The Wild Swans

Once there lived a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, whose name was Elisa; the brothers loved their little sister dearly.When their father married a wicked new queen, she grew jealous of the children and wanted them gone.The queen turned the eleven brothers into eleven wild swans, and sent Elisa away to live with poor farmers in the country.

Years later, when Elisa came home a beautiful young woman, the queen could not bear to look at her either.So the queen sent Elisa deep into the forest, certain that she would never find her way back.

That evening, eleven wild swans landed beside the stream where Elisa slept, and at sunset they turned back into her own brothers.“We are swans by day and princes only from sunset to sunrise,” the eldest brother explained, “and tomorrow we must fly far away, over the sea, to our new home.”

That night, Elisa dreamed of a kind old woman who told her exactly how to break the spell.She must gather stinging nettles from the churchyard, spin them into thread with her bare hands, and weave eleven shirts — and she must not speak one single word until the last shirt was finished, or her brothers would die.

Elisa’s hands grew raw and blistered from the nettles, but she worked on in silence, saying nothing to anyone.When her brothers flew to a distant land across the sea, they wove a net and carried Elisa with them, high above the waves.

In that land, a young king found her sleeping in a cave, surrounded by half-finished shirts, and he fell in love with her at once.Though Elisa could not speak to answer him, he brought her to his palace and asked her to be his queen.

Every night Elisa slipped away to a graveyard to gather more nettles, and the palace priest began to whisper that she was a witch.Because Elisa could not speak one word to defend herself, the people believed the priest, and she was led away to be punished.She kept weaving the last shirt with shaking hands even as they took her away, and she finished it just in time.

Eleven wild swans swept down from the sky, and Elisa threw a nettle shirt over each one — eleven princes stood there instead, except that the youngest still had one white wing where his arm should be, because his shirt’s sleeve was not quite finished.At last Elisa could speak again, and she told everyone the whole story; the king married her with great joy, and all twelve brothers and sisters lived happily together from that day on.