THE SIX SWANS

Edition and rights: Original English text from Project Gutenberg ebook #640, marked public domain in the USA. The literary text below is reproduced without AI rewriting.

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A king was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted the game so eagerly
that none of his courtiers could follow him. When evening came on he stood
still and looked round him, and he saw that he had quite lost himself. He
sought a way out, but could find none. Then he saw an old woman with a
shaking head coming towards him; but she was a witch.

‘Good woman,’ he said to her, ‘can you not show me the way out of the
wood?’

‘Oh, certainly, Sir King,’ she replied, ‘I can quite well do that, but on
one condition, which if you do not fulfil you will never get out of the
wood, and will die of hunger.’

‘What is the condition?’ asked the King.

‘I have a daughter,’ said the old woman, ‘who is so beautiful that she has
not her equal in the world, and is well fitted to be your wife; if you
will make her lady-queen I will show you the way out of the wood.’

The King in his anguish of mind consented, and the old woman led him to
her little house where her daughter was sitting by the fire. She received
the King as if she were expecting him, and he saw that she was certainly
very beautiful; but she did not please him, and he could not look at her
without a secret feeling of horror. As soon as he had lifted the maiden on
to his horse the old woman showed him the way, and the King reached his
palace, where the wedding was celebrated.

The King had already been married once, and had by his first wife seven
children, six boys and one girl, whom he loved more than anything in the
world. And now, because he was afraid that their stepmother might not
treat them well and might do them harm, he put them in a lonely castle
that stood in the middle of a wood. It lay so hidden, and the way to it
was so hard to find, that he himself could not have found it out had not a
wise-woman given him a reel of thread which possessed a marvellous
property: when he threw it before him it unwound itself and showed him the
way. But the King went so often to his dear children that the Queen was
offended at his absence. She grew curious, and wanted to know what he had
to do quite alone in the wood. She gave his servants a great deal of
money, and they betrayed the secret to her, and also told her of the reel
which alone could point out the way. She had no rest now till she had
found out where the King guarded the reel, and then she made some little
white shirts, and, as she had learnt from her witch-mother, sewed an
enchantment in each of them.

And when the King had ridden off she took the little shirts and went into
the wood, and the reel showed her the way. The children, who saw someone
coming in the distance, thought it was their dear father coming to them,
and sprang to meet him very joyfully. Then she threw over each one a
little shirt, which when it had touched their bodies changed them into
swans, and they flew away over the forest. The Queen went home quite
satisfied, and thought she had got rid of her step-children; but the girl
had not run to meet her with her brothers, and she knew nothing of her.

The next day the King came to visit his children, but he found no one but
the girl.

‘Where are your brothers?’ asked the King.

‘Alas! dear father,’ she answered, ‘they have gone away and left me all
alone.’ And she told him that looking out of her little window she had
seen her brothers flying over the wood in the shape of swans, and she
showed him the feathers which they had let fall in the yard, and which she
had collected. The King mourned, but he did not think that the Queen had
done the wicked deed, and as he was afraid the maiden would also be taken
from him, he wanted to take her with him. But she was afraid of the
stepmother, and begged the King to let her stay just one night more in the
castle in the wood. The poor maiden thought, ‘My home is no longer here; I
will go and seek my brothers.’ And when night came she fled away into the
forest. She ran all through the night and the next day, till she could go
no farther for weariness. Then she saw a little hut, went in, and found a
room with six little beds. She was afraid to lie down on one, so she crept
under one of them, lay on the hard floor, and was going to spend the night
there. But when the sun had set she heard a noise, and saw six swans
flying in at the window. They stood on the floor and blew at one another,
and blew all their feathers off, and their swan-skin came off like a
shirt. Then the maiden recognised her brothers, and overjoyed she crept
out from under the bed. Her brothers were not less delighted than she to
see their little sister again, but their joy did not last long.

‘You cannot stay here,’ they said to her. ‘This is a den of robbers; if
they were to come here and find you they would kill you.’

‘Could you not protect me?’ asked the little sister.

‘No,’ they answered, ‘for we can only lay aside our swan skins for a
quarter of an hour every evening. For this time we regain our human forms,
but then we are changed into swans again.’

Then the little sister cried and said, ‘Can you not be freed?’

‘Oh, no,’ they said, ‘the conditions are too hard. You must not speak or
laugh for six years, and must make in that time six shirts for us out of
star-flowers. If a single word comes out of your mouth, all your labour is
vain.’ And when the brothers had said this the quarter of an hour came to
an end, and they flew away out of the window as swans.

But the maiden had determined to free her brothers even if it should cost
her her life. She left the hut, went into the forest, climbed a tree, and
spent the night there. The next morning she went out, collected
star-flowers, and began to sew. She could speak to no one, and she had no
wish to laugh, so she sat there, looking only at her work.

When she had lived there some time, it happened that the King of the
country was hunting in the forest, and his hunters came to the tree on
which the maiden sat. They called to her and said ‘Who are you?’

But she gave no answer.

‘Come down to us,’ they said, ‘we will do you no harm.’

But she shook her head silently. As they pressed her further with
questions, she threw them the golden chain from her neck. But they did not
leave off, and she threw them her girdle, and when this was no use, her
garters, and then her dress. The huntsmen would not leave her alone, but
climbed the tree, lifted the maiden down, and led her to the King. The
King asked, ‘Who are you? What are you doing up that tree?’

But she answered nothing.

He asked her in all the languages he knew, but she remained as dumb as a
fish. Because she was so beautiful, however, the King’s heart was touched,
and he was seized with a great love for her. He wrapped her up in his
cloak, placed her before him on his horse, and brought her to his castle.
There he had her dressed in rich clothes, and her beauty shone out as
bright as day, but not a word could be drawn from her. He set her at table
by his side, and her modest ways and behaviour pleased him so much that he
said, ‘I will marry this maiden and none other in the world,’ and after
some days he married her. But the King had a wicked mother who was
displeased with the marriage, and said wicked things of the young Queen.
‘Who knows who this girl is?’ she said; ‘she cannot speak, and is not
worthy of a king.’

After a year, when the Queen had her first child, the old mother took it
away from her. Then she went to the King and said that the Queen had
killed it. The King would not believe it, and would not allow any harm to
be done her. But she sat quietly sewing at the shirts and troubling
herself about nothing. The next time she had a child the wicked mother did
the same thing, but the King could not make up his mind to believe her. He
said, ‘She is too sweet and good to do such a thing as that. If she were
not dumb and could defend herself, her innocence would be proved.’ But
when the third child was taken away, and the Queen was again accused, and
could not utter a word in her own defence, the King was obliged to give
her over to the law, which decreed that she must be burnt to death. When
the day came on which the sentence was to be executed, it was the last day
of the six years in which she must not speak or laugh, and now she had
freed her dear brothers from the power of the enchantment. The six shirts
were done; there was only the left sleeve wanting to the last.

When she was led to the stake, she laid the shirts on her arm, and as she
stood on the pile and the fire was about to be lighted, she looked around
her and saw six swans flying through the air. Then she knew that her
release was at hand and her heart danced for joy. The swans fluttered
round her, and hovered low so that she could throw the shirts over them.
When they had touched them the swan-skins fell off, and her brothers stood
before her living, well and beautiful. Only the youngest had a swan’s wing
instead of his left arm. They embraced and kissed each other, and the
Queen went to the King, who was standing by in great astonishment, and
began to speak to him, saying, ‘Dearest husband, now I can speak and tell
you openly that I am innocent and have been falsely accused.’

She told him of the old woman’s deceit, and how she had taken the three
children away and hidden them. Then they were fetched, to the great joy of
the King, and the wicked mother came to no good end.

But the King and the Queen with their six brothers lived many years in
happiness and peace.