Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/514

502 much reflect upon the innocencie of the noble parents."—Heywood's Hierarchie, lib. viii. p. 542.

"Another thing, much more admirable, hapned in the diocese of Cullein. Diuers princes and noblemen being assembled in a beautifull and faire pallace, which was scituate upon the riuer Rhine, they beheld a boat or small barge make toward the shore, drawne by a swan in a siluer chaine, the one end fastened about her necke, the other to the vessel, and in it an unknowne souldier, a man of a comely personage, and graceful presence, who stept upon the shore: which done, the boat, guided by the swan, left him, and floted downe the river. This man fell afterward in league with a faire gentlewoman, married her, and by her had many children. After some yeares, the same swanne came with the same barge unto the same place; the souldier entring into it, was caried thence the way he came, after disappeared, left wife, children, and family, and was never seen amongst them after! Now who can judge this to be other than one of those spirits that are named ."—Ibid, p. 541.

This beautiful incident of the swan drawing the boat, occurs, I think, in Morte Arthur.