Swan Lake
Who are the Swan Maidens, and why does George include them in A Song of Ice and Fire?
THE LEGEND
In The World of Ice and Fire, George includes a Pentoshi legend about Hukko, a legendary Andal king who slew the swan maidens. Ancient Andalos being just north of Pentos, in lands now controlled by the Pentoshi, it’s natural that the two groups share some legends, and the maesters of Oldtown believe that Hukko was known as Hugor of the Hill to the Andals.
The Pentoshi legend goes like this: “An old legend told in Pentos claims that the Andals slew the swan maidens who lured travelers to their deaths in the Velvet Hills that lie to the east of the Free City. A hero whom the Pentoshi singers call Hukko led the Andals at that time, and it is said that he slew the seven maids not for their crimes but instead as sacrifice to his gods. There are some maesters who have noted that Hukko may well be a rendering of the name of Hugor.”
MYTHOLOGICAL MAIDENS
Swan maidens, in “real-world” mythology, are mythological beings with ancient provenance. All over the world, from Eurasia to Africa to the Americas, stories of shapeshifting animals are a common mythological motif along with creation myths.
“The swan maiden is a mythical creature who shapeshifts from human form to swan form.The key to the transformation is usually a swan skin, or a garment with swan feathers attached. In folktales of this type, the male character spies the maiden, typically by some body of water (usually bathing), then snatches away the feather garment (or some other article of clothing), which prevents her from flying away (or swimming away, or renders her helpless in some other manner), forcing her to become his wife”
While they are referred to as swan maidens, as many of the stories involve shapeshifting swans that turn into beautiful human women, they can be fish, deer, buffalo, goats, seals, wolves, geese, even bats, among many other forms. Some of these forms have specific names, like selkies for seal maidens or mermaids for fish women. The stories are not always about maidens, either - there are male swan “maidens” in folklore as well.
The swan maiden motif incorporates all mythological beings that are half human and half animal, who live between the human world and the water or the sky. Shapeshifter and skin-slippers, who can take on or off their animal suit to become human, or who live in the natural world beyond the human world. They can be antagonistic or helpful, can save men from drowning or lure them to a death on the rocks. They can be monsters, or lovers, or both.
So the swan maiden as a mythological motif is incredibly widespread, and not necessarily a swan, nor a maiden. It incorporates selkies and mermaids and sirens, those half-women and half-bird beings of Greek mythology. In fact, the Pentoshi legend references the stories of the sirens, who “who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and singing voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island” by mentioning that the Swan Maidens “lured travelers to their deaths in the Velvet Hills”.
HUGOR OF THE HILL
Hukko, from the Pentoshi legend, was probably the same person the Andals called Hugor of the Hill. The first king of the Andals, he was a major figure in the faith of the Seven, having been crowned by the Father himself. If the Pentoshi legend is true, he also sacrificed 7 swan maidens to the Seven in the Velvet Hills. The Andals later fled from the area in the face of the threat from the Valyrians, and invaded Westeros. Faced with extermination and filled with religious fervor, they got a foothold in the Fingers and proceeded to take over the Vale of Arryn, and from there much of Westeros south of the Neck.
THE ANDALS, ANGLES, SAXONS AND VANDALS
A little real world history is important here. The Andals, and the Andal Invasion, are based on the Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the 5th Century AD (the Angles and Saxons) after the Romans left the island. The name is derived from the Vandals, who were an eastern Germanic tribe that were pushed out of their land by the Huns, and then invaded Italy and Spain before leaving from Andalusia and conquering North Africa.
The Germanic tribes of that time shared many things - a common Scandanvian homeland, an ancestral language, religion, stories, and a warrior culture inspired by centuries of in-fighting and fighting with the southern Romans and the peoples of the eastern steppes.
In the 5th century, power vacuums in the west inspired by the collapse of the western Roman Empire and eastern pressures from the powerful Huns (nomadic horse-riding warriors from the Eurasian steppes) coalesced into a migratory pressure on the various Germanic tribes. They moved into western Europe and Britain, creating new kingdoms where Rome had once ruled for 500 years, including France, Spain and England.
GERMANIC INVASION OF ENGLAND
The famous story Beowulf recalls this Germanic shared past: an ancient story of Scandanavian kings and monsters, Beowulf was of the tribe called the Geats, who lived in southern Sweden. He aided the king of the Danes in a fight against the monster Grendel and his more monstrous mother. Late in his life, after Beowulf himself became king of the Geats, he fights and kills a dragon, but dies by the wounds he received in the fight.
This story was carried in the minds of the Germanic invaders of Britain, who came from modern Denmark and Germany. Germanic ancestors of the English told and retold the story until it was written down in Old English in a book of stories hand compiled by English scribes. Escaping fire and purge, the book survived for 1000 years until its importance was finally realized in the 18th century.
BEOWULF AND GRENDEL
The first two monsters in Beowulf, Grendel and his mother, are aquatic monsters who come on land to hunt and eat humans. Beowulf defeats Grendel on land, in the mead-hall of King Hrothgar, by ripping his arm off. Grendel goes back to the marshes to die, and soon after his mother appears at the mead-hall and murders more men. The lair of Grendel’s mother is a mythological geography: described as a deep lake where deep below a waterfall Beowulf dives to find a cave underground; Beowulf slays the water monster with an ancient sword and takes the head of Grendel back to his people. Later he is proclaimed king of the Geats.
THE NICOR
In Beowulf, the Old English word used for water monsters was “nicor”. This was an old Germanic word, generally used for aquatic monsters and water spirits. In the Germanic tradition, the mythological and magical swan maidens and mermaids and other shapeshifting monsters fell under this term “nicor”.
All of the Germanic languages have versions of this word used to describe different types of water monsters. In Norwegian water spirits are called the Nøkk, and this myth was used in the movie Frozen 2 where it was seen as a helpful river horse. In Swedish they are the Näcken.
Näcken lures people down into the lake and takes them, as if drowning; they then come to his magnificent halls on the lake bottom.
The German derivative is Nix or Nixie (the Nix are male and the Nixie are female), a term for water beings who are usually malevolent and like to lure people into deep water, and then drown them. This term has been borrowed into English as well. Another English derivative of this word “nicor” is “knucker” or “nicker”, which is an English water dragon that lives in deep pools or “knuckerholes”.
But in English, these shapeshifting water monsters are best known as the Neck.
*The neck has occurred in all Germanic peoples; if isl. nykr his ability to change shape is mentioned , and the word also means "hippopotamus", as well as the corresponding angls. nicor , fnhty. nihus , "crocodile"; the basic meaning is thus "water wonder"; for. nix is "naked", nixe "mermaid".*
