Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/585

 whilst his mother dissolving into tears is transformed into a lake whereon the stately bird can glide.

In the fable of Leda, Zeus, the heaven above, clothed in swan’s shape,—that is, enveloped in white mist—embraces the fair Leda, who is probably the earth-mother, and by her becomes the father of the Dioscuri, the morning and evening twilights, and, according to some, of beautiful Helen, that is, Selene, the moon. The husband of Leda was Tyndareos, a name which identifies him with the thunderer, and he is therefore the same as Zeus.

According to the Cyprian legend, Nemesis, flying the pursuit of Zeus, took the form of a swan, and dropped an egg, from which issued Helen. Nemesis is a Norn, who, with Shame, “having abandoned men, depart, when they have clad their fair skin in white raiment, to the tribe of the immortals .”

Swans were kept and fed as sacred birds on the Eurotas, and were reverenced in Sparta as emblems