ravens and hawks and eagles

[marycatelli]

Was philosophically contemplating girls and boys and shapeshifters.  Swan maidens and dove maidens and pea-hen maidens are all, of course, girls.

But then they tend to feature in the same sorts of tales as selkies and get their skins stolen so they can't change back.  And we know there are boy selkies, too.

Not to mention what happens to the boys who are born among the werewolves and don't fit -- the girls escape to be swan, etc. maidens, but the boys?

Fortunately I finally remembered "Marya Morevna" where the three princesses are wooed by an eagle, a raven, and a hawk.  No mention is made of specific cloaks, but then, the story is about their brother-in-law; they feature only as help to him.

Now I have only to decide whether bird forms are sex-specific, or whether there are swan men and raven maidens. . . .

Comments

[marfisa.livejournal.com]

Laurell K. Hamilton had Anita Blake meet a swan-man--the king of the swan shape shifters, in fact--in one of the earlier books in her Anita Blake, vampire hunter series. I think it was about three or four books into the series, but I can't recall the title--just that Anita wound up temporarily joining forces with the leaders of virtually every species of shapeshifter in the area (were-rats were also featured) against the big bad du jour.

[marycatelli]

Yeah, I vaguely remember that book -- though what I chiefly remember was that a lot of the shifters were not base humans, under it. 0:)

[benbenberi.livejournal.com]

Zeus took the form of a swan (with Leda, & I think there were a couple of other instances too).

[marycatelli]

Yeah, but he's a god, not a shape-shifter as such.