The Six Swans

Once upon a time a king was hunting in a great forest and chased an animal so fast that none of his men could keep up with him. When evening came, he stopped, looked around and realised he was lost. He looked for a way out of the forest but could not find one. Then he saw an old woman coming towards him, nodding her head; she was a witch. "Good woman, can you show me the way out of the forest?" he asked. "Oh yes, Lord King, I can," said the woman, "but on one condition. If you don't fulfil it, you will never get out of the forest and will die of hunger here." "What is the condition?" "I have a daughter, the most beautiful girl in the world. If you make her your queen, I'll show you the way."

With fear in his heart, the king agreed. The old woman led him to her little house, where her daughter was sitting by the fire. The daughter greeted the king as if she had been expecting him. She was very beautiful, but when the king looked at her, he felt a secret shudder. He lifted the girl onto his horse, the old woman showed him the way, and the king reached his palace. There the wedding was held.

The king had been married once before, and his first wife had left him six sons and a daughter, whom he loved more than anything in the world. Because he was afraid their stepmother would harm them, he took them to a lonely castle in the middle of a forest. The castle was so hidden and the way to it so hard to find that even the king would not have found it if a wise woman had not given him a ball of yarn with wonderful powers. When he threw it in front of him, it unwound by itself and showed him the way.

The king went to see his dear children so often that the queen noticed his absences. She grew curious and wanted to know what he did alone in the forest. She gave his servants a great deal of money, and they told her the secret and gave her the ball of yarn. Then the queen, using magic she had learned from her mother, sewed little shirts of white silk and wove a spell into each one.

One day, when the king was out hunting, the queen took the shirts and went into the forest, and the ball of yarn showed her the way. When the children saw someone coming in the distance, they thought it was their father and ran joyfully to meet him. The queen threw a shirt over each of them, and as soon as the shirts touched their bodies, they turned into swans and flew away over the forest. The queen went home delighted, thinking she was rid of her stepchildren. But the girl had not run out with her brothers, and the queen knew nothing about her.

The next day the king came to visit his children and found no one but the girl. "Where are your brothers?" he asked. "Oh, dear Father, they have gone and left me all alone," she said, and she told him how she had seen from her window her brothers fly away over the forest as swans, and showed him the feathers they had dropped in the courtyard. The king was grieved, but he never imagined that the queen had done this wicked thing. Afraid that the girl too would be taken from him, he wanted to take her with him. But she was afraid of her stepmother and begged her father to let her stay one more night in the castle.

The poor girl said to herself, "I can't stay here any longer. I must go and look for my brothers." When night came, she ran away into the forest. She walked all night and the whole of the next day, until she was too tired to go on. She saw a hunting lodge, went in, and found a room with six little beds. But she did not dare to lie in any of them; she crawled under one and lay on the hard floor, meaning to spend the night there.

When the sun was about to set, she heard a rustling and saw six swans come flying in at the window. They landed on the floor and blew on one another, blowing all their feathers away, and their swan skins slipped off like shirts. When the girl looked at them, she recognised her brothers and joyfully crept out from under the bed. Her brothers were overjoyed to see her too, but their joy did not last long. "You can't stay here," they said. "This is a robbers' den. If they come home and find you, they'll kill you." "Can't you protect me?" "No," they said, "because every evening we can only take off our swan skins for a quarter of an hour. During that time we have our human shape, and then we turn back into swans."

The girl wept and asked: "Is there no way to set you free?" "Oh no," they said, "the conditions are too hard. For six years you must not speak or laugh, and in that time you must sew six shirts for us out of starflowers. If a single word comes from your mouth during that time, all your work will be in vain." As the brothers said this, the quarter of an hour was up, and they flew out of the window as swans again.

The girl resolved to set her brothers free, even if it cost her her life. She left the hunting lodge, went into the middle of the forest, climbed a tree and spent the night there. The next morning she gathered starflowers and began to sew. She could not speak to anyone, and she had no wish to laugh; she just sat and worked. A long time passed like this.

One day the king of that country was hunting in the forest. His huntsmen came to the tree where the girl was sitting. They called up to her: "Who are you?" But she did not answer. "Come down. We won't hurt you." She only shook her head. When they kept pestering her with questions, she threw down her necklace, hoping to satisfy them. But they would not go away, so she threw down her belt, then her garters, and then, piece by piece, everything she could spare. Still the huntsmen would not go; they climbed the tree, brought her down and took her to the king. The king asked, "Who are you? What are you doing in the tree?" But she did not answer. The king was so moved by her beauty that he felt a deep love for her. He wrapped her in his cloak, lifted her onto his horse and took her to his palace. There they dressed her in rich clothes, and she shone as beautiful as the day, but she did not say a word. The king married her.

But the king had a wicked mother. She was not pleased with this marriage and spoke ill of the young queen: "Who knows where this girl who can't speak has come from? She isn't worthy of a king." A year later, when the queen gave birth to her first child, the old woman took the child away, hid it, and blamed the queen. The king did not want to believe it and would not allow anyone to harm her. And the queen sat quietly sewing her shirts and paid no attention to anything else. With her second and third child, the wicked mother-in-law did the same thing, but the queen could not say a single word in her own defence, because her brothers' freedom depended on it.

At last, under pressure from his mother and the court, the king had to bring the queen before the judges. The judges decided that she should be punished. The day of the punishment was the very last day of the six years. The queen had nearly finished all six shirts; only the left sleeve of the last one was missing. She took the shirts over her arm and went out into the square.

Just then there was a rushing sound in the air, and six swans came flying. When the queen saw that her deliverance was near, her heart filled with joy. The swans came down beside her; she threw the shirts over them, and as soon as the shirts touched them, their swan skins fell away, and there stood her brothers, strong and handsome. Only the youngest still had a swan's wing in place of his left arm. They hugged and kissed one another.

The queen went to the astonished king and began to speak: "Dearest husband, now I may speak and tell you that I am innocent and have been wrongly accused." She told him that the old woman had taken her three children and hidden them. The children were found and brought back, and the king was overjoyed. The wicked mother-in-law was driven out of the palace. The king, the queen and her six brothers lived happily and peacefully for many years. And the youngest brother always told the finest stories with his wing; for a sister's patience and love had made him human again.