Sir Orfeo as being a parallel dimension to the everyday world rather than the Land of the Dead as in the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The ability to move between one world and the other distinguishes the tale as told in its various British versions such as "Sir Orfeo" and the Shetland ballad "King Orfeo" where the captors are envisaged as inhabitants of a parallel fairy domain rather than as the infernal region of the Dead ruled over by Hades as in the Greek myth. Katharine Briggs sees the tale as related in British folk narratives as being equally influenced
Orpheus "to change allegiance, status, ownership". Cognates could include Greek ὄρφνη ("órphnē") "darkness", and surely Greek ὀρφανός ("orphanós") "fatherless, orphan", from which comes English "orphan" by way of Latin. Fulgentius, a mythographer of the late 5th to early 6th century AD, gave the unlikely etymology meaning "best voice," "Oraia-phonos". The earliest literary reference to Orpheus is a two-word fragment of the sixth-century BC lyric poet Ibycus: "onomaklyton Orphēn" ("Orpheus famous-of-name"). He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod. Most ancient sources accept his historical existence; Aristotle is an exception. Pindar calls Orpheus "the father of songs" and identifies him as a