It is difficult to find a person who would not have read Pushkin's "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" and paid no attention to the image of the mysterious Swan Princess. This wonderful girl, with "a star in her forehead", can cope with any problems of her lover and build a rich city on a deserted island in one night. However, apparently, the beautiful sorceress became the heroine of Pushkin's fairy tale not by chance.
Progenitor birds
Legends about girls who can turn into swans exist among many - both European and Asian - peoples. Moreover, in some myths, beauties become ancestors after they fall under the charm of a clever hero, who steals their magic wings at night. So, according to the Buryat legend, the foremother of their people is the heavenly swan-maiden Khunshubuun, who became the wife of the young hunter Khorida-mergen and gave him 11 sons. The Yakut legend calls the bird-maiden from the upper world, who gave her heart to the great shaman, as the ancestor of all people.
They tell about mysterious swans and Slavic legends. According to one of them, the famous founders of Kiev - the brothers Kyi, Schek and Khoriv - had a sister named Lybid. True, unlike the oriental "swans", this girl's personal life did not work out. And all because of her proud disposition. This young lady was so proud of her unearthly beauty that she drove away applicants for her hand and heart, considering them unworthy. Over the years, the flow of suitors dried up, and the arrogant damsel remained an old maid. Lybid spent her last days in a tiny hut on the outskirts of the city, built by her brothers. There, for days on end, she cried for her ruined life, and a river flowed from the girl's tears, which years later was named after the proud beauty.
Hyperborean maidens
Modern esotericists do not exclude that the swan girls could have real prototypes. For example, in the legendary northern country of Hyperborea, young ladies allegedly possessed a secret technology that helped them turn into birds. It is no coincidence that the swan was one of the supreme deities of the legendary country. As the ancient Greek myths say, it was Hyper-Borea that was ruled by a certain king, who had six daughters - Swan Maidens, who took on a bird's appearance and flew over the whole world.
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It is quite possible that later the mythical maidens endowed other women of Hyperborea with magic charms, and this was useful to them after the death of their famous homeland. Having lost their home, the inhabitants of the legendary country settled in the southern lands of Eurasia.
The secrets of "swan" magic became available to representatives of other tribes. So, the ancient Greek poet Ovid, who lived for many years in the Danube city of Toma, wrote in one of his works that Scythian women know how to make a kind of potion, with the help of which they then turn into birds. They keep the recipe for this magic potion secret and share it only with selected girls.
In addition to Ovid, other ancient authors also mentioned Scythian women-birds in their works.
It is possible that it was the works of these ancient writers that prompted the Soviet cosmist philosopher Alexander Barchenko to try to uncover the secrets of the Hyperboreans. In particular, Alexander Vasilyevich was interested in the technologies of the legendary country for the development of airspace, and in order to master them, he organized several expeditions to the Kola Peninsula in the 1920s. There he talked for a long time with the Sami shamans (Barchenko considered them the heirs of the Hyperborean knowledge), and also looked for entrances to the famous dungeons, where, according to legend, some of the inhabitants of Hyperborea took refuge after the death of their ancestral home.
However, these expeditions did not bring the desired results, and therefore the secret of the swan maidens has not been solved to this day.
Success in battle
In historical sources telling about the exploits of the Vikings and ancient Germans, swan girls are also often found. However, the sagas also endow them with the gift of prophecy, therefore, these European young ladies opened the future to cunning knights who managed to steal their wings. But to win the favor of the flying sorceress was considered a great success, because victories on the battlefield for such a lucky man were guaranteed.
The following Icelandic saga is an example of this. Once the leader Helga, the ruler of one of the warlike ancient tribes, quarreled with King Olaf of Norway. The disagreement resulted in a bloody battle, the ending of which was very difficult to predict. And then Helga's beloved, the sorceress Kara, intervened in the matter. This lady turned into a black swan and began to fly over the enemy army. With her sorcery, Kara blunted the weapons of the Norwegian fighters, and they began to retreat, unable to resist the successful rivals. However, having rushed forward, Helga in the heat of the battle swung his sword so hard that, inadvertently, cut off the leg of the magician-swan. Defeated, Kara fell to the ground, after which the soldiers of her lover were defeated by the Norwegians.
Saving prayer
Stories about women swans could be heard in European countries at a later time. True, with the advent of Christianity, these ladies from powerful sorceresses turned into enchanted beauties - victims of the spell of evil sorcerers and witches. One of these legends gave the idea of the famous ballet Swan Lake to the great composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who tells the story of the unfortunate girl Odette, turned by an evil sorcerer into a bird and only at moonlit nights gaining her true appearance.
However, many other legends about the ladies turned into swans have survived on the German lands. So, in Hesse, the following story has been told for several centuries. Once a forester who served with a local duke, bypassing the territory entrusted to him, saw a beautiful swan in a deaf forest on the surface of a secluded lake. At first the man wanted to shoot the bird in order to present this noble game to the owner, but she suddenly turned into a delightful girl. The stranger swam to the shore and with tears in her eyes told the forester her sad story. It turned out that the unfortunate woman was the only child of wealthy peasants who lived in a neighboring village. The beauty's mother had a falling out with the village witch, and she bewitched her beloved daughter, turning into a swan. Only the person who will read the prayer "Our Father" to her every Sunday during the year can remove the spell,and also keep their meeting a secret. The forester agreed to act as a noble savior, but shortly before the end of the due date, he told his friends about his adventure. After that, the enchanted beauty disappeared without a trace, and how her future fate developed is unknown.
Guests from other worlds
However, in recent centuries, there have been no stories of meetings with swan maidens, who took such guise of their own free will or under the influence of evil spells. And this fact made some esotericists put forward the following assumption. In their opinion, the wonderful swan-maidens are guests from parallel worlds, which is confirmed by all the same old legends. After all, their main characters flew "from heaven" or emerged from nowhere, like the Swan Princess in Pushkin's fairy tale. And, by the way, even having become happy mothers, having a loving husband and numerous offspring, they still sought to find their magic wings and return to their homeland. And if this is so, then our contemporaries also have a chance one day to get acquainted with the sorceress-swan.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №4. Author: Elena Muromtseva