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.