daughter. The tale ends with the youth and the vila escaping from the old Vila by throwing a magical object behind them (a comb that becomes a river).


title: Swan maiden

text: The "neraida" appears in modern Greek folktales as a kind of supernatural wife, and gives its name to the homonymous type in the Catalogue of Greek Folktales: ATU 400, "The Neraïda". She has been compared to the nymph, the female character of ancient Greek mythology. She is said to inhabit water sources (rivers and wells), similar to their ancient mythical counterpart, the "Nereids" (water nymphs). However, in modern speech, the term also encompasses fairy maidens from mountains and woodlands.


title: Swan maiden

text: Greek folklorist Nicolaos Politis amassed a great amount of modern folkloric material regarding the "neraida". In modern tales from Greek tellers, the neraidas are said to dance at noon or at midnight; to have beautiful golden hair; to dress in white or rose garments and to appear wearing a veil on the head, or holding a handkerchief. Due to their beauty, young men are drawn to the neraidas and steal their veils or kerchiefs to force their stay in the mortal realm. The women marry these men, but later regain their piece of clothing back and disappear forever. Greek scholar Anna Angeloupoulos terms this storyline "The Stolen Scarf", one of four narratives involving the neraida. Also, this sequence is "the most frequent and stable introductory episode" in Greek variants of tale type 400.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from Greece, a human goatherd named Demetros dances with ten fairies three nights, and in the third night, on a full moon, he dances with them and accidentally touches the handkerchief of Katena. Her companions abandon her to the mortal world and she becomes Demetros's wife, bearing him a daughter. For seven years, Demetros has hidden the handkerchief, until his wife Katena asks him for it. She takes the handkerchief and dances with it in a festival, taking the opportunity to return home and leave her mortal husband. Years later, their daughter follows her mother when she turns fifteen years old.


title: Swan maiden

text: Another introductory episode of the Greek variants is one Angeloupoulos dubbed "The sisters of Alexander the Great". This refers to a pseudo-historical or mythological account about Alexander the Great and a quest for a water of life that grants immortality. His sister (or sisters) drinks it instead of him, is thrown in the sea and becomes a "Gorgona", a half-human, half-fish creature with power over the storm who can sink boats and become birds. They approach ships to ask if Alexander still lives, and can only be appeased if answered positively. In one tale, a youth on a ship captures a gorgona three times (or three gorgonas) and beats her until she promises not to threaten any more ships. The youth then arrives on a deserted island and sees three birds that become human (or flying maidens) and steals their garments. Richard MacGillivray Dawkins suggested that the modern Gorgona was a merging of three mythological characters (the Sirens, the Gorgons and the Scylla), and reported alternate tales where Alexander's sisters are replaced for his mother or a female lover.


title: Swan maiden

text: It has been noted by Western writers that the character of the Peri (or Pari) of Persian and Islamic mythology, as a supernatural wife, shares similar traits with the swan maiden, in that the human male hides the Pari's wings and marries her. After some time, the Pari woman regains her wings and leaves her mortal husband. Scholar Ulrich Marzolph () indicates an Indo-Persian origin for the character, who was later integrated into the Arab fairy tale tradition. The peri appears in Asia Minor, Central Asia, and was brought by the Turkic expansion to the Balkans, specifically to Bulgaria and (then) Macedonia.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Armenian folktale "Kush-Pari" or "The Bird-Peri", a prince seeks the titular Kush-Pari, a "Houri-Pari" or "Fairy-Bird" ("a nymph of paradise in the shape of a bird", "a golden human-headed bird ... radiant as the sun"), as a present to the king he serves. After being captured, the Kush-Pari reveals to the king she transforms into a maiden after undonning her feather cloak and proposes she becomes his queen after his servant rescues her maid and brings back the fiery mares. Kush-Pari intends to use the fiery mares' milk for a special ritual: the king dies, but the prince survives, who she marries. At the end of the story, her new husband tells his wife that his father is blinded, but she reveals she was the cause for his blindness. Author Leon Surmelian noted that this "Houri-Pari" was a "fiery creature", a maiden of great beauty.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Persian story, "The Merchant's Son and the Peries", the peris of lore take off their garments and assume human form to bathe in the water, until a young man gets their clothes to force one of them to be his wife. The peris try to convince him not to, as they are "creatures of fire" and he, a human, is "made of water and clay".


title: Swan maiden

text: In the tale "Prince Yousef of the Fairies and King Ahmad" or its Russian translation by professor , "Юсуф — шах пери и Малек-Ахмад" ("Yusuf, the Shah of the Peris and Malek-Ahmad"), a prince named Malek-Ahmad marries his sisters to three animals (a lion, a wolf and an eagle), and leaves home. He takes shelter with a Div-family. The Div-matriarch gives Malek-Ahmad a set of keys and forbids him to open two doors. He does anyway: behind the first door, he releases a prisoner named Yusuf, the Shah of the Peris, who flies back to Mount Qaf; behind the second, he finds a garden where three doves become maidens by taking off their clothes. Malek-Ahmad hides the clothing of the youngest dove-maiden (identified as a "Peri" in the story), while her sisters depart. Malek-Ahmad marries the dove-maiden and she bears two sons. Some time later, they reach a village where he celebrates his wedding with the peri. However, his peri-wife notices that some "luti" intend to kill him and his sons and kidnap her, so she convinces him to return her belongings. The peri-wife puts on the garments, begs her husband to come find her on Mount Qaf and flies away with her children. After a long journey, he reaches Mount Qaf, where he finds his peri wife, his sons and her brother Yusuf, the Shah of the Peris.


title: Swan maiden

text: Russian Romantic writer Vasily Zhukovsky developed the theme of the bird maiden in his poem ("The Tale of Tsar Berendey"), published in 1833. The tale tells the epic story of mythical Tsar Berendey who is forced to promise his son, Ivan Tsarevich, to evil sorcerer Koschei. Years later, Ivan Tsarevich reaches the shores of a lake and sees thirty grey ducks diving in the lake. In fact, they are the daughters of Koschei, and one of them is Marya Tsarevna.


title: Swan maiden

text: Victorian novelist and translator William Morris wrote his poetic "ouvre" "The Earthly Paradise", in which there is a narration by a bard of the romance between a human and a swan maiden, comprising an episode of the poem "The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon".


title: Swan maiden

text: Pop culture appearances include modern novels of the fantasy genre such as "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and the "" in the "Anita Blake" series (such as ). They are also called swan mays or swanmays in fantasy fiction and "Dungeons and Dragons". In the Mercedes Lackey book "Fortune's Fool", one swan maiden (named Yulya) from a flock of six is kidnapped by a Jinn.


title: Swan maiden

text: Princess Pari Banu from the 1926 German silhouette animation film "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" appears very similar to a swan maiden, having a peacock skin that transforms her and her handmaids, though she is referred to as a fairy or genie, in the original 1001 Nights.


title: Swan maiden

text: The of "Inuyasha" features the celestial robe/hagoromo coveted by a beautiful woman who claims to be an immortal heavenly being named Kaguya, who is based on the Princess of the Moon in "The Tale of the Bamboo Cuter".


title: Swan maiden

text: The anime/manga "Ceres, Celestial Legend" ("Ayashi no Ceres") by Yu Watase is a similar story about an angel whose magic source is stolen as she bathes and she becomes wife to the man who stole it. The story follows one of her descendants, sixteen-year-old Aya Mikage, now carrying the angel's vengeful spirit who has been reborn inside her. The Progenitor of the Mikage family and Ceres' human husband and the one who had stolen and hidden her celestial robe (hagoromo), thus stranding her on Earth, has been reborn within Aki Mikage, Aya's twin brother.


title: Swan maiden

text: The "manhwa" "Faeries' Landing" translates the Korean folktale of "The Fairy and the Woodcutter" to a modern setting.


title: Swan maiden

text: The eleventh installment of hidden object game series Dark Parables ("The Swan Princess and the Dire Tree"), published by Eipix mixes the motif of the swan maidens and the medieval tale of The Knight of the Swan. The sixteenth installment, "Portrait of the Stained Princess", introduces the Knight of Swan himself, enchanted to never reveal his true name to his beloved.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the videogame LOOM by Lucasfilm, the main character belongs to a tribe of spellcrafters (the weavers) able to switch between human and swan form. The spell to become a swan is achieved later in the game.


title: Jack Higgins

text: Henry "Harry" Patterson (27 July 1929 – 9 April 2022), commonly known by his pen name Jack Higgins, was a British author. He was a best-selling author of popular thrillers and espionage novels. His novel "The Eagle Has Landed" (1975) sold more than 50 million copies and was adapted into a successful 1976 movie of the same title.


title: Jack Higgins

text: Some of his other notable books are "A Prayer for the Dying" (1973), "The Eagle Has Flown" (1991), "Thunder Point" (1993), "Angel of Death" (1995), "Flight of Eagles" (1998), and "Day of Reckoning" (2000). His 85 novels in total have sold more than 250 million copies and have been translated into 55 languages.


title: Jack Higgins

text: Jack Higgins was born Henry Patterson on 27 July 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne to an English father and a Northern Irish mother. When his father abandoned them soon afterward, his mother returned with him to her home town of Belfast, Northern Ireland, to live with her mother and her grandfather on the Shankill Road. Raised amid the religious and political violence of Belfast, Patterson learned to read at the age of three, when he was tasked with reading "The Christian Herald" to his bed-ridden grandfather. At night, he would crouch beneath a window and read by the light of street lamps.


title: Jack Higgins

text: When his mother remarried, the family relocated to Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, where Patterson won a scholarship to attend Roundhay Grammar School for Boys. He proved to be an indifferent student and left school with few formal qualifications. In 1947 he began two years of national service, at first with the East Yorkshire Regiment, and later as a non-commissioned officer of the Royal Horse Guards Regiment of the Household Cavalry doing security work on the East German border.


title: Jack Higgins

text: After leaving the army, he returned to education at Beckett Park teacher training college in Leeds and studied for a BSc sociology degree as a London School of Economics external student, taking his finals in Bradford in 1961. By day, he was working as a driver and labourer at night. He chose the university for its "history of nonconformism". He received his third-class degree after three years of study. After getting a teaching qualification, he started teaching at Allerton Grange Comprehensive School. He accepted a job lecturing in social psychology and criminology. He taught liberal studies at Leeds Polytechnic and education at James Graham College, which became part of Leeds Polytechnic in 1976.


title: Jack Higgins

text: In 1959, Higgins began writing novels. One of his aliases was James Graham. The growing success of his early work allowed him to take time off from his teaching, which he quit eventually to become a full-time novelist.


title: Jack Higgins

text: Patterson's early novels, using his own name (as "Harry Patterson") as well as the pseudonyms James Graham, Martin Fallon, and Hugh Marlowe, are thrillers that typically feature hardened, cynical heroes, ruthless villains, and dangerous locales. Patterson published thirty-five such novels (sometimes three or four a year) between 1959 and 1974, learning his craft. "East Of Desolation" (1968), "A Game For Heroes" (1970) and "The Savage Day" (1972) are notable among his early work for their vividly described settings (Greenland, the Channel Islands, and Belfast, respectively) and offbeat plots.


title: Jack Higgins

text: Patterson began using the pseudonym Jack Higgins during the late 1960s; his first minor bestsellers were published during the early 1970s, two contemporary thrillers "The Savage Day" and "A Prayer for the Dying", but it was the publication of his thirty-sixth book, "The Eagle Has Landed," in 1975, that made Higgins' reputation. Its plot concerns a German commando unit sent into England to kidnap Winston Churchill. The main character is arguably an Irish gunman and poet, Liam Devlin. Higgins followed "The Eagle Has Landed" with a series of thrillers, including several ("Touch The Devil", "Confessional", "The Eagle Has Flown") featuring the character Devlin.


title: Jack Higgins

text: The third phase of Patterson's career began with the publication of "Eye of the Storm" in 1992, a fictionalised retelling of an unsuccessful mortar attack on Prime Minister John Major, by a ruthless young Irish gunman-philosopher named Sean Dillon, hired by an Iraqi millionaire. Cast as the main character for the next series of novels (22 out of 43 published between 1992 and 2017), it is apparent that Dillon is in many ways an amalgamation of Patterson's previous heroes—Chavasse with his flair for languages, Nick Miller's familiarity with martial arts and jazz keyboard skills, Simon Vaughan's Irish roots, facility with firearms and the cynicism that comes with assuming the responsibility of administering a justice unavailable through a civilised legal system.


title: Jack Higgins

text: Higgins met Amy Hewitt while both were studying at the London School of Economics. They were married in 1958, soon after he received a £75 advance for his first novel—"the biggest wedding present we could have had." They had four children: Sarah (born 1960), Ruth (born 1962), Sean (born 1965), and Hannah (born 1974). Their daughter Sarah Patterson authored the novel "The Distant Summer" (1976). The marriage ended in 1984. In 1985, he married his second wife, Denise Palmer.


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: Meltdown is one of the two original transient execution CPU vulnerabilities (the other being Spectre). Meltdown affects Intel x86 microprocessors, IBM POWER processors, and some ARM-based microprocessors. It allows a rogue process to read all memory, even when it is not authorized to do so.


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: Meltdown affects a wide range of systems. At the time of disclosure (2018), this included all devices running any but the most recent and patched versions of iOS, Linux, macOS, or Windows. Accordingly, many servers and cloud services were impacted, as well as a potential majority of smart devices and embedded devices using ARM-based processors (mobile devices, smart TVs, printers and others), including a wide range of networking equipment.


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: A purely software workaround to Meltdown has been assessed as slowing computers between 5 and 30 percent in certain specialized workloads, although companies responsible for software correction of the exploit reported minimal impact from general benchmark testing.


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: Meltdown was issued a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures ID of , also known as "Rogue Data Cache Load" (RDCL), in January 2018. It was disclosed in conjunction with another exploit, Spectre, with which it shares some characteristics. The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities are considered "catastrophic" by security analysts. The vulnerabilities are so severe that security researchers initially believed the reports to be false.


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: Several procedures to help protect home computers and related devices from the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities have been published. Meltdown patches may produce performance loss. Spectre patches have been reported to significantly reduce performance, especially on older computers; on the newer eighth-generation Core platforms, benchmark performance drops of 2–14 percent have been measured. On 18 January 2018, unwanted reboots, even for newer Intel chips, due to Meltdown and Spectre patches, were reported. Nonetheless, according to Dell: "No 'real-world' exploits of these vulnerabilities [i.e., Meltdown and Spectre] have been reported to date [26 January 2018], though researchers have produced proof-of-concepts." Further, recommended preventions include: "promptly adopting software updates, avoiding unrecognized hyperlinks and websites, not downloading files or applications from unknown sources ... following secure password protocols ... [using] security software to help protect against malware (advanced threat prevention software or anti-virus)."


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: On 15 March 2018, Intel reported that it will redesign its CPUs to help protect against the Meltdown and related Spectre vulnerabilities (especially, Meltdown and Spectre-V2, but not Spectre-V1), and expects to release the newly redesigned processors later in 2018. On 8 October 2018, Intel is reported to have added hardware and firmware mitigations regarding Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities to its latest processors.


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: Meltdown exploits a race condition, inherent in the design of many modern CPUs. This occurs between memory access and privilege checking during instruction processing. Additionally, combined with a cache side-channel attack, this vulnerability allows a process to bypass the normal privilege checks that isolate the exploit process from accessing data belonging to the operating system and other running processes. The vulnerability allows an unauthorized process to read data from any address that is mapped to the current process's memory space. Since instruction pipelining is in the affected processors, the data from an unauthorized address will almost always be temporarily loaded into the CPU's cache during out-of-order execution—from which the data can be recovered. This can occur even if the original read instruction fails due to privilege checking, or if it never produces a readable result.


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: Since many operating systems map physical memory, kernel processes, and other running user space processes into the address space of every process, Meltdown effectively makes it possible for a rogue process to read any physical, kernel or other processes' mapped memory—regardless of whether it should be able to do so. Defenses against Meltdown would require avoiding the use of memory mapping in a manner vulnerable to such exploits (i.e. a software-based solution) or avoidance of the underlying race condition (i.e. a modification to the CPUs' microcode or execution path).


title: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

text: The vulnerability is viable on any operating system in which privileged data is mapped into virtual memory for unprivileged processes—which includes many present-day operating systems. Meltdown could potentially impact a wider range of computers than presently identified, as there is little to no variation in the microprocessor families used by these computers.