Note 6 — Chapter CVIII

Cp. Hagen’s Helden-Sagen, Vol. II, pp. 341, 342. Here Hagen steals the clothes of some Meerweiber, who were bathing in the Danube; in this way he induces the elder of the two to prophesy the fate of himself and his companions at the court of Attila. In the Russian story of Vasilissa the Wise (Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 126,) the hero steals Vasilissa’s shift. She promises to do him good service if he gives it back, which he does. She turned into a spoonbill and flew away after her companions. (See Ralston’s remarks on p. 120.) We find the incident of stealing the robes of bathing nymphs in Prym and Socin’s Syrische Sagen und Märchen, p. 116; in Waldau’s Böhmische Märchen, p. 250; Veckenstedt’s Wendische Märchen, pp. 119–130; Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Märchen, Part I, p. 31, (with Köhler’s notes). In the above tales the dress stolen is what our great folk-lore authority terms a “plumage-robe.”

The Nereids in modern Greek stories are swan-maidens; see Bernhard Schmidt’s Griechische Märchen und Sagen, p. 134. The subject of Swan Maidens is thoroughly worked out by Baring Gould in his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, New edition, pp. 561–578. See also Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, pp. 263 and ff. He expresses his firm conviction that tales of this kind will be found in Indian collections.