Fascinating. BTW, I hope nobody has sought swan-maiden legends behind "Home on the Range"! "Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand Flows leisurely down the stream; There the graceful, white swan goes gliding along Like a maid in a heavenly dream." More seriously, swans are thought beautiful, and maids in poetry almost have to be beautiful, with a neck "like the swan" (as in "Annie Laurie") and white, white skin. Nothing mythological there.
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