The Wild Swans

Far away, in the land the swallows fly to when our winter comes, there lived a king with eleven sons and one daughter, named Eliza. The eleven princes went to school each day with a star on their breast and a sword at their side, writing their lessons with diamond pencils on golden slates. Little Eliza sat on a stool of clear glass and had a picture book that had cost half a kingdom. They were happy children — but it was not to stay that way.

Their father married a new queen, and she did not love the children at all. They knew it from the first day. She sent Eliza away to live with a peasant family in the country, and told the king so many untrue things about the eleven brothers that in time he stopped thinking of them.

"Fly out into the world, then, and fend for yourselves," the wicked queen said one day, meaning it unkindly — "fly like birds that have no voice." But it could not turn out quite as badly as she wished, for the brothers became eleven splendid wild swans. With a strange, wild cry they flew from the palace windows, over the park, and away into the forest.

It was still early morning when they passed low over the cottage where little Eliza lay sleeping. They circled the roof, calling to her, beating their great wings — but no one heard, and no one looked up. So on they flew, higher and higher, until they reached a great dark wood that ran down to the sea.

Poor Eliza had only a green leaf to play with. She would poke a little hole in it and look through at the sun, and it seemed to her she saw her brothers' bright eyes looking back. Every warm sunbeam on her cheek felt like one of their kisses. When the wind passed through the roses by the door and asked, "Who is more beautiful than you?" the roses always answered, "Eliza is." And when the old woman read her hymnbook on the step and the wind asked the book, "Who is better than you?" it answered the same. And it was every word true.

When Eliza turned fifteen, she was sent home — and the moment the queen saw how lovely she had grown, she hated her. She would gladly have turned her into a swan like her brothers, but dared not while the king still wished to see his daughter.

So instead, one morning, the queen brought three toads to the marble bathing room. She kissed each one and wished a cruelty upon it — that Eliza should become dull, and ugly, and hard-hearted — and set them in the bathwater. But Eliza was too good and too innocent for any such magic to hold; the toads could not touch her, and where they had rested, three red poppies floated up instead. So the queen rubbed Eliza's fair skin brown with walnut juice, smeared foul ointment on her lovely face, and tangled her hair until no one could have known her.

When her own father saw her, he did not know her, and would not believe she was his daughter. No one owned her at all, except the old watchdog and the swallows under the eaves — and they had no voice to speak for her.

Eliza wept, and thought of her eleven brothers, all gone from her. Quietly she slipped away from the palace and walked the whole day, over field and moor, until she reached the great forest. She did not know where she was going, only that she must find her brothers.

Night found her still walking, so she lay down on the soft moss, said her evening prayer, and slept, while hundreds of glowworms shone around her like green stars. All night she dreamed of her brothers as children again, in their old happy days.

When she woke, the sun stood high. She found a clear lake, and when she saw her own reflection she was frightened — so brown and strange it looked — but when she washed her face, her fair skin shone through again. She walked on, trusting that God would not forget her, and He did not: a wild apple tree stood bent with fruit, and there she made her meal.

Deeper the forest grew, and darker, until it seemed she walked inside a cage of tree trunks, with no birdsong and no light. That night, in the deep stillness, it seemed the branches above parted, and gentle eyes looked down on her, with small shining faces peeping beside them. Whether she had dreamed it, she could not say.

In the morning she met an old woman gathering berries, who told her: "I saw no princes — but yesterday I saw eleven swans with golden crowns swimming down the river close by." She led Eliza to the riverbank, and Eliza followed the water down to the sea.

There the great ocean stretched before her, empty of any sail. She looked at the smooth stones along the shore, worn round by the patient water. "It never tires, and so it wears down even what is hard," she said. "I will be just as patient, and one day you will carry me to my brothers." Among the seaweed she found eleven white swan feathers, and gathered them close.

As the sun began to set, she saw eleven wild swans with golden crowns come flying home across the water, one behind another like a long white ribbon. She hid as they landed nearby — and the instant the sun touched the sea, their feathers fell away, and eleven handsome princes stood there instead. She ran to them with a cry, and though they were much changed, she knew them, and they knew her. They laughed and wept together, and told each other everything the cruel queen had done.

"We fly as swans all the hours the sun is up," the eldest brother explained, "and only when it sets do we become men again, so we must always be sure of a resting place by nightfall, or we would fall into the sea. Our true home lies far across the ocean, and the only stopping place on the way is a single bare rock, hardly large enough to hold us all. Only once a year may we visit our own country, and stay eleven days — and two of those days are already gone. Tomorrow we must fly on. But how can we ever take you with us? We have no ship, no boat."

"How, then, can I set you free?" Eliza asked, and they talked long into the short night about it, sleeping only a little.

The next day, while her brothers flew off as swans, the youngest stayed behind with her. That evening, when all had returned to their human shapes, the eldest said: "We cannot leave you here alone. Will you trust yourself to us? If our wings together are strong enough, we will carry you across the sea."

"Yes," said Eliza. "Take me with you."

All night the brothers wove a strong net of willow bark and rushes, and at sunrise, when they became swans again, they lifted it — with Eliza still sleeping inside — in their beaks, and flew high over the sea, one flying above her to shade her face from the sun.

They flew all that day, slower than usual for the weight they carried, and evening came with a storm gathering and still no sign of the lonely rock. Eliza prayed with all her heart. Just as the last edge of the sun touched the water, she saw the rock below, and her foot touched it as the sun went down. All night they huddled together while the sea washed over them and thunder rolled, but they held hands and sang hymns softly, and took courage from one another.

By morning the storm had passed, and the swans flew on with Eliza, past drifting cloud-shapes that looked like castles and fleets of ships and vanished as she watched, until at last the real land appeared — blue mountains, forests, cities and palaces glimmering in the last light. There she was set down before a cave hung with green vines like woven tapestry.

"Now let us see what you dream tonight," said the youngest brother, showing her where she would sleep. And Eliza prayed with all her heart to know how to free them, and even in sleep the prayer went on.

She dreamed she flew high among shining clouds, and a fairy came to meet her, shining with light, whom she knew at once for the old woman who had told her of the swans.

"Your brothers can be freed," the fairy said, "but it will take courage and patience beyond any you have known. Do you see this nettle? Others like it grow by your cave and among the graves in the churchyard — only those will serve. You must gather them with your own hands, though they burn and blister you, crush them with your feet to make flax, and weave from it eleven shirts of mail with long sleeves. Cast these over the swans, and the spell will break. But remember this above all: from the moment you begin until the moment you finish, you must not speak one single word. The first word from your lips would fall like a blade upon your brothers' hearts." And she touched Eliza's hand with the nettle, and the burn of it woke her.

It was morning, and beside her lay a nettle exactly as in her dream. Eliza knelt and gave thanks, then went out and began.

The nettles burned her hands and arms like fire, raising painful blisters, but she did not stop. When the swans returned that evening and found her silent and hurting, they understood at once what she was doing for them, and the youngest wept over her burned hands, and wherever his tears fell, the pain eased.

She worked without rest. One shirt of mail was finished; she began the second. But then a hunting horn sounded through the mountains, dogs barked nearer, and hunters came upon the cave — among them the king of that land himself.

"How do you come to be here?" he asked. But Eliza only shook her head, for she dared not speak, and hid her ruined hands beneath her apron.

"Come with me," the king said gently. "You shall not stay in this wild place. If you are as good as you are beautiful, you shall be my queen." And he lifted her onto his horse and rode her to his castle, though she wept all the way, for she thought only of her unfinished work and her waiting brothers.

At the castle they dressed her in silk and set pearls in her hair, and the whole court bowed before her — though the archbishop whispered that a girl found silent in the wild wood must surely be a witch who had bewitched the king. But the king would not hear it. And when he led her to the room he had prepared, she found to her joy that it had been hung with green like her cave, and that her bundle of flax and the one finished shirt of mail had been carried there too. For the first time since her exile, Eliza smiled, and the king, seeing it, married her that very week and had the church bells rung for joy.

Still she could not speak, and still she worked each night in secret, weaving shirt after shirt, and the king never doubted her, though the archbishop's whispers did not stop. But her flax ran short before the seventh shirt was done, and only the nettles among the churchyard graves would serve. So one night, trembling but resolved, she slipped out to gather them — and there in the moonlit churchyard she came upon some dreadful old women doing fearful things among the graves that she dared not watch. She hurried past them with her eyes down and a prayer on her lips, and carried home what she needed.

But the archbishop had seen her go, and told the king, sure now that his fears were confirmed. And though the carved saints in the confessional seemed almost to shake their heads, as if to say *she is innocent*, the archbishop read it the other way, and doubt crept at last into the king's heart. He began to watch her, and saw her slip away at night into her chamber — and could not understand, and grieved.

Her work was almost finished — only the eleventh shirt remained, and she had no flax left. Once more she went to the churchyard for nettles — and this time the king and the archbishop followed her in secret, and saw her among the same terrible women, and the king turned away in sorrow, believing the worst.

"Let the people judge her," he said. And the people judged her a witch, and she was condemned to die by fire.

They took her from the palace to a bare stone cell, and instead of silk gave her the bundle of nettles for a pillow and the rough mail-shirts for a blanket — and she was glad of them, for she could go on with her work. Outside, unkind voices mocked her, but no one comforted her — until, at the barred window one evening, came the whir of wings: her youngest brother had found her. She wept for joy, even knowing the next day might be her last, for her work was almost done. Little mice brought her nettles across the floor, and a thrush sang all night at her window to keep her heart from breaking.

Before dawn the eleven brothers came to the castle gate and demanded to see the king, but were turned away, for the king still slept. As the first sun rose they vanished — and eleven wild swans rose instead over the castle roofs.

The people streamed out through the gate to see the witch burned. Eliza rode in a rough cart, dressed in sackcloth, her hair loose and her face pale — but her fingers never stopped weaving the last shirt, even as she went to her death. The crowd jeered and reached to tear the mail-shirts from her lap — when eleven wild swans came sweeping down and settled around the cart, beating back the crowd with their great wings. Many fell silent then, whispering that surely this was a sign from heaven.

As the executioner took her by the hand, Eliza threw the eleven shirts, quick as thought, over the eleven swans — and there stood eleven handsome princes once more. Only the youngest had a swan's wing instead of one arm, for she had not had time to finish that last sleeve.

"Now I may speak!" Eliza cried. "I am innocent!"

And the people, seeing the wonder, bowed low as if before a saint — but Eliza herself sank fainting into her brothers' arms, worn out by all she had borne in silence.

"She is innocent," said the eldest brother, and told the whole story to the crowd and to the king, who had come running. And as he spoke, a sweet fragrance rose from the very firewood that had been stacked for her burning: every log had taken root and put out branches, blooming into a hedge of red roses, and at its very top opened one flower, white and shining like a star. The king plucked it and laid it on Eliza's breast, and she opened her eyes, at peace at last.

All the church bells rang out on their own, and birds came flying in great flocks, and such a wedding procession as had never been seen went home together to the castle — Eliza, her king, and her eleven brothers, safe and free.