Miss Mawer owned at least four pieces of jewellery that meant something special to her.
Three of them were necklaces, and one that was worn regularly by Miss Mawer depicted a cloaked man on a swan. This was Lohengrin, a character from old German literature in the vein of King Arthur.
Lohengrin was a mysterious, chivalrous knight who helps people in need – but insists on his identity remaining a secret.
As well as being a traditional story, Lohengrin was also the subject of a famous opera of the same name, by Richard Wagner. The most popular and recognisable part of the Lohengrin opera is the Bridal Chorus – more easily known as Here Comes the Bride!
One of the patrons of Richard Wagner was King Ludwig II (1845- 1886) who was king of Bavaria. In Bavaria, there is a ‘fairytale’ castle called Neuschwanstein, in the municipality of Schwangau – the German word for swan is Schwan, and the heraldic animal of the Courts of Schwangau is the swan.
King Ludwig II named this fairytale castle Neuschwanstein partly for the swan symbol and partly due to his admiration of Wagner’s operatic character of the Swan Knight (Lohengrin).
When I visited Neuschwanstein in 2020, in the days just before lockdown, I didn’t know of the connection with Miss Mawer. So it can’t really be classed as part of my Irene Mawer mini-pilgrimages, but it is a nice connection tion, all the same!
Here is a link to one of my old travel blogs, with this Neuschwanstein post in it: https://andyjanetblog2.wordpress.com/