Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/603



Maerlant (b. 1235), in his “Spieghel Historiael ,” alludes to it— “Logenaers niesdaet an doen, Dat si hem willen tien ane, Dat tie ridder metter swane Siere moeder vader was. No wijt no man, als ict vernam Ne was noint swane, daer hi af quam Als ist dat hem Brabanters beroemen Dat si van der Swane siin coemen.” And Nicolaes de Klerc, who wrote in 1318, thus refers to it in his “Brabantine Gests:” “Formerly the Dukes of Brabant have been much belied in that it is said of them that they came with a swan .” And Jan Veldenar (1480) says: “Now, once upon a time, this noble Jungfrau of Cleves was on the banks by Nymwegen, and it was clear weather, and she gazed up the Rhine, and saw a strange sight: for there came sailing down a white swan with a gold chain about its neck, and by this it drew a little skiff. . .”—and so on.

There is an Icelandic saga of Helis, the Knight of the Swan, translated from the French by the Monk Robert, in 1226. In the Paris royal library is a romance upon this subject, consisting of about 30,000 lines, begun by a Renax or Renant, and