were actually human women who trained over time to be skilled divers for things like sponges, and spent a lot of time in the sea as a result. One proponent of this theory is British author William Bond, who has written several books about it. Medieval literature Merwomen in Germanic literature Nibelungenlied Two prophetic merwomen (MHG pl.: ), Sigelinde (MHG: Sigelint) and her maternal aunt Hadeburg (MHG: Hadeburc) are bathing in the Danube River when Hagen von Tronje encounters them (Nibelungenlied, Âventiure 25). They are called sjókonar ("sea woman") in the Old Norse Þiđreks saga. There is a swan maiden tale motif involved here (Hagen robs their clothing), but Grimm thought they must have actually been swan maidens, since they are described as hovering above water. In any case, this brief segment became the "foundational" groundwork of subsequent water-nix lore and literature that developed in the Germanic sphere. They are a probable source of the three Rhine maidens in Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold. Though conceived of as swan-maidens in Wagner's 1848 scenario, the number being a threesome was suggested by the woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Eugen Napoleon Neureuther in the Pfizer edition of 1843 (fig. on the left). Rabenschlacht Middle High German mereminne 'mermaid' is mentioned, among other epics, in the Rabenschlacht ("Battle of Ravenna", 13th cent.) of the Dietrich cycle. The mermaid (or ) is named Wâchilt and is the ancestress of the traitorous Wittich who carries him off at the time of peril to her "submarine home". This material has been found translated as a medieval Þiðreks saga only in a late, reworked Swedish version, i.e., one of the closing chapters of Ðiðriks saga (15th century, also known as the "Swedish epilogue".). The mermaid/undine is here translated as Old Swedish . The Old Norse Þiðreks saga proper calls the same mermaid a ( [sic.]) or "sea-woman". The genealogy is given in the saga: the sea-woman and Villcinus (Vilkinus), king of Scandinavia together had a son, Vaði (Wade) of (Sjóland=Sjælland, Zealand) who was a giant (); whose son was Velent (Wayland the Smith), whose son after that was Viðga Velentsson (Wittich or Witige), who became a companion/champion of King Þiðrekr (Dietrich von Bern). The frequently mentioned Sjælland, Denmark is interpreted to the divided portion of Villcina-land inherited by the bastard prince Vaði/Wade. The Swedish epilogue transposed the location of the crucial battle where the mermaid