title: Matt Braly

text: After directing on "Big City Greens", Braly developed a show titled "Amphibia", for Disney. The show centers on the adventures of a Thai-American girl named Anne Boonchuy in the titular frog-populated world. The show is based on Braly's childhood trips to Bangkok, Thailand, where he felt like an outsider but ultimately ended up not wanting to leave. He also drew inspiration from video games such as "The Legend of Zelda" and "Chrono Trigger". Braly, who is Thai-American himself, made the choice of making the lead character Thai-American due to a wish to creating a Thai character, as there were few Thai lead characters in television series when he was a kid. The series aired for three seasons of 58 episodes from June 17, 2019, to May 14, 2022. He considers the series finale "The Hardest Thing" to be his favorite episode.


title: Matt Braly

text: Braly is of Thai descent. His mother, On Braly, provided the voice of Mrs. Boonchuy on "Amphibia". He is currently married to software engineer, Kathrine Bedrosian.


title: Matt Braly

text: As a kid, Braly used to watch films such as "Mortal Kombat" (1995) due to them being filmed in Thailand, as there was no Thai representation on TV. He also used to draw characters from franchises like "Mortal Kombat" and "Sonic the Hedgehog". Braly is a fan of the "Sonic the Hedgehog" franchise, and was inspired by the opening sequence in the first episode of the anime "Sonic X" for the climax of the "Amphibia" episode "True Colors". Similarly, he was inspired by several horror films for the episode "The Shut-In" due to being a horror fan. He is also a fan of the Disney series "Gargoyles" and the film "The Princess and the Frog"; cast members from both productions have appeared through "Amphibia". Both Braly and his wife are fans of "RuPaul's Drag Race"; RuPaul himself had a recurring role in season 3 of "Amphibia".


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: The Chinese mythology-influenced books were adapted into an anime television series by Pierrot in 2002. It aired on Japan's NHK from April 2002 to August 2003, and totaled 45 episodes.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: The novels were licensed in the United States by Tokyopop and the first four volumes were released between March 2007 and November 2010 as part of their "Pop Fiction" line. Subsequently, the English license reverted to Kodansha. The entire anime series has been released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States by Media Blasters, which are now out of print. The license was transferred to Discotek Media, who released the complete series on Blu-ray in 2019.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: Yoko Nakajima, an unhappy high school student, is one day suddenly faced with a strange man who swears allegiance to her. After a battle with demon-like beasts, he then takes her to another world along with two of her classmates. There, her appearance has changed and she can understand the language even though her classmates cannot. But their status as "Kaikyaku" (people who come from Earth) makes them hunted fugitives, so they wander the land of the 12 countries, simply trying to survive and to figure out the reason why they were brought to this world.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: "The Twelve Kingdoms" tells several stories from the world of the Twelve Kingdoms, located on a group of several islands in another dimension accessible from our world through portals created from naturally-occurring magic (though the other way around is normally impossible). The portals occur in the ocean waters of Japan and China, and every so often will end up dragging someone from our world from those waters to the kingdoms' islands, and/or on rare occasion, pulling an unborn child from the kingdoms into our world, causing them to be born there. On the islands, magic works and societies similar to those of classical Japan and China exist. While the inhabitants of the kingdoms are aware of the existence of our world as the lands of Hourai (Japan) and Kunlun (China), the reverse is not true for any inhabitants of our world. The inhabitants of the kingdoms speak a different language than the languages of our world, both of which can be learned by either side. Only by through extraordinary circumstances can the two worlds affect each other to a respective certain extent.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: In this world, there are a total of thirteen lands. At the center of the world lies the Koukai (the Yellow Sea) and Five Mountains where the Gods communicate their will to the Twelve Kingdoms of the world. Each of the Twelve Kingdoms possess their own ruler and its own Kirin, a divine creature which embodies the will of heaven and is entrusted to choose a kingdom's ruler by Tentei: Emperor of Heaven, and serve as the ruler's aide. The ruler will have immortal life as long as they keep the kingdom healthy and their heads are not severed from their body. If the ruler's Kirin dies or is killed, the ruler will die within a year.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: The Koukai, known as the Yellow Sea, is surrounded by four inland seas: the Black Sea in the north, the Blue Sea to the east, the Red Sea in the south, and the White Sea to the west. Eight of the Twelve Kingdoms (Kei, En, Ryu, Kyou, Han, Sai, Sou, and Kou) border at least one of these four seas, extending from the center like the petals of a flower. The remaining four kingdoms (Tai, Hou, Ren, and Shun) are not part of the central mainland and are isolated by the (Void Sea) which surrounds the lands of the Twelve Kingdoms.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: There are nine novels in the "Twelve Kingdoms" series, including two short story collections. The novels are illustrated by Akihiro Yamada. Some of the novels have been published in two or more volume editions such that the total number of volumes is sixteen (as originally released in Japan).


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: Before she started work on "Twelve Kingdoms", Fuyumi Ono wrote (Kodansha: September 1991, ; Shinchosha reprint: July 2012, ), a horror novel about a boy from another world. She later worked certain events from this novel into the "Twelve Kingdoms" series. Short stories set in the various kingdoms include , , , and ; these stories have been collected into one volume, "Kasho no Yume". One short story, , published in 1997, accompanied the drama CD for "Higashi no Wadatsumi, Nishi no Sōkai" and remains uncollected elsewhere. In February 2008, the new "Twelve Kingdoms" short story, was published in Shinchosha's "Yomyom" magazine, followed by in September 2009. "Hisho no Tori" and "Rakushou no Goku" were later collected into a volume of short stories titled "Hisho no Tori", along with two new previously unpublished stories in 2013.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: On May 11, 2006, U.S. publisher Tokyopop said in an interview with comic book news website Newsarama that it would be publishing the novels under its "Pop Fiction" imprint. The first book was released in March 2007. The first four books have been released.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: The anime adaptation by studio Pierrot aired from April 9, 2002, to August 30, 2003, in Japan on NHK for forty-five episodes. The opening theme is "Juunigenmukyoku" by Kunihiko Ryo while the ending theme is "Getsumei-Fuuei" by Mika Arisaka. The anime series has been released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States by Media Blasters, which are now out of print. The license was transferred to Discotek Media, who released the complete series on Blu-ray in 2019.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: Kodansha printed a fifteen-volume "animanga" series in 2002-2004 by combining images from the anime series with printed dialogue and sound effects. It has been released only in Japanese.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: Konami has released in Japan two games based on "Twelve Kingdoms", both produced by Takashi Shimomichi. They are "Juuni Kokuki: Guren no Shirube Koujin no Michi" and "Juuni Kokuki: Kakukakutaru Oudou Kouryoku no Uka". Both games contain footage from the anime and many stills of the characters are used during conversation and during battle. The games are sprite-based, with small sprites used on-screen and larger, highly animated sprites used during battle.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: Juuni Kokuki: Guren no Shirube Koujin no Michi was released for PlayStation 2 on August 28, 2003. It follows Yoko's journey to becoming Empress of Kei. While classified as an RPG, it is often described as an adventure game. The game was re-released in Konami's The Best lineup on June 9, 2004. Yoko is capable of summoning Keiki's Shirei into battle as well as having additional party members.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: Juuni Kokuki: Kakukakutaru Oudou Kouryoku no Uka was released for PlayStation 2 on April 4, 2004, and is a sequel to the first game, continuing with Yoko's problems after she becomes the monarch of Kei. Game data from the first game can be loaded into the second. This game contains more RPG elements than the first with party-/menu-based battles becoming standard. Many of the event scenes are pulled from the novels but there are also scenes made just for the game.


title: The Twelve Kingdoms

text: Kunihiko Ryo's instrumental opening theme “Jūni Genmukyoku” has been praised for its "sweeping score" that suits "the high fantasy series very well." The end of the song has also been praised for having an "exciting" sound similar to later "swashbuckling main themes" for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" (2003-2011) and "" (2006) video game soundtrack.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The history of Sikkim, begins with indigenous Lepchas contact with early Tibetan settlers. Historically, Sikkim was a sovereign Monarchical State in the eastern Himalayas. Later a protectorate of India followed by merger with India and official recognition as a state of India. Lepchas were the main inhabitants as well as the Ruler of the land upto 1641. Lepchas are generally considered to be the first people, indigenous to Sikkim also includes Darjeeling.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The establishment of Buddhist kingdom under the Chogyal in the 17th century followed by British rule in Sikkim and thereafter inclusion in India as an official state of the nation post independence.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Sikkim emerged as a polity in its own right against a backdrop of incursions from Tibet and Bhutan, during which the kingdom enjoyed varying degrees of independence. In the early 18th century, the British Empire sought to establish trade routes with Tibet, leading Sikkim to fall under British suzerainty until independence in 1947. Initially, Sikkim remained an independent country, until it merged with India in 1975 after a decisive referendum. Many provisions of the Indian constitution had to be altered to accommodate the international treaties and between Sikkim and India.


title: History of Sikkim

text: When the Kirat King Yalambar captured outer Nepal in 1,500 B.C his kingdom extended from river Trisuli in the west to river Teesta in the east.


title: History of Sikkim

text: According to Hindu mythology, Lord Shiva is said to have appeared in the form of hunter "Kirateshwar" or "Lord of the Kiratas" to Arjuna in the very spot where the ancient Kirateshwar temple lies in Legship, West Sikkim. By the 6th century the Lepchas occupied the Lapchan area of Nepal (present Ilam region), present Sikkim, "Har Chu Valley" and "Ammo Chu Valley" (present South Western Bhutan) and most of Eastern part of Greater Sikkim up to the Chumbi Valley. Meanwhile, the Limbus inhabited the Western part of Greater Sikkim (present Limbuwan region). A part of Limbuwan is still retained in present Sikkim in the West district, South district and a part of North district.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The Lepchas spoke the Himalayish language Lepcha, and were believers of "Boongthism" and "Munism" or Animism by faith. The Limbus spoke the Limbu dialect and were believers of Yumaism or Yuma Sammang, a form of Kirat Mundhum.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In the 7th century, Thekung Adek consolidated the Lepcha tribes and declared himself a "Panu", a Tribal Religious and Administrative chief or king. Similarly, the Limbu tribes were ruled by 10 elected chiefs or "Hangs" from each of their clans to form a social and administrative body called "Thibong Yakthum Tumyanghang" (tribal republic council or Ten Limbus Council). Around 870 A.D. Na Hang, the chief of Daramdin, West Sikkim was incited by the Chilikchom people to fight against the Kirati Limbu king of Limbuwan, Mabo Hang. Na Hang was defeated and the Chilikchom were banished from Limbuwan.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Sikkim also finds mention in many Hindu texts because the Buddhist saint Guru Rinpoche or Padmasambhava is said to have passed through the land in the 9th century . According to legend, the Guru blessed the land, introduced Buddhism to Sikkim and also foretold the era of the monarchy in the state, which would arrive centuries later. There are numerous stories regarding the migration of Tibetans into Sikkim and the establishment of the Sikkimese monarchy. The most popular states that in the 13th century, Guru Tashi, a prince from the Minyak House in Kham in Eastern Tibet, had a divine revelation one night instructing him to travel south to seek his fortunes. Guru Tashi settled down in the Chumbi Valley.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The population and linguistic survey were not held during this period but it's certain that the region was inhabited by the Lepchas, the Limbus, the Magars and some Bhutias in the later periods.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In the early 17th century Tibetan migrants (called "Bhutias" locally) were forced to take refuge in Sikkim due to the conflict between followers of the "Yellow hat" and the "Red hats" in Tibet. The Bhutias tried to convert the Sikkimese "worshippers of nature" to Buddhism and succeeded to an extent.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The Tibetan Lamas sought to establish Sikkim as a Buddhist Kingdom thereby electing a Lhopa King of Tibetan origin.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In 1642, the fifth generation descendant of Guru Tashi, Phuntsog Namgyal was consecrated as the first Denjong Gyalpo or the Chogyal (king) of Sikkim by Lhatsun Chhenpo, Nga-dag Lama and Kathhog Lama, three great Lamas who came from the north, west and south to Yuksom Norbugang in West Sikkim.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The event, "Naljor Chezhi", was as predicted by Guru Rinpoche some eight hundred years before. The Dalai Lama sent the new Chogyal a silk scarf, the mitre of Guru Rinpoche and a sand image of him as a coronation present. However the Limbu and the Magar chiefs refused to accept the rule of the Chogyal who had to bring in Tibetan soldiers to subdue them.


title: History of Sikkim

text: This historical gathering of the three virtuous lamas is called Yuksom, which in Lepcha means 'The Place where the Three monks met' as in Lepcha a lama is called a "Yukmun" and the word for three is "Som". The Chogyal, along with the three lamas proselytised the Lepcha tribes into Buddhism and annexed the Chumbi Valley, the present-day Darjeeling district and parts of today's eastern Nepal.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Shortly after his coronation the new Chogyal appointed 12 "kalons" or ministers from the Bhutia community and split his kingdom into 12 "Dzongs" or administrative units, which each contained a fort. Individual Dzongs were headed by a "Dzonga" drawn from amongst the Lepchas. The lands of Sikkim were leased as gifts to "kazis" and "thikadars" who in turn leased sub-plots to peasants at high rents. "Mandals" (headmen) and "karbaris" (assistants to the mandals) were employed by the kazis and thikadars as rent collectors and dispute mediators. Out of Sikkims 104 revenue estates, 61 were leased to kazis and thikadars for fixed sums, five were given to monasteries and fifteen retained by the Chogyal for his private use.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Thus Phuntsog Namgyal became the first King of the Kingdom of Sikkim and all the Kirat chiefs agreed to regard him as the supreme ruler. However the Magars did not get along with the Bhutias and left Sikkim after they were defeated in a battle. The King called all the Kirat chiefs and proclaimed that Bhutias or Lhopsas, Tsongs or the Limbus and the Mempas or the Lepchas were all part of one family known as the "Lho-Mehn-Tsong" with the King as the father, the Lepchas as the mother and the Limbus as the sons and they were forbidden to fight amongst themselves. The signing of this tripartite treaty of "Lho-Mehn-Tsong Tsum" was overseen by eight Bhutia tribal leaders, twelve Limbu tribal leaders and four Lepcha tribal leaders in present West Sikkim.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Phuntsog Namgyal was succeeded by his son, Tensung Namgyal in 1670. The reign of this Chogyal was peaceful and saw the capital move from Yuksom to Rabdentse. Chakdor Namgyal, the king's second wife's son, took over the throne from him in 1700. This outraged his elder half-sister Pendiongmu, who ousted him with the help of the Bhutanese. From 1700 to 1706, when Chakdor Namgyal was a minor, most parts of it were occupied by Deb Naku Zidar, the king of Bhutan. Chakdor Namgyal went into exile in Tibet. The Tibetan people subsequently expelled the Bhutanese army, and called Chakdor Namgyal back to Sikkim. Chakdor's son Gyurmed Namgyal succeeded him in 1717. Gyurmed's reign saw many skirmishes between the Nepalese and Sikkimese. Phuntsog Namgyal II, the illegitimate child of Gyurmed, succeeded his father in 1733. His reign was tumultuous in the face of attacks by the Bhutanese and the Nepalese who managed to capture the capital Rabdentse.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Tenzing Namgyal, Chogyal from 1780 to 1793, was a weak ruler, and his sovereignty saw most of Sikkim being appropriated by Nepal. In 1788, the Nepali Gorkha Army invaded Sikkim, and took Limbuana and the former capital Rabdentse by storm. The king of Sikkim went into exile in Tibet for a second time. In 1788, the 8th Dalai Lama stationed him in Chumbi Valley in Rènà zong (also "Rèrì," today's Yadong County).


title: History of Sikkim

text: His son Tshudpud Namgyal, returned to Sikkim in 1793 to reclaim the throne with the help of China. Finding Rabdentse too close to the Nepalese border, he shifted the capital to Tumlong.


title: History of Sikkim

text: With the arrival of the British in neighbouring India, Sikkim allied itself with them as they had a common enemy – the Gorkha Kingdom of Nepal. The infuriated Nepalese attacked Sikkim with vengeance, overrunning most of the region including the Terai. This prompted the British East India Company to attack Nepal resulting in the Anglo-Nepalese War, which began in 1814. Treaties signed between British and Nepal – the Sugauli Treaty and Sikkim and British India – Treaty of Titalia, returned the territory annexed by the Nepalese to Sikkim in 1817.


title: History of Sikkim

text: However, ties between Sikkim and India grew sour with the taxation of the area of Morang by the British. An internal disturbance, which began in 1825, gave the British the opportunity to secure the 1835 cession of Darjeeling to British Sikkim in view of its perceived advantages as a sanitorium. Unhappy with this development, Sikkim's Dewan often frustrated the cessation by denying aid to the British in capturing escaped criminals and offering amnesty for escaped slaves. As compensation for the loss, the British Government paid the Sikkim Raja Rs. 3,000 from 1841 onwards, a sum that was later increased to Rs. 12,000.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In 1849, British doctor Archibald Campbell, then superintendent of Darjeeling, and botanist Joseph Hooker, ventured into the mountains of Sikkim with the permission of the British and the Chogyal of Sikkim but strayed across the Cho La into Tibet. They were detained by the Sikkim government at the instigation of the pro-Tibetan "mad Dewan" T. Namguey, which led to a punitive British expedition against the Himalayan kingdom. Although subsequent bloodshed was avoided, the British annexed the whole of Darjeeling district and the Terai in 1861. In the same year, signature of the Treaty of Tumlong effectively made Sikkim a "de facto" protectorate of the British.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Alongside "British Sikkim", "Independent Sikkim" continued to exist as a rump state centred around the capital at Gangtok ruling over of territory. The former Chogyal was forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Sidkeong Namgyal in 1863.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The Chogyals endeavoured to modernize Sikkim in the succeeding decades, along with their army. A state visit to Darjeeling by Sidekong's half brother, Chogyal Thutob Namgyal in 1873 failed to yield such results, and he returned to Tumlong disappointed. In 1886, the British, interested in trade with Tibet, launched a brief expedition into Sikkim. The Tibetans occupied several of Sikkim's northern border forts, and the Chogyal and his wife were held prisoner by the British when they came to negotiate at Calcutta. In 1888, the Tibetans were defeated and northern Sikkim came under the rule of British India. The British established new landholdings in Sikkim but released the Chogyal only to have him captured again in 1891. These land estates were given to Kazis, Thikadars and Lamas. In 1894, the capital was shifted to Gangtok.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In 1895, the Chogyal was released, but the British governors in India reneged on an agreement – the Ten Clauses Agreement – which returned sovereignty to Sikkim. The Political Officer in Sikkim, John Claude White, refused to return any sovereignty, and only let the Chogyal retain the judiciary of Sikkim.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In 1905, the Prince of Wales – the future King George V – arrived in Calcutta on a state visit during which he met the Chogyal. The two made an excellent acquaintance and the Crown Prince of Sikkim, Sidkeong Tulku was sent to study at Oxford University. When Sidkeong came to power, he arranged widened sovereignty for Sikkim from King George's government and endorsed sweeping reforms in his short rule as Chogyal, which ended in 1914. In 1918, Sikkim's independence in all domestic affairs was restored, and in the next decade the kingdom embarked on a policy to end social ills, outlawing gambling, child labour, and indentured service.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Sikkim had retained guarantees of independence from Britain when it became independent, and such guarantees were transferred to the Indian government when it gained independence in 1947. A popular vote for Sikkim to join the Indian Union failed and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to a special protectorate status for Sikkim. Sikkim was to be a tributary of India, in which India controlled its external defence, diplomacy and communication. A state council was established in 1953 to allow for constitutional government for the Chogyal, which was sustained until 1973.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In 1949, Sikkim State Congress led a state wide agitation for democracy leading to formation of Sikkim’s first interim government led by Chief Minister Tashi Tshering and his popular ministry. However the government was dismissed within 29 days.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In the 1950s, Sikkim was used by the American CIA as a base for secret operations supporting Tibetan guerillas opposed to Chinese control of Tibet. The dramatic 1959 escape of the Dalai Lama demonstrated Sikkim's value to both India and China. Nehru said the Chumbi Valley,


title: History of Sikkim

text: controlled by China, was a "dagger pointed at the heart of India." During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Indian troops arrived to block a possible Chinese invasion; there were some skirmishes between Indian and Chinese forces. After the war, India closed the ancient pass; it reopened in 2006. The 50s and 60s marked the emergence of political parties in Sikkim including Sikkim State Congress, Sikkim National Party, Sikkim Swatantra Dal, Sikkim Janata Party and Sikkim National Congress.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The old ruler Tashi Namgyal died in 1963 from cancer. The last hereditary ruler, the Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal, ascended to the throne in 1965. Trouble began to brew for the crown even before the Chogyal assumed the throne, as Nehru, who had carefully preserved Sikkim's status as an independent protectorate, died in 1964. His daughter Indira Gandhi, who became Prime Minister in 1966, had little patience for maintaining an independent Sikkim or its monarchy. The chogyal, who responded to the increased pressure by drinking, was viewed by India as politically dangerous, especially after his wife, the American socialite Hope Cooke, advocated a return of certain former Sikkimese properties.


title: History of Sikkim

text: India took control of Sikkim in April 1973 as its associate state as the people overthrew the monarchy. On April 9, 1975, the Sikkim Parliament announced the king was deposed and declared Sikkim had become part of India through a referendum. On May 16, the Indian parliament announced that Sikkim officially became a state of India. Sikkim is a state in India, which currently has 6 districts. Gangtok is the largest district in terms of population, but Mangan is the largest district in terms of area.


title: History of Sikkim

text: The 1979 assembly election saw Nar Bahadur Bhandari elected Chief Minister of Sikkim. Bhandhari held on to win again in 1984 and 1989. In 1994, Assembly politician Pawan Kumar Chamling became the Chief Minister of Sikkim. In 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 Chamling consolidated his position to sweep the polls. Sikkim voted for its one delegate to the All India Lok Sabha on 3 January 1980. The voters strongly favored a local listing party, strongly rejecting the candidates from the Janata and Congress.


title: History of Sikkim

text: Sino-Indian relations were somewhat bruised in 2000 by an event in Sikkim which challenged China's longstanding claim of Sikkim as an independent country. The unusual event was the escape of Ogyen Trinley Dorje from Tibet to Dharamsala, India. Ogyen Trinley Dorje is one of the two rival claimants who seek recognition as the 17th Karmapa, the head of the Black Hat branch of Tibetan Buddhism (see Karmapa controversy). The two claimants did battle in the Indian court system for control of the considerable funds collected by the 16th Karmapa for the restoration and maintenance of Rumtek Monastery, located in Gangtok, Sikkim. The Chinese, who recognise Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the true Karmapa, was unhappy about the court outcome which awarded the monastery funds to the other rival. However, the Chinese government was in a quandary as to what to do about it, as any protest to India would mean an explicit endorsement that the high court of India holds jurisdiction over Sikkim.


title: History of Sikkim

text: In 2003, with the thawing of relations between the two nations, Indian sovereignty over Sikkim was finally recognised by China. The two governments also proposed to open the Nathula and Jelepla Passes in 2005.


title: History of Sikkim

text: On 18 September 2011, a magnitude 6.9M earthquake struck Sikkim, killing at least 116 people in the state and in Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Tibet. More than 60 people died in Sikkim alone, and the city of Gangtok suffered significant damage.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: In agriculture, a harrow is a farm implement used for surface tillage. It is used after ploughing for breaking up and smoothing out the surface of the soil. The purpose of harrowing is to break up clods and to provide a soil structure, called tilth, that is suitable for planting seeds. Coarser harrowing may also be used to remove weeds and to cover seed after sowing.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: Harrows differ from ploughs, which cut the upper 12 to 25 centimetre (5 to 10 in) layer of soil, and leave furrows, parallel trenches. Harrows differ from cultivators in that they disturb the whole surface of the soil, while a cultivator instead disturbs only narrow tracks between the crop rows to kill weeds.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: There are four general types of harrows: disc harrows, tine harrows (including spring-tooth harrows, drag harrows, and spike harrows), chain harrows, and chain-disk harrows. Harrows were originally drawn by draft animals, such as horses, mules, or oxen, or in some times and places by manual labourers. In modern practice they are almost always tractor-mounted implements, either trailed after the tractor by a drawbar or mounted on the three-point hitch.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: A modern development of the traditional harrow is the rotary power harrow, often just called a power harrow.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: In modern mechanized farming, generally a farmer will use two harrows, one after the other. The disk harrow is used first to slice up the large clods left by the mould-board plough, followed by the spring-tooth harrow. To save time and fuel they may be pulled by one tractor; the disk hitched to the tractor, and the spring-tooth hitched to, and directly behind, the disk. The result is a smooth field with powdery dirt at the surface.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: In cooler climates the most common types are the "disc harrow", the "chain harrow", the "tine harrow" or "spike harrow" and the "spring tine harrow". Chain harrows are often used for lighter work such as levelling the tilth or covering seed, while disc harrows are typically used for heavy work, such as following ploughing to break up the sod. In addition, there are various types of "power harrow", in which the cultivators are power-driven from the tractor rather than depending on its forward motion.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: Tine harrows are used to refine seed-bed condition before planting, to remove small weeds in growing crops and to loosen the inter-row soils to allow for water to soak into the subsoil. The fourth is a chain disk harrow. Disk attached to chains are pulled at an angle over the ground. These harrows move rapidly across the surface. The chain and disk rotate to stay clean while breaking up the top surface to about deep. A smooth seedbed is prepared for planting with one pass.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: Chain harrowing can be used on pasture land to spread out dung, and to break up dead material ("thatch") in the sward, and similarly in sports-ground maintenance a light chain harrowing is often used to level off the ground after heavy use, to remove and smooth out boot marks and indentations. Used on tilled land in combination with the other two types, chain harrowing rolls remaining larger soil clumps to the surface where weather breaks them down and prevents interference with seed germination.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: All four harrow types can be used in one pass to prepare soil for seeding. It is also common to use any combination of two harrows for a variety of tilling processes. Where harrowing provides a very fine tilth, or the soil is very light so that it might easily be wind-blown, a roller is often added as the last of the set.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: Harrows may be of several types and weights, depending on their purpose. They almost always consist of a rigid frame that holds discs, teeth, linked chains, or other means of moving soil—but tine and chain harrows are often only supported by a rigid towing-bar at the front of the set.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: In the southern hemisphere, so-called "giant discs" are a specialised kind of disc harrows that can stand in for a plough in rough country where a mouldboard plough cannot handle tree-stumps and rocks, and a disc-plough is too slow (because of its limited number of discs). Giant scalloped-edged discs operate in a set, or frame, that is often weighted with concrete or steel blocks to improve penetration of the cutting edges. This sort of cultivation is usually followed by broadcast fertilisation and seeding, rather than drilled or row seeding.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: A rotary power harrow, or simply power harrow, has multiple sets of vertical tines. Each set of tines is rotated on a vertical axis and tills the soil horizontally. The result is that, unlike a rotary tiller, soil layers are not turned over or inverted, which is useful in preventing dormant weed seeds from being brought to the surface, and there is no horizontal slicing of the subsurface soil that can lead to hardpan formation.


title: Harrow (tool)

text: In Europe, harrows were used in antiquity and the Middle Ages. The oldest known illustration of a harrow is in Scene 10 of the eleventh-century Bayeux Tapestry. An Arabic reference to harrows is to be found in Abu Bakr Ibn Wahshiyya's "Nabatean Agriculture" (Kitab al-Filaha al-Nabatiyya), of the 10th century, but claiming knowledge from Babylonian sources.


title: Swan maiden

text: The swan maiden is a mythical creature who shapeshifts from human form to swan form. The key to the transformation is usually a swan skin, or a garment with swan feathers attached. In folktales of this type, the male character spies the maiden, typically by some body of water (usually bathing), then snatches away the feather garment (or some other article of clothing), which prevents her from flying away (or swimming away, or renders her helpless in some other manner), forcing her to become his wife.


title: Swan maiden

text: There are parallels around the world, notably the "Völundarkviða" and "Grimms' Fairy Tales" KHM 193 "The Drummer". There are also many parallels involving creatures other than swans.


title: Swan maiden

text: The folktales usually adhere to the following basic plot. A young, unmarried man steals a magic robe made of swan feathers from a swan maiden who comes to bathe in a body of water, so that she will not fly away, and marries her. Usually she bears his children. When the children are older they sing a song about where their father has hidden their mother's robe, or one asks why the mother always weeps, and finds the cloak for her, or they otherwise betray the secret. The swan maiden immediately gets her robe and disappears to where she came from. Although the children may grieve her, she does not take them with her.


title: Swan maiden

text: If the husband is able to find her again, it is an arduous quest, and often the impossibility is clear enough so that he does not even try.


title: Swan maiden

text: In many versions, although the man is unmarried (or, very rarely, a widower), he is aided by his mother, who hides the maiden's magical garment (or feather cloak). At some point later in the story, the mother is convinced or forced to give back the hidden clothing and, as soon as the swan maiden puts it, she glides towards the skies – which prompts the quest.


title: Swan maiden

text: Romanian folklorist Marcu Beza drew attention to two other introductory episodes: (1) seven white birds steal the golden apples from a tree in the king's garden (an episode similar to German "The Golden Bird"), or, alternatively, they come and trample the fields; (2) the hero receives a key and, against his master's wishes, opens a forbidden chamber, where the bird maidens are bathing.


title: Swan maiden

text: Researcher Barbara Fass Leavy noted a variation of the first opening episode - described above -, which occurs in Scandinavian tales: a man's third or only son stands guard on his father's fields at night to discover what has been trampling his father's fields, and sees three maidens dancing in a meadow.


title: Swan maiden

text: As for the second episode, it may be known as "The Forbidden Chamber", in folkloristic works. Edwin Sidney Hartland indicated the occurrence of the second opening episode in tales from Arabic folklore.


title: Swan maiden

text: In Germanic mythology, the character of the swan maiden is associated with "multiple Valkyries", a trait already observed by Jacob Grimm in his book "Deutsche Mythologie" ("Teutonic Mythology"). Like the international legend, their magic swan-shirt allows their avian transformation.


title: Swan maiden

text: In Germanic heroic legend, the stories of Wayland the Smith describe him as falling in love with Swanhilde, a Swan Maiden, who is the daughter of a marriage between a mortal woman and a fairy king, who forbids his wife to ask about his origins; on her asking him he vanishes. Swanhilde and her sisters are however able to fly as swans. But wounded by a spear, Swanhilde falls to earth and is rescued by the master-craftsman Wieland, and marries him, putting aside her wings and her magic ring of power. Wieland's enemies, the Neidings, under Princess Bathilde, steal the ring, kidnap Swanhilde and destroy Wieland's home. When Wieland searches for Swanhilde, they entrap and cripple him. However he fashions wings for himself and escapes with Swanhilde as the house of the Neidings is destroyed.


title: Swan maiden

text: Another tale concerns valkyrie Brynhild. In the "Völsunga saga", King Agnar withholds Brynhild's magical swan shirt, thus forcing her into his service as his enforcer.


title: Swan maiden

text: A third tale with a valkyrie is the story of Kára and Helgi Haddingjaskati, attested in the "Kara-lied". A similarly named character with a swanshift appears in "Hrómundar saga Gripssonar", where she helps her lover Helgi.


title: Swan maiden

text: The second type of tale involves the swan maiden helping the hero against an antagonist. It can be the maiden's mistress, e. g., a witch, as in a tale published by illustrator Howard Pyle in "The Wonder Clock", or the maiden's father, e. g., the character of "Morskoi Tsar" in Russian fairy tales. In this second format, the hero of the tale spies on the bird (swan) maidens bathing and hides the garment (featherskin) of the youngest one, for her to help him reach the kingdom of the villain of the tale (usually the swan-maiden's father).


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Celtic story titled "The Tale of the Son of the King of Ireland and the Daughter of the King of the Red Cap" (Gaelic: "Sgeulachd air Mac Righ Éirionn agus Nighean Rígh a' Churraichd Ruaidh"), the prince of Ireland falls in love with the White Swan of the Smooth Neck, also called Sunshine, the young daughter of the King of the Red Cap, as he saw her coming to bathe in a lake.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Flemish fairy tale, "Het zwanenmeisje van den glazen berg" ("The Swan Maiden of the Glass Mountain"), a young hunter fetches the swan garment of a bathing maiden, who asks for it in return. When she wears it, she tells the hunter to find her in the Glass Mountain. After he succeeds in climbing the mountain, the youth recognizes his beloved swan maiden and asks her mother for her daughter's hand in marriage. The mother assures the human he will be able to marry her daughter, after doing three difficult chores.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Evenk tale titled "The Grateful Eagle", the hero is promised to an old man after he helped the hero's father close a magical casket. Years later, the hero finds three swan maidens bathing in the river and fetches the robe of one of them. She insists the boy returns it and tells him to pay a visit to her village, where the old man also lives. Soon after arriving, he goes to the old man's house and is attended by "a pretty maid", later revealed to be the old man's granddaughter.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Tatar poem, there appears the character of "The Swan-Women", Tjektschäkäi, who develops an inimical relationship with hero Kartaga Mergän.


title: Swan maiden

text: 19th century folkloristic publications mentioned a tale about "Grace's Well", a well whose caretaker's carelessness led her to be turned into a swan by the fairies. The well was reported to be near Glasfryn lake, somewhere in Wales.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Russian "byliny" or heroic poem, a character named "White Swan" ("Byelaya Lebed"'), whose real name may be Avdotya or Marya, appears as the traitorous love interest of the hero.


title: Swan maiden

text: On the other hand, researcher Maria Tatar points out that the "Swan Maiden" tale is "widespread in Nordic regions".


title: Swan maiden

text: Scholar Lotte Motz contrasted its presence in different geographical regions. According to her study, she appears as a fairy tale character in "more southern countries", whereas "in northern regions", she becomes a myth and "an element of faith".


title: Swan maiden

text: Patricia Monaghan stated the swan maiden was an "Irish, Scottish and a continental Celtic folkloric figure", appearing, for instance, in Armorica.


title: Swan maiden

text: British folklorist Katharine Mary Briggs, while acknowledging the universality of the tale, suggested the character seemed more prevalent in the Celtic fairy tale tradition of the British Islands. She claimed in the introduction to fellow British folklore collector and writer Ruth Tongue's book that "variants [of the Swan Maiden tale] are common in Wales".


title: Swan maiden

text: In the same vein, William Bernard McCarthy reported that in Irish tradition the tale type ATU 400 ("Swan Maiden") is frequently merged with ATU 313 ("The Master Maid", "The Magical Flight", "The Devil's Daughter"). In that regard, Norwegian folklorist Reidar Thoralf Christiansen suggested that the presence of the Swan maiden character in tale type ATU 313 "could be explained by the circumstance that in both cycles a woman with supernatural powers plays a leading part".


title: Swan maiden

text: In addition, Celticist Tom Peete Cross concluded that the swan maiden "figured in Celtic literature before the twelfth century", although, in this tradition, she was often confused for similar supernatural women, i.e., the Celtic fairy-princess, the forth-putting "fée" and the water-fée.


title: Swan maiden

text: The swan is said to be the preferred form adopted by Celtic goddesses. Even in this form, their otherworldly nature is identifiable by a golden or silver chain hanging around their neck.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Irish Mythological Cycle of stories, in the tale of "The Wooing of Étaine", a similar test involving the recognition of the wife among lookalikes happens to Eochu Airem, when he has to find his beloved Étaine, who flew away in the shape of a swan.


title: Swan maiden

text: A second Irish tale of a maiden changing into a swan is the story of hero Óengus, who falls in love with Caer Ibormeith, in a dream.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another tale, relating to the birth of hero Cú Chulainn, a flock of birds, "joined in pairs by silver chains", appear and guide the Ulstermen to a house, where a woman was about to give birth. In one account, the birds were Cu Chulainn's mother, Deichtire, and her maidens.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Celtic tale (Gaelic: "Mac an Tuathanaich a Thàinig a Raineach"; English: "The Farmer's son who came from Rannoch"), the farmer's son sees three swan maidens bathing in water and hides their clothing, in exchange for the youngest of them (sisters, in all) to marry him.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Irish fairy tale "The Three Daughters of the King of the East and the Son of a King in Erin", three swan maidens come to bathe in a lake (Loch Erne) and converse with a king's elder son, who was fishing at the lake. His evil stepmother convinces a young cowherd to stick a magic pin to the prince's clothes to make him fall asleep. The spell works twice, and in both occasions the swan maidens try to help the prince come to. A similar narrative is the Irish tale "The Nine-Legged Steed".


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Irish tale, "The House in the Lake", a man named Enda helps Princess Mave, turned into a swan, to break the curse her evil stepmother cast upon her.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another tale, goddess Áine, metamorphosed into a swan, was bathing in the lake and was seen by a human duke, Gerald Fitzgerald ("Gearóid Iarla") who felt a passionate yearning towards her. Aware of the only way to make her his wife, the duke seized Áine's fairy cloak. Once subdued and deprived of her magic cloak, she resigned to being the human's wife, and bore him a son.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a local legend in the barony of Inchiquin, County Clare, before the O'Briens took the lands of the "Clann-Ifearnain", the young chieftain O'Quin follows a stag to the shore of Loch Inchiquin and sees five swans near the water. The five swans take off their swan skins and become maidens. O'Quin steals the garments of one of them; the other turn back into swans and depart, leaving their companion to her fate. The captured swan maiden is wooed by the O'Quin man, until she concedes to marry him, on two conditions: their marriage must be kept a secret and that no man from Clann-Brian must be under their roof, lest she disappears and the man becomes the last of his clan. O'Quin and the swan maiden live seven happy years of marriage, with two children born to them, until a fateful day: O'Quin meets a member of the O'Brien clan and invites him to his castle. He entertains his guest and gambles against him all his worldly goods and possessions, and loses. Remembering his wife's prediction, O'Quin goes to her room and sees her back into swan form, with their two children metamorphosed into cygnets. The swan mother and her children fly away to the mists of the lake, and are seen no more - thus ending the O'Quin line. At least 9 accounts of the legend exist: in three of them, the supernatural wife is explicitly a swan maiden. In other accounts, the O'Brien of the legend is identified with Tyge Ahood (or Tadgh an Comhad) O'Brien, Prince of Thomond. The number of swans may also vary between tellings: five, seven or a general "number" of them.


title: Swan maiden

text: Author Marie Trevelyan stated that the swan appears in Welsh tradition, sometimes "closely connected" to fairies. She also provided the summary of a tale from Whitmore Bay, Barry Island, in Glamorgan that she claimed "was well known in the early part of the nineteenth century". In this story, a young farmer, working in a field near the sea, sees a swan alighting near a stone; the bird takes off its feathers, becomes a woman, bathes for a while, then returns as a bird to the skies. This goes on for some time, until the farmer decides to hide the swan feathers the next time the woman goes to bathe in the lake. It happes thus and the swan woman begs for her feathers back, but the farmer refuses. They eventually marry and he hides the featherskin in a locked oaken chest. One day, the man forgets to lock his chest; the swan woman gets her feathers back and flies away from their home as a swan. The farmer returns home just in time to see her departure, and dies of a broken heart.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another tale provided by Marie Trevelyan, a man from Rhoose visits his friend in Cadoxton-juxta-Barry, at Barry Island. "Back then" - as this tale goes - , Barry Island was only reachable at low tide. Both friends spend some time together and lose track of time, when the tide has risen high enough to block their return. Both decide to pass by Friar's Point. There, they see two swans alighting and becoming two women by taking off their swan skins. Both men decide to steal the women's skins. Both women beg for the skins and feathers back, but the men deny their request. The swan women marry each men. The wife of the man from Cadoxton is run over by a waggon and, when people come to pick her corpse, she becomes a swan and flies away. As for the other man, after seven years of marriage, the man throws away some rubbish in the farmyard, the swan wings among them. The wife finds them, puts them back and flies away as a swan.


title: Swan maiden

text: Flemish fairy tale collections also contain two tales with the presence of the Swan Maiden: "De Koning van Zevenbergen" ("The King of Sevenmountains") and "Het Zwanenmeisje van den glazen Berg" ("The Swan Maiden from the Glass Mountain"). Johannes Bolte, in a book review of Pol de Mont and Alfons de Cock's publication, noted that their tale was parallel to Grimms' KHM 193, "The Drummer".


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Iberian tale ("The Seven Pigeons"), a fisherman spots a black-haired girl combing her hair in the rocks. Upon the approach of two pigeons, she finishes her grooming activity and turns into a swan wearing a crown on her head. When the three birds land on a nearby ship, they regain their human forms of maidens.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Belgian fairy tale, reminiscent of the legend of the Knight of the Swan, "The Swan Maidens and the Silver Knight", seven swans – actually seven princesses cursed into that form – plot to help the imprisoned princess Elsje with the help of the Silver Knight. Princess Elsje, of her own accord, wants to help the seven swan sisters regain her human form by knitting seven coats and staying silent all the while for the enchantment to work.


title: Swan maiden

text: A version of the plot of the Swan Maiden ("Schwanenjungfrau") happens in Swabian tale "The Three Swans" ("Von drei Schwänen"): a widowed hunter, guided by an old man of the woods, secures the magical garment of the swan-maiden and marries her. Fifteen years pass, and his second wife finds her swan-coat and flies away. The hunter trails after her and reaches a castle, where his wife and her sisters live. The swan-maiden tells him that he must pass through arduous trials in the castle for three nights, to break the curse cast upon the women. The motif of staying overnight in an enchanted castle echoes the tale of "The Youth who wanted to learn what Fear was" (ATU 326).


title: Swan maiden

text: In the German tale collected by Johann Wilhelm Wolf (German: "Von der schönen Schwanenjungfer"; English: "The tale of the beautiful swan maiden"), a hunter in France sights a swan in a lake who pleads not to shoot her. The swan also reveals she is a princess and, to break her curse, he must suffer dangerous trials in a castle.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale collected in Wimpfen, near the river Neckar ("Die drei Schwäne"), a youth was resting by the edge of a lake when he sighted three snow-white swans. He fell asleep and, whan he woke up, noticed he was transported to a great palace. He then was greeted by three fairy women (implied to be the swans).


title: Swan maiden

text: Czech author Bozena Nemcova published a tale titled "Zlatý vrch" ("The Golden Hill"), wherein Libor, a poor youth, lives with his widowed mother in a house in the woods. He finds works under the tutelage of the royal gardener. One day, while resting near a pond, he notices some noise nearby. Spying out of the bushes, he sees three maidens bathing, the youngest the loveliest of them. They don their white robes and "floating veils", become swans and fly away. The next day, Libor hides the veil of the youngest, named Čekanka. The youth convinces her to become his wife and gives her veil for his mother to hide. One day, the swan maiden tricks Libor's mother to return her veil and tells Libor must venture to the Golden Hill if he ever wants her back. With the help of a crow and some stolen magical objects from giants, he reaches the Golden Hill, where Cekanka lives with her sisters and their witch mother. The witch sets three dangerous tasks for Libor, which he accomplishes with his beloved's help. The third is to identify Cekanka in a room with similarly dressed maidens. He succeeds. The pair decides to escape from Golden Hill, as the witch mother goes hot in pursuit. Transforming into different things, they elude their pursuer and return home.


title: Swan maiden

text: The character of the swan-maiden also appears in an etiological tale from Romania about the origin of the swan. In the same book, by professor Moses Gaster, he translated a Romanian "Christmas carol" with the same theme, and noted that the character "occurs very often" in Romania.


title: Swan maiden

text: The character of the "White Swan" appears in Russian oral poetry and functions similarly to the vila of South Slavic folklore. Scholarship suggests the term may refer to a foreign princess, most likely of Polish origin.


title: Swan maiden

text: Another occurrence of the motif exists in Russian folktale "Sweet Mikáilo Ivánovich the Rover": Mikailo Ivanovich goes hunting and, when he sets his aim on a white swan, it pleads for its life. Then, the swan transforms into a lovely maiden, Princess Márya, whom Mikail falls in love with.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale featuring heroic bogatyr Alyosha Popovich, "Danilo the Luckless", the titular Danilo the Luckless, a nobleman, meets a "Granny" (an old and wise woman), who points him to the blue ocean. When the water swells, a creature named Chudo-Yudo shall appear, and Danilo must seize it and use it to summon the beautiful Swan Maiden.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Kalmyk tale, "Tsarkin Khan and the Archer", an Archer steals the robe of a "golden-crowned" swan maiden when she was in human form and marries her. Later, the titular Tsarkin Khan wants to marry the Archer's swan maiden wife and plans to get rid of him by setting dangerous tasks.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Swedish fairy tale, "The Swan-Maiden", the king announces a great hunting contest. A young hunter sights a swan swimming in a lake and aims at it, but the swan pleads not to shoot it. The swan transforms into a maiden and explains she is enchanted into that form, but the hunter may help her to break the spell.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Swedish fairy tale collected from Blekinge, "The Swan Maiden", a young hunter sees three swans nearing a sound and taking off their animal skins. They reveal themselves to be three lovely maidens and he falls in love with one of them. He returns home and tells his mother he intends to marry one of them. She advises him to hide the maiden's feather garment. He does that the next day and wins a wife for himself. Seven years later, now settled into domestic life, the hunter tells the truth to the swan maiden and returns her feather garment. She changes back into a swan and flies off. The human husband dies a year later.


title: Swan maiden

text: The usual plot involves a magical bird-maiden that descends from heavens to bathe in a lake. However, there are variants where the maiden and/or her sisters are princesses under a curse, such as in Finnish story "Vaino and the Swan Princess".


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from the Kachari, "Sā-se phālāngī gotho-nī khorāng" ("The story of the merchant lad"), an orphaned youth decides to earn his living in foreign lands. He buys goods and a boat, and hires some help. He and his crew arrive at another country, where an old couple lived with their pet swan. One day, the youth sees the swan transform into a maiden and becomes enamoured. He buys the swan from the old couple in hopes it will become a girl again, but no such luck. The youth pines away with longing and his mother is worried. A wise woman advises the mother and son to prepare a mixture of ashes and oil, procure a yak's tail and to pretend to fall asleep at night. The swan takes off her animal clothing and, as a human, begins to "worship her country's gods". The youth awakes, takes the plumage and tosses it in the fire. The maiden faints, but the youth uses the mixture on her and fans her with the yak's tail. She awakes and marries the human, giving birth to many children.


title: Swan maiden

text: A Native American tale has the character of the Red Swan, a bird of reddened plumage. The bird attracts the attention of a young warrior, who goes on a quest to find her.


title: Swan maiden

text: The Swan maiden story is believed to have been the basis for the ballet "Swan Lake", in which a young princess, Odette and her maidens are under the spell of an evil sorcerer, Von Rothbart, transforming them into swans by day. By night, they regain their human forms and can only be rescued if a young man swears eternal love and faithfulness to the Princess. When Prince Siegfried swears his love for Odette, the spell can be broken, but Siegfried is tricked into declaring his love for Von Rothbart's daughter, Odile, disguised by magic as Odette, and all seems lost. But the spell is finally broken when Siegfried and Odette drown themselves in a lake of tears, uniting them in death for all eternity. While the ballet's revival of 1895 depicted the swan-maidens as mortal women cursed to turn into swans, the original libretto of 1877 depicted them as true swan-maidens: fairies who could transform into swans at will. Several animated films based on the ballet, including "The Swan Princess" and "Barbie of Swan Lake" depict the lead heroines as being under a spell and both are eventually rescued by their Princes.


title: Swan maiden

text: The magical swan also appears in Russian poem The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1831), by Alexander Pushkin. The son of the titular Tsar Saltan, Prince Gvidon and his mother are cast in the sea in a barrel and wash ashore in a mystical island. There, the princeling grows up in days and becomes a fine hunter. Prince Gvidon and his mother begin to settle in the island thanks to the help of a magical swan called Princess Swan, and in the end of the tale she transforms into a princess and marries Prince Gvidon.


title: Swan maiden

text: A variant of the swan maiden narrative is present in the work of Johann Karl August Musäus, a predecessor to the Brothers Grimm's endeavor in the early 1800s. The third volume of his "Volksmärchen der Deutschen" (1784) contains the story of "Der geraubte Schleier" ("The Stolen Veil"). Musäus's tale was translated into English as "The Stealing of the Veil, or Tale À La Montgolfier" (1791) and into French as "Voile envolé", in "Contes de Museäus" (1826). In a short summary: an old hermit, who lives near a lake of pristine water, rescues a young Swabian soldier; during a calm evening, the hermit reminisces about an episode of his adventurous youth when he met in Greece a swan-maiden, descended from Leda and Zeus themselves – in the setting of the story, the Greco-Roman deities were "genies" and "fairies". The hermit explains the secret of their magical garment and how to trap one of the ladies. History repeats itself as the young soldier sets his sights on a trio of swan maidens who descend from heavens to bathe in the lake.


title: Swan maiden

text: Swedish writer Helena Nyblom explored the theme of a swan maiden who loses her feathery cloak in "Svanhammen" ("The Swan Suit"), published in 1908, in "Bland tomtar och troll" ("Among Gnomes and Trolls"), an annual anthology of literary fairy tales and stories.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a literary work by Adrienne Roucolle, "The Kingdom of the Good Fairies", in the chapter "The Enchanted Swan", princess Lilian is turned into a swan by evil Fairy Hemlock.


title: Swan maiden

text: Irish novelist and author Padraic Colum reworked a series of Irish legends in his book "The King of Ireland's Son", among them the tale of the swan maiden as a wizard's daughter. In this book, the oldest son of the King of Ireland loses a wager against his father's enemy and should find him in a year and a day's time. He is advised by a talking eagle to spy on three swans that will descend on a lake. They are the daughters of the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands, the wizard the prince is looking for. The prince is instructed to hide the swanskin of the swan with a green ribbon, who is Fedelma, the Enchanter's youngest daughter.


title: Swan maiden

text: The fairytale The Six Swans could be considered a male version of the swan maiden, where the swan skin isn't stolen but a curse, similar to The Swan Princess. An evil step-mother cursed her 6 stepsons with swan skin shirts that transform them into swans, which can only be cured by six nettle shirts made by their younger sister. Similar tales of a parent or a step-parent cursing their (step)children are the Irish legend of "The Children of Lir", and "The Wild Swans", a literary fairy tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.


title: Swan maiden

text: An inversion of the story (humans turning into swans) can be found in the "Dolopathos": a hunter sights a (magical) maiden bathing in a lake and, after a few years, she gives birth to septuplets (six boys and a girl), born with gold chains around their necks. After being expelled by their grandmother, the children bathe in a lake in their swan forms, and return to human form thanks to their magical chains.


title: Swan maiden

text: Another story of a male swan is "Prince Swan" ("Prinz Schwan"), an obscure tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in the very first edition of their "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" (1812), but removed from subsequent editions.


title: Swan maiden

text: Czech author Božena Němcová included in the first volume of her collection "National Tales and Legends", published in 1845, a tale she titled "The Swan" ("O Labuti"), about a prince who's turned into a swan by a witch because his evil stepmother wanted to get rid of him.


title: Swan maiden

text: Brazilian tale "Os três cisnes" ("The Three Swans"), collected by Lindolfo Gomes, tells the story of a princess who marries an enchanted prince. After his wife breaks a taboo (he could never see himself in a mirror), he turns into a swan, which prompts his wife on a quest for his whereabouts, with the help of an old woodcutter.


title: Swan maiden

text: Established folkloristics does not formally recognize "Swan Maidens" as a single Aarne-Thompson tale type. Rather, one must speak of tales that exhibit Stith Thompson motif index "D361.1 Swan Maiden", which may be classed AT 400, 313, or 465A. Compounded by the fact that these tale types have "no fewer than ten other motifs" assigned to them, the AT system becomes a cumbersome tool for keeping track of parallels for this motif. Seeking an alternate scheme, one investigator has developed a system of five Swan Maiden paradigms, four of them groupable as a Grimm tale cognate (KHM 193, 92, 93, and 113) and the remainder classed as the "AT 400" paradigm. Thus for a comprehensive list of the most starkly-resembling cognates of Swan Maiden tales, one need only consult Bolte and Polívka's "Anmerkungen" to Grimm's Tale KHM 193 the most important paradigm of the group.


title: Swan maiden

text: It has been suggested the romance of apsara Urvasi and king Pururavas, of ancient Sanskrit literature, may be one of the oldest forms (or origin) of the Swan-Maiden tale.


title: Swan maiden

text: The antiquity of the swan-maiden tale was suggested in the 19th century by Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, postulating an origin of the motif before the separation of the Proto-Indo-European language, and, due to the presence of the tale in diverse and distant traditions (such as Samoyedic and Native Americans), there was a possibility that the tale may be even older. Another theory was supported by Charles Henry Tawney, in his translation of Somadeva's "Kathasaritsagara": he suggests the source of the motif to be old Sanskrit literature; the tale then migrated to Middle East, and from there as an intermediate point, spread to Europe.


title: Swan maiden

text: A line of scholarship suggests that the dispersal of the swan maiden tale is related to the migratory patterns of swan and similar birds. Jörg Backer contrasts between northern and southern areas where tales appear: swans and cranes in Hungary, Siberia, China, Korea and Japan; wild geese among the Paleoasian and Eskimo (Inuit) peoples and across Northwestern North America; Peris in form of doves in Iran.


title: Swan maiden

text: Arthur T. Hatto recognized a mythic look in the character and the narrative, but argued for a location in sub-arctic Eurasia and America, in relation to the migration of swans, cranes, geese and similar waterfowl.


title: Swan maiden

text: Lotte Motz, in turn, remarked that the story of the swan maiden was "current in the primitive setting of north-Eurasian peoples, where water birds are of importance". That is, she argues, in areas of "archaic economic systems", the swan maiden appears in the folklore of peoples "in which water birds contribute to the economic


title: Swan maiden

text: Analysing Yakut tales about a bird maiden, ethnographer , in a 1982 article, argued that the motif of the bird maidens taking off their birdskins resembled the act of moulting. According to him, birds losing their wings while also moulting would seem to happen in the Far North, which would indicate the origin of the tale in a Northern location.


title: Swan maiden

text: In regards to the pigeon as the woman's animal form, scholarship notes that the common pigeon (rock dove)'s original geographic range seemed restricted to Asia Minor, India, North Africa and the Southern European countries, like Greece and Italy, while the domesticated dove originated "from North Africa and Near East".


title: Swan maiden

text: Each of them using different methods, i.e. observation of the distribution area of the Swan Maiden type or use of phylogenetic methods to reconstruct the evolution of the tale, Gudmund Hatt, Yuri Berezkin and Julien d'Huy independently showed that this folktale would have appeared during the Paleolithic period, in the Pacific Asia, before spreading in two successive waves in America. In addition, and Julien d'Huy showed that there was no mention of migratory birds in the early versions of this tale (this motif seems to appear very late).


title: Swan maiden

text: According to Julien d'Huy, such a motif would also have existed in European prehistory and would have a buffalo maiden as a heroine. Indeed, this author finds the motif with four-legged animals in North America and Europe, in an area coinciding with the area of haplogroup X.


title: Swan maiden

text: Alan Miller emphasized the connection of the swan maiden both to the "sky world and the water world". In this regard, in many tales, the swan maiden and her sisters are daughters of a celestial deity, and embody desirable traits like luck and prosperity.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to scholarship, "an ancient belief in bird-human transformation is manifest in Eurasian mythology". For instance, the mythical character of the swan maiden is found "in the whole of northern Eurasia, from Scandinavia to Manchuria". As such, "a great number of populations" in these regions claim her as their totemic ancestress, such as the peoples and tribes of Siberia and Central Asia. This narrative is attested in ethnogenetic myths of the Buryat, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Na-Dené, Bashkir and Amerindian peoples. Further study suggests that this form of totemic mythology goes back to a pre-Indo-European Nostratic or even Boreal past.


title: Swan maiden

text: Professor Hazel Wigglesworth, who worked with the many languages of the Philippines archipelago, stated that the character of the mortal male is sometimes named "Itung" or "Beletamey", and he represents a cultural hero or ancestor of the Manobo people.


title: Swan maiden

text: English folklorist Edwin Sidney Hartland mentioned a tale about a divine ancestress of the Bantik people (of the Celebes Island, modern Sulawesi) who comes down to Earth with her seven companions to bathe in a lake. A human male sees them coming to earth and steals the clothing of one of the maidens, thus forcing her to marry him.


title: Swan maiden

text: 19th-century missionary John Batchelor collected an etiological tale from the Ainu people, about the swan maiden. According to this story, the swan - originally created as an angel - is turned into a human woman. She descends to Earth to save an Ainu boy in Takai Sara of the Nikap district. Once he grows up, they marry and father numerous children. She reveals she is a swan, sent to him to "repopulate the Ainu race".


title: Swan maiden

text: According to scholarship, "in Kazakh and Siberian variants" of the heroic tale of Edige, his mother is described as a Swan Maiden. Edige (Edigu) is known as the historical founder of the Nogai Horde.


title: Swan maiden

text: A line of Russian and Mongolian scholarship suggests that the cult of the swan ancestress developed in the Altai Mountains region (or in Altai-Sayan region), which would explain the common features of the ethnogenetic myths of peoples inhabiting the area, e.g., Turkic and Mongolic peoples. For instance, Buryat professor T. B. Tsydendambaev () supposed that the Mongol-speaking Khorin replaced their canine totem for a swan totem of Turkic origin during the 1st millennium AD.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to , a trio of celestial sisters, identified as daughters of Heaven itself or of a celestial deity, appear as helpers and wives of male heroes, who marry them and beget clans and dynasties. This motif appears in both the epos and mythologies of the Mongolic and Manchu-Tungus people, where they assume the guise of a water bird, like swans, cranes and wild geese.


title: Swan maiden

text: Among the Buryat, the swan maiden ancestress marries a human man and gives birth to eleven sons, the founders of the future clans of the Khori: Galzuud, Khargana, Khuasai, Khubduud, Baganai, Sharait, Bodonguud, Gushad, Sagan, Khuudai and Khalbin. In this ancestor myth, the human hunter is called Hori Tumed (Хорь Тумэд); the flock of birds has nine swans, and the swan mother gives names to her 11 sons. This is considered to be a "popular genealogical myth", since the protagonist shows variations in his name: Horidai Mergen, Khori, Khorildoi, Khorodoi, Khoreldoi, Khoridoi. The name of legendary swan ancestress of the Khorin is given as Hoboshi (Хобоши).


title: Swan maiden

text: In one version of an ancestor myth from the Transbaikal Buryats, collected by Jeremiah Curtin in the 19th century, a hunter sees three swans alight near a lake to bathe. They take off their feathers to become young women, daughters of Esege Malan. While they are distracted, the human hunter hides the feathers of one of them, stranding her on Earth. They marry and have six children. One day, she prepares some tarasun for her husband, who, after drinking too much, is convinced by his wife to return her feathers. When she dons them, she once again becomes a swan and returns to the skies, but one of her daughters tries to stop her.


title: Swan maiden

text: A version of the Khoridai tale with the swan maiden is also attested among the Barga Mongols. The hunter Khoridai marries a swan maiden and she and another wife give birth to 11 ancestors.


title: Swan maiden

text: The hunter named Hori (and variations) most often appears as the husband of the swan maiden. However, other ethnogenic myths of the Buryats associate him as the swan maiden's "son". According to scholarship, four Buryat lines (Khongodor, Horidoy, Khangin and Sharaid) trace their origins to a marriage between a human hunter and a swan woman named Khurmast-tenger (Хурмаст-тэнгэр), while the Zakamensk Buryats tell the story of three brothers, Hori, Shosholok and Khongodor, born of a swan maiden.


title: Swan maiden

text: Among the Khongodor, a genealogical myth tells that the young man Senkhele (Сэнхэлэ) marries the swan maiden (heavenly maiden, in other accounts) Khenkhele-khatan (Хэнхэлэ-хатан) and from their union 9 ancestors are born. Similar stories are located among the Khongodor of Tunka, Alar and Zakamen.


title: Swan maiden

text: A similar myth about a swan ancestress is attested with the Oirats, about a human hunter and his wife, the swan maiden, who represents the heavenly realm (Tengri).


title: Swan maiden

text: In another ethnogenetic myth of the Buryat, the human ancestor is a hunter named Barγutai. One day, he sees seven maidens bathing in a lake and steals the garments of one of them. Six of the maidens wear their garments, become swans and take to the skies again, while the youngest of them is left behind, without her clothing. The hunter finds and consoles her, and they both marry. Eleven children are born of this union. She eventually regains her clothing and returns to the skies.


title: Swan maiden

text: The swan maiden appears in a tale about the origin of the Daghur people. In this tale, titled "The Fairies and the Hunters", a mother lives with her two sons, Kurugure and Karegure. One day, when they are away on a hunt, she is visited by two "female celestials" who take off their feather clothing. Both women help the old mother in her chores and fly away. The old mother tells her sons the story. The next time the celestial women appear, the brothers burn their feather clothings and marry them.


title: Swan maiden

text: Further scholarship also locates similar tales of the swan ancestress among the Buryat populations. In the Sharayt clan's telling, nine swan maidens fly to Lake Khangai to bathe in the river, and the hunter's name is Sharayhai. In other tellings, the swan maidens number thirteen, and the meeting with the hunter occurs by the river Kalenga, the river Lena, by Lake Baikal or by Olkhon Island.


title: Swan maiden

text: Scholarship points that, in some Turkic peoples of Northern Asia, the swan appears as their ancestress. One example is Khubai-khatun (Хубай-хатун), who shows up in the Yakut "olonkho" of Art-toyon. Etymological connections between Khubai-khatun (previously "Khubashi") with Mongolic/Buryat "Khoboshi" have been noted, which would indicate "great antiquity" and possible cultural transmission between peoples.


title: Swan maiden

text: Scholarship also lists Homay/Humai, the daughter of the King of the Birds, Samrau, in "Ural-batyr", the Bashkir epic, as another swan maiden. She appears in folklore as a divine being, daughter of heavenly deity Samrau, and assumes the shape of a bird with solar characteristics.


title: Swan maiden

text: The swan also appears in an ethnogenetic myth of the Yurmaty tribe as the companion of a human hunter.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to scholarship, "an ancient belief in bird-human transformation is manifest ... in shamanic practices". Edward A. Armstrong and Alan Miller noted that swans appear in Siberian shamanism, which, according to Miller, contains stories about male shamans being born of a human father and a divine wife in bird form.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the same vein, scholar Manabu Waida transcribed a tale collected in Trans-Baikal Mongolia among the Buryat, wherein the human hunter marries one of three swan maidens, daughters of Esege Malan. In another account, the children born of this union become great shaman and shamanesses. A similar story occurs in the Ryukyu Islands, wherein the swan maiden, stranded on Earth, gives birth to a son that becomes a "toki" and two daughters that become a "noro" and a "yuta".


title: Swan maiden

text: Researcher Rosanna Budelli also argues for "shamanic reminiscences" in the "Arabian Nights" tale of "Hasan of Basrah" (and analogues "Mazin of Khorassan" and "Jansah"), for example, the "ornitomorphic costume" of the bird-maidens that appear in the story.


title: Swan maiden

text: The motif of the wife of supernatural origin (in most cases, a swan maiden) shows universal appeal, being present in the oral and folkloric traditions of every continent. The swan is the typical species, but they can transform into "geese, ducks, spoonbills, or aquatic birds of some other species". Other animals include "peahens, hornbills, wild chickens, parakeets and cassowaries".


title: Swan maiden

text: ATU 402 ("The Animal Bride") group of folktales are found across the world, though the animals vary. The Italian fairy tale "The Dove Girl" features a dove. There are the Orcadian and Shetland selkies, that alternate between seal and human shape. A Croatian tale features a she-wolf. The wolf also appears in the folklore of Estonia and Finland as the "animal bride", under the tale type ATU 409, .


title: Swan maiden

text: In Africa, the same motif is shown through buffalo maidens. In East Asia, it is also known featuring maidens who transform into various bird species. In Russian fairy-tales there are also several characters, connected with the Swan-maiden, as in "The Sea King and Vasilisa the Wise", where the maiden is a dove.


title: Swan maiden

text: Russian professor Valdemar Bogoras collected a tale from a Yukaghir woman in Kolyma, in which three Tungus sisters change into "female geese" to pick berries. On one occasion, the character of "One-Side" hides the skin of the youngest, who cannot return to goose form. She eventually consents to marry "One-Side".


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale attributed to the Toraja people of Indonesia, a woman gives birth to seven crabs that she throws in the water. As time passes, the seven crabs find a place to live and take their disguises to assume human form. In one occasion, seven males steal the crab disguises of the seven crab maidens and marry them. A second one is close to the Swan maiden narrative, only with parakeets instead of swans; the hero is called Magoenggoelota and the maiden Kapapitoe.


title: Swan maiden

text: One notably similar Japanese story, "The crane wife" ("Tsuru Nyobo"), is about a man who marries a woman who is in fact a crane (Tsuru no Ongaeshi) disguised as a human. To make money the crane-woman plucks her own feathers to weave silk brocade which the man sells, but she became increasingly ill as she does so. When the man discovers his wife's true identity and the nature of her illness, she leaves him. There are also a number of Japanese stories about men who married kitsune, or fox spirits in human form (as women in these cases), though in these tales the wife's true identity is a secret even from her husband. She stays willingly until her husband discovers the truth, at which point she must abandon him.


title: Swan maiden

text: The motif of the swan maiden or swan wife also appears in Southeast Asia, with the tales of Kinnari or Kinnaree (of Thailand) and the love story of Manohara and Prince Sudhana.


title: Swan maiden

text: Professor and folklorist James George Frazer, in his translation of "The Libraries", by Pseudo-Apollodorus, suggested that the myth of Peleus and Thetis seemed related to the swan maiden cycle of stories.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a 13th-century romance about "Friedrich von Schwaben" (English: "Friedrich of Suabia"), the knight Friedrich hides the clothing of Princess Angelburge, who came to bathe in a lake in dove form.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from Brittany, collected by François-Marie Luzel with the title "Pipi Menou et Les Femmes Volants" ("Pipi Menou and the Flying Women"), Pipi Menou, a shepherd boy, sees three large white birds descending near a "étang" (a pond). When the birds approach the pond, they transform into nude maidens and begins to play in the water. Pipi Menou sees the whole scene from the hilltop and tells his mother, who explains they are the daughters of a powerful magician who lives elsewhere, in a castle filled with jewels and precious stones. The next day, he steals the clothing of one of them, but she convinces him to give it back. He goes to the castle, the flying maiden recognizes him and they both escape with jewels in their pouches.


title: Swan maiden

text: Portuguese writer Theophilo Braga collected a Portuguese tale named "O Príncipe que foi correr a sua Ventura" ("The Prince Who Wanted to See the World"), in which a prince loses his bet against a stranger, a king in disguise, and must become the stranger's servant. The prince is informed by a beggar woman with child that in a garden there is tank, where three doves come to bathe. He should take the feathery robe of the last one and withhold it until the maiden gives him three objects.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another tale, from Tirol, collected by Christian Schneller (German: "Die drei Tauben"; Italian: "Le tre colombe"; English: "The Three Doves"), a youth loses his soul in a gamble to a wizard. A saint helps him and gives the information about three doves that perch themselves on a bridge and change themselves to human form. The youth steals the clothing of the youngest, daughter of the wizard, and promises to take him to her father. She wants to help the hero in order to convert herself to Christianity and abandon her pagan magic.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Basque tale collected by Wentworth Webster ("The Lady Pigeon and her Comb"), the destitute hero is instructed by a "Tartaro" to collect the pigeon garment of the middle maiden, instead of the youngest.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Andalusian variant, "El Marqués del Sol" ("The Marquis of the Sun"), a player loses his bet against the Marqués and must wear out seven pairs or iron shoes. In his wanderings, he pays the debt of a dead man and his soul, in gratitude, informs him that three white doves, the daughters of the Marqués in avian form, will come to bathe in a lake.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a variant collected by folklorist Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa in Granada, a gambling prince loses a bet against a dove (the Devil, in disguise), who says he should find him in "Castillo de Siete Rayos de Sol" ("The Castle of Seven Sunrays"). A helping hermit guides him to a place where the three devil's daughters, in the form of doves, come to bathe. The prince should steal the garments of the youngest, named "Siete Rayos de Sol", who betrays her father and helps the human prince.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Asturian tale collected by Aurelio de Llano Roza de Ampudia, the youngest of three brothers works with a giant, who forbids him to open a certain door. He does and sees three dove maidens alighting near the water, becoming woman and bathing. The youth tells the giant about this event, and his employer suggests he steals the feather of the one he set his sights on. He takes the feather of one of the dove maidens, marries her and gives her feather to his mother to keep. Hispanist Ralph Steele Boggs classified it as type 400*B (a number not added to the revision of the international index, at the time).


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Danish tale "The White Dove", the youngest prince, unborn at the time, is "sold" by his elder brothers in exchange for a witch's help in dissipating a sea storm. Years later, the witch upholds her end of the bargain and takes the prince under her tutelage. As part of his everyday chores, the witch sets him with difficult tasks, which he accomplishes with the help of a princess, enchanted by the witch to become a dove.


title: Swan maiden

text: A compilation of Central European (Austrian and Bohemian) folktales lists four variants of the Swan Maiden narrative: "The Three White Doves"; "The Maiden on the Crystal Mountain"; "How Hans finds his Wife" and "The Drummer". Theodor Vernaleken, in the German version of the compilation, narrated in his notes two other variants, one from St. Pölten and other from Moldautein (modern day Týn nad Vltavou, in the Czech Republic).


title: Swan maiden

text: In Slavic fairy tale "King Kojata" or "Prince Unexpected", the twelve royal daughters of King Kostei take off their geese disguises to bathe in the lake, but the prince hides the clothing of the youngest.


title: Swan maiden

text: In Czech tale "The Three Doves", the hero hides the three golden feathers of the dove maiden to keep her in her human state. Later on, when she disappears, he embarks on an epic quest to find her.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Serbian tale collected by Vuk Karadzic and translated as "Die Prinz und die drei Schwäne" ("The Prince and the Three Swans"), a prince loses his way during a hunt and meets an old man who lives in a hut. He works for the old man, and has to watch over a lake. On the second day of his job, three swans alight near the lake, take off their birdskins to become human maidens and bathe. The next day, the prince steals their swan skins and hurries back to the old man's hut. The three swans beg for their birdsskins back; the old man returns only two of them and withholds the youngest's skin. He marries the prince to the swan girl and they return to his father's kingdom. Once there, one day, the swan wife asks her mother-in-law for her garments back; she puts it on and flies away to the Glass Mountain. The prince goes back to the old man, wh is the king of the winds, and is directed to the Glass Mountain. The climbs it and meets an old woman in a hut. Inside the hut, he must identify his wife from a group of 300 similarly dressed swan women. Later, he is forced to do chores for the old woman, which he does with his wife's help.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Russian fairy tale "The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise", or "Vassilissa the Cunning, and The Tsar of the Sea", Ivan, the merchant's son, was informed by an old hag (possibly Baba Yaga, in some versions) about the daughters of the Sea Tsar who come to bathe in a lake in the form of doves. In another translation, "The King of the Sea and Melania, the Clever", and "The Water King and Vasilissa the Wise", there are twelve maidens in the form of spoonbills. In another transcription of the same tale, the maidens are pigeons.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Russian variant, "Мужик и Настасья Адовна" ("The Man and Nastasya Adovna"), collected by , a creature jumps out of a well and tells a man to give him the thing he does not know he has at home (his newly born son). Years later, his son learns about his father's dealing and decides to travel to "Hell" ("Аду" or "Adu", in Russian). He visits three old women who give him directions to reach "Hell". The third old woman also informs him that in a lake, thirty-three maidens, the daughters of "Adu", come to bathe, and he should steal the clothing of Nastasya Adovna.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from Perm Krai with the title "Иванушка и его невеста" ("Ivanushka and his Wife"), Ivanushka loses his way from his grandfather in the forest, but eventually finds a hut. He takes shelter with an old man for the night, and, the next day, the old man gives directions, but Ivanushka disregards them and finds a lake where maidens are bathing. The maidens leave the water, turn into ducks and depart. Ivanushka goes back the old man and he advises him to steal the duck maiden's garments. Ivanushka does that and takes the girl for wife. She eventually retrieves her duck garments, bids Ivanushka to find her in a land beyond 30 realms, then flies away.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a "Cossack" (Ukrainian) tale, "The Story of Ivan and the Daughter of the Sun", the peasant Ivan obtains a wife in the form of a dove maiden whose robe he stole when she was bathing. Some time later, a nobleman lusts after Ivan's dove maiden wife and plans to get rid of the peasant.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Ukrainian variant that begins as tale type ATU 402, "The Animal Bride", akin to Russian "The Frog Princess", the human prince marries the frog maiden Maria and both are invited to the tsar's grand ball. Maria takes off her frog skin and enters the ballroom as human, while her husband hurries back home and burns her frog skin. When she comes home, she reveals the prince her cursed state would soon be over, says he needs to find Baba Yaga in a remote kingdom, and vanishes from sight in the form of a cuckoo. He meets Baba Yaga and she points to a lake where 30 swans will alight, his wife among them. He hides Maria's feather garment, they meet again and Maria tells him to follow her into the undersea kingdom to meet her father, the Sea Tsar. The tale ends like tale type ATU 313, with the three tasks.


title: Swan maiden

text: A Hungarian tale ("Fisher Joe") tells about an orphan who catches a magical fish that reveals itself as a lovely maiden. A second Magyar tale, "Fairy Elizabeth", is close to the general swan maiden story, only dealing with pigeon-maidens instead. In a third tale, "Az örökbefogadott testvérek" ("The adoptive brothers"), the main protagonist, Miklós, dreams that the Queen of the Fairies and her handmaidens come to his side in the form of swans and transform into beautiful women.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the Hungarian tale "Ráró Rózsa", the king promises his only son to a devil-like character that rescues him from danger. Eighteen years pass, and it is time for the prince to fulfill his father's promise. The youth bides his time in a stream and awaits the arrival of three black cranes, the devil's three daughters in disguise, to fetch the garments of the youngest.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another tale, "Tündér Ilona és Argyilus" ("Fairy Ilona and Argyilus"), Prince Argyilus () is tasked by his father, the king, with discovering what has been stealing the precious apples from his prized apple tree. One night, the prince sees thirteen black ravens flying to the tree. As soon as he captures the thirteenth one, it transforms into the beautiful golden-haired Fairy Ilona. A variant of the event also happens in "Tündér Ilona és a királyfi" ("Fairy Ilona and the Prince").


title: Swan maiden

text: In the tale "A zöldszakállú király" ("The Green-Bearded King"), the king is forced to surrender his son to the devil king after it spares the man's life. Years later, the prince comes across a lake where seven wild ducks with golden plumage left their skins on the shores to bathe in the form of maidens.


title: Swan maiden

text: In the tale "A tizenhárom hattyú" ("The Thirteen Swans"), collected by Hungarian journalist Elek Benedek, after his sister was kidnapped, Miklós finds work as a cowherd. On one occasion, when he leads the cows to graze, he sees thirteen swans flying about an apple tree. The swans, then, change their shapes into twelve beautiful maidens and the Queen of the Fairies.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Albanian-Romani tale, "O Zylkanôni thai e Lačí Devlék'i" ("The Satellite and the Maiden of Heaven"), an unmarried youth goes on a journey to find work. Some time later, he enters a dark world. There, he meets by the spring three partridges that take off their animal skins to bathe. The youth hides the garment of one of them, who begs him to give it back. She wears it again and asks him to find her where the sun rises in that dark world.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Azerbaijani variant, a prince travels to an island where birds of cooper, silver and gold wings bathe, and marries the golden-winged maiden.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an Armenian variant collected from an Armenian-American source ("The Country of the Beautiful Gardens"), a prince, after his father's death, decided to stay silent. A neighbouring king, who wants to marry him to his daughter, places him in his garden. There, he sees three colorful birds bathing in a pool, and they reveal themselves as beautiful maidens.


title: Swan maiden

text: According to the Latvian Folktale Catalogue, tale type ATU 400 is titled "Vīrs meklē zudušo sievu" ("Man on a Quest for the Lost Wife"). In the Latvian tale type, the protagonist finds the bird maidens (swans, ducks, doves) alighting near a lake to bathe, and steals the youngest's wings.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Latvian folktale, a female named Laima (possibly the Latvian goddess of fate) loses her feathered wings by burning. She no longer becomes a swan and marries a human prince. They live together in the human world and even have a child, but she wants to become


title: Swan maiden

text: a swan again. So her husband throws feathers at her, she regains her bird form and takes to the skies, visiting her mortal family from time to time.


title: Swan maiden

text: In another Lithuanian variant published by Fr. Richter in the journal "Zeitschrift für Volkskunde" with the title "Die Schwanfrau" ("The Swan Woman"), a count's son, on a hunt, sights three swans, who talk among themselves that whoever is listening to them may help them break their curse. The count's son comes out of a bush and agrees to help them: by fighting a giant and breaking the spell a magician cast on them.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale from the Samoyed people of Northern Eurasia, an old woman informs a youth of seven maidens who are bathing in a lake in a dark forest. English folklorist Edwin Sidney Hartland cited a variant where the seven maidens arrive at the lake in their reindeer chariot. Whatever their origin, scientist Fridtjof Nansen reported that, in these tales, the girls lived "in the air or in the sky".


title: Swan maiden

text: Philosopher John Fiske cited a Siberian tale wherein a Samoyed man steals the feather skin of one of seven swan maidens. In return, he wants her help in enacting his revenge on seven robbers who killed his mother. In another version of this tale, still sources as from the Samoyed and translated by , the seven man have kidnapped the sister from a Samoyed man, and the protagonist steals the garments of a woman from the sky to ensure her help.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a tale attributed to the Tungus of Siberia, titled "Ivan the Mare's Son" (Russian: "Иван Кобыльников сын") - related to both "Fehérlófia" and "Jean de l'Ours" -, a mare gives birth to a human son, Ivan. When he grows up, he meets two companions also named Ivan: Ivan the Sun's Son and Ivan the Moon's Son. The three decide to live together in a hut made of wooden poles and animal skins. For two nights, after they hunt in the forest, they come home and see the place in perfect order. On the third night, Ivan, the Mare's Son, decides to stay awake and discovers that three herons descending to the ground and taking off their feathers and wings to become maidens. Ivan, the Mare's Son, hides their bird garments until they reveal themselves. Marfida, the heron maiden, and her sisters marry the three Ivans and the three couples live together. The rest of the story follows tale type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses": descent into underworld by hero, rescue of maidens, betrayal by companions and return to the upper world on eagle.


title: Swan maiden

text: In a Mongolian tale, "Manihuar" (Манихуар), a prince on a hunt sees three swans take off their golden crowns and become women. As they bathe in a nearby lake, he takes the golden crown of one of them, so she can't turn back into her bird form. He marries this swan maiden, named Manihuar. When the prince is away, his other wives threaten her, and Manihuar, fearing for her life, convinces her mother-in-law to return her golden crown. She turns back into a swan and flies back to her celestial realm. Her husband goes on a quest to bring her back.


title: Swan maiden

text: Scholar Kira van Deusen collected a tale from an old Ul'chi storyteller named Anna Alexeevna Kavda (Grandma Nyura). In her tale, titled "The Swan Girls", two orphan brothers live together. The older, Natalka, hunts game for them, while the youngest stays at home. One day, seven swans ("kilaa" in the Ulch language) land near their house and turn into seven human women. They enter the brothers' house, do the chores, sew clothes for the younger sibling and leave. He tells Natalka the story and they decide to capture two of the maidens as spouses for them.


title: Swan maiden

text: In an "olonkho" (epic narrative of the Yakut or Sakha people) titled "Yuchyugey Yudyugyuyen, Kusagan Hodzhugur", obtained from "Olonhohut" ('storyteller', 'narrator') Darya Tomskaya-Chayka, from Verkhoyansk, Yuchugey Yudyugyuyen, the elder of two brothers, goes hunting in the taiga. Suddenly, he sees 7 Siberian cranes coming to play with his young brother Kusagan Hodzhugur, distracting him from his chores. The maidens possibly belong to the Aiy people, good spirits of the Upper World in Yakut mythology. When they come a third time, the elder brother, Yuchugey, disguises himself as a woodchip or a flea and hides the bird skin of one of the crane maidens. They marry. One day, she fools her brother-in-law, regains her magical crane garment and returns to the Upper World. Hero Yuchugey embarks on a quest to find her, receiving help from a wise old man. Eventually, he reaches the Upper world and finds his wife and a son in a yurt. Yuchugey burns his wife's feathers; she dies, but is revived, and they return to the world of humans. This narrative sequence was recognized as very similar to a folk tale.


title: Swan maiden

text: Russian ethnographer collected a Yakut tale titled "Хороший Юджиян", published in 1890. Its plot is very similar to the olonkho: two brothers live together, one hunts and the other stays home. The one who stays home is visited by seven Siberia cranes who change shape into maidens, clean their house, and depart as cranes. The first brother captures and marries one them by hiding her crane skin, and they have a child. One day, the second brother gives back the plumage to his sister-in-law, the maiden becomes a crane again and flies away. The first brother jumps on his horse and follows his wife to her celestial realm. Once there, he is advised to creep into her hut and play with his child on their cradle to draw the mother's attention. The crane maiden enters the hut to rock her baby, and her husband appears.


title: Swan maiden

text: Variants of the Yakut tale "Үчүгэй Үɵдүйээн" (Russian: "Хороший Юджиян") were collected in the northern part of the Republic of Sakha and show great resemblance between them. According to Russian scholarship, Yakut professor Dmitry Kononovich (D. K.) Sivtsev-Suorun Omolloon based himself on the international classification put forth by Antti Aarne in 1910 and later expanded by other folklorists, and classified these Yakut narratives as type 400C, "Муж возвращает убежавшую жену" ("Man goes after his runaway wife"): the bird maiden (a stork or Siberian crane maiden) wears its featherskin and escapes; man goes after her in the sky; she dies, but he resurrects her.


title: Swan maiden

text: The tale of the swan maiden also appears in the Arab collection of folktales "The Arabian Nights", in "The Story of Janshah", a tale inserted in the narrative of "The Queen of the Serpents". In a second tale, the story of Hasan of Basrah (Hassan of Bassorah), the titular character arrives at an oasis and sees the bird maidens (birds of paradise) undressing their plumages to play in the water. Both tales are considered to contain the international tale of the Swan Maiden.


title: Swan maiden

text: A third narrative is the tale of "Mazin of Khorassan" (or "Mazin of Khorassaun"), supposedly not included in Antoine Galland's translation of the collection: an orphaned dyer, Mazin is invited to a castle where there is a magnificent garden. One afternoon, he rests in the garden and sees the arrival, through the air, of seven maidens wearing "light green silk" robes. He is later informed the seven are sisters to a queen of a race of female genii who live in a distant kingdom. The story of Mazin was noted to be quite similar to "Hassan of Bassorah", albeit with differences during the quest.