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Once upon
a time...
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.
The Six Swans
from the Yellow Fairy Book
Story Edited
by Andrew Lang |
