Abstract
The article considers the transformation of the motif of violating the ban in the medieval versions of the “plot of the Swan Knight” in the French and German traditions. While in the French sources the heroine’s violation implies the theme of the struggle between God and the devil, in the Germanlanguage versions the individual motivations of the characters’ behavior are emphasised. The article suggests a possible borrowing by the creators of German poems of the plot-forming motif of a folklore anecdote or urban schwank about Clever Elsa – the motif of the heroine’s thoughts about the future of children. The article concludes that due to appealing to turning to folk genres, German poets managed to create more plausible and convincing motivations related to reasoning about the inconsistency of human nature rather than to the theme of supernatural intervention.
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