The Wild Swans

Part One · Eleven Brothers

Far away, in a land where the swallows go in winter, there lived a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, whose name was Elisa. The eleven brothers were princes, and each of them went to school with a star on his chest and a sword at his side. They wrote on golden slates with diamond pencils, and they could say their lessons by heart. Elisa sat on a little stool made of glass, and she had a picture book that had cost half a kingdom. Oh, they were happy children, as long as it lasted.

But the king married a new queen, who was wicked and did not love the children at all, and they saw it on the very first day. There was a feast in the castle, and the children played at having visitors, but the queen gave them only sand in a teacup and told them to pretend that it was cake. A week later she sent little Elisa away to live with farm people in the country, and before long she told the king so many lies about the princes that he no longer wished to see them.

"Out into the world with you, and fly away like great birds without a voice!" cried the queen. But her enchantment was not as cruel as she had hoped, because the eleven brothers turned into eleven wild swans with golden crowns upon their heads. With a strange cry they flew out through the palace windows, over the park and over the forest, until they were out of sight. At dawn they passed the farmhouse where their sister lay sleeping, but however loudly they called, they could not make her hear.

When Elisa turned fifteen, she was sent home to the palace. The queen was furious to see how lovely she had grown, so she tangled the girl's hair, rubbed her face with ashes, and told the king that this was a stranger who had wandered in from the road. The king did not know his own daughter, and the guards drove her from the gates. Poor Elisa ran into the great dark forest, and she wandered there all day, crying for her brothers, who were nowhere to be found.

She slept that night on a bed of moss, and in the morning she came to a quiet lake, where she washed the ashes from her face and looked like herself again. Day after day she followed a stream through the woods, until she reached the shore of the wide sea. And there, as the sun was going down, eleven wild swans with golden crowns came flying in from the west. The moment the sun touched the water, they shook off their feathers, and eleven princes stood on the sand.

Part Two · The Nettle Shirts

Elisa knew her brothers at once, and she threw her arms around them, and they all laughed and cried. "By day we must fly as swans," said the eldest, "but when the sun goes down we have our own shapes again. We must always be on land at sunset, or we would fall into the sea. We live far over the water, and we can only come home once a year. But now that we have found you, we will carry you with us." All night they wove a great net of willow bark and rushes, and in the morning Elisa lay down in it.

The eleven swans took the net in their beaks, and they rose with her into the sky. The youngest flew above her and spread his wings like a roof, to shade her face from the burning sun. They flew all day over the rolling sea, and at sunset they came to a tiny rock, hardly bigger than a boat, where the brothers stood close around their sister while the waves splashed up at their feet. By morning they had reached a green shore, where there was a deep and quiet cave.

That night Elisa dreamed that a fairy came to her. "Your brothers can be freed," said the fairy, "but are you brave enough? Do you see the stinging nettle in my hand? Such nettles grow in the old churchyards, and you must gather them with your bare hands, though they will burn like fire. Crush them with your feet to make flax, spin the flax into thread, and weave eleven long shirts. Throw one over each swan, and the spell will break.

"But hear me," said the fairy. "From the moment you begin until the last shirt is done, you must not speak. If you say a single word, it will be too late for your brothers, and the spell will hold them forever." Elisa woke up and set to work at once. The nettles raised blisters on her soft hands, but she did not mind, because she would do anything for her brothers. She sat in the cave making shirts, and she never said a word.

Part Three · The Palace and the Churchyard

When the brothers came back at evening and found her silent, they were afraid that another wicked spell had been put on her. But when they saw her hands, they understood what she was doing for them. The youngest brother wept, and where his tears fell, Elisa's pain vanished and the blisters healed. She worked on through the night, and she did not rest until one shirt was finished, and then another, and another, and she had already made seven.

One morning a young king rode through the forest, hunting, and he found her in the cave. "Who are you?" he asked, but she could not answer. He saw how lovely and kind she looked, and he led her to his horse and carried her to his palace. Elisa wept for sorrow, because her brothers did not know where she was, but the king was good to her, and he asked her to be his wife. She could only look at him with eyes that said yes, and she took her nettles with her.

Now at the palace, the Archbishop whispered that this silent girl was a witch, and he did not believe the king should trust her. But the king would not listen. Then one night Elisa ran out of nettles. She slipped quietly out of the palace and into the old churchyard, where strange shadows crouched upon the gravestones. Her heart pounded, but she gathered the nettles she needed and hurried home. The Archbishop had followed her, and he saw it all.

Part Four · The Swans Come Home

"The people must judge her," said the Archbishop to the king, and the king's heart ached, because he did not want to believe it. But the council ruled that Elisa must be taken away and sent to the fire. They put her on a rough cart, and it rattled slowly toward the square. Even then she did not stop working. Ten shirts lay in her lap, and with all her remaining strength she was knitting the eleventh, while the crowd jeered and grabbed at her work and cried out that she was a witch.

Suddenly there was a rushing of wings, and eleven white swans came sweeping down upon the cart. Elisa threw the shirts over them as fast as she could, and in a moment they stood before her as eleven handsome princes. Only the youngest had one arm like a swan's wing, because she had not had time to finish his sleeve. "Now I may speak!" cried Elisa, in a voice that shook with joy. "I am innocent!" And she told the king and all the astonished people everything that had happened.

The church bells began to ring by themselves, and the birds of the air gathered in great flocks. The king took Elisa in his arms, and the Archbishop bowed his head in shame. The brothers and their sister were together at last, and the wicked queen's enchantment was broken for good. Back to the palace they went, in a wedding procession more magnificent than any king had ever seen, and the whole happy company was glad that the long, silent work was over.