The Six Swans

A needle passes through a petal as thin as silk paper, drawing a silver-white thread behind it. The hands that hold the needle never stop and never tremble. For months on end those hands sew and sew in perfect silence. No sigh escapes, and no soft laugh slips past the lips. Six small shirts are slowly taking shape from wild asters gathered in the fields, one stitch at a time, one night at a time.

Those hands belong to the youngest daughter of a king, in an old tale that the Brothers Grimm, two German scholars, collected and wrote down. Her story begins with her father, on the day he lost his way in an old forest.

That day the king was out hunting. He chased an animal so eagerly that he went deep into the forest and could not find the way back. As he wandered, lost, an old woman appeared. She said she knew the way and would show it to him, but in return the king must marry her daughter and make her his queen. With nowhere else to turn, the king agreed. When he met the girl, she was indeed beautiful. Yet something in her eyes made him uneasy from the very first look. Still, he had given his word, so he took her home to the palace as his queen.

Before this marriage, the king already had six sons and a youngest daughter, children he loved more than his own life. Afraid that the new queen would harm them, he secretly sent all seven children to live in a small castle deep in the forest. The castle could be reached only with a magic ball of thread, which a fairy of the forest had given to the king. Whenever he let the ball go, it rolled ahead of him and led the way right to the castle door. No one but the king knew this secret, and whenever he left the palace he quietly went to visit his children.

But a queen who was the daughter of a witch could not be fooled for long. She bribed the king's servants and kept asking until she learned the secret of the magic thread. At once she sewed six shirts of white silk and stitched a wicked spell into every seam. Then, while the king was away, she followed the thread herself all the way to the castle in the forest. She threw the silk shirts over the shoulders of the six princes, one after another. The moment a shirt touched his shoulders, each prince turned into a pure white swan. The swans beat their wings, soared into the sky and flew far away toward the distant woods. By good luck the youngest princess was not there at that moment, so she escaped the spell. But as she watched the six swans fly off, she could only stand still in shock, her face wet with tears.

She could not stay alone in the empty castle, so the princess decided to look for her brothers in the deep forest. She walked on and on until night fell, and by chance she found a small house. Inside stood six tiny beds in a row. She crept under one of the beds and waited, her heart pounding, to see what would happen. Just as the sun went down, there was a rush of wings at the window, and six swans flew in and landed on the floor. As soon as they touched the ground, their white feathers fell away like shirts being taken off. Six young men appeared, and they were her six brothers. All six hugged their sister with joy. But the joy was brief, because they could keep their human shape for only about 15 minutes each evening. Then they turned back into swans and flew away.

The brothers took their sister's hands. Their voices were glad and sorrowful at once as they told her the only way to break the curse. For six whole years she must not speak a single word, and she must not laugh even once, whatever happened. In those six years she must sew six small shirts for her brothers with her own hands. The only material allowed was wild asters picked in the fields. If a single word slipped from her lips before the work was done, all her effort would be lost, and everything would have to begin again. When she had heard them out, the princess nodded firmly. Her mind was made up. Even if it cost her her voice, she would save her six brothers.

From that day on she did not say another word. By day she climbed down to pick the wild asters that grew white around the foot of the trees. Then she sat quietly sewing, stitch after stitch, in the shade of the leaves. At night she climbed a tall tree in the forest to sleep in safety. She lived like this day after day, without a laugh, without a complaint, her hands always busy with the needle and the fragile petals.

One day the huntsmen of the young king who ruled that land passed through that forest. By chance they saw her perched high in a tree, still in the fine clothes she had worn when she left the castle. They were all struck by her beauty. They called up to ask who she was and where she came from, but she only bowed her head and said nothing. They kept asking, so she took off her golden necklace and then her belt, and dropped them down to the men one by one. She meant that she wished no one harm and asked only to be left in peace. Still the huntsmen would not leave. At last one of them climbed up, carried her down and brought her before the young king. The moment he saw her, the king was drawn to her. He wrapped her in a warm cloak and took her to his palace. She could not say a word, yet her gentle beauty and the quiet sorrow in her eyes only made him care for her more. Before long he decided to make her his queen, and he would marry no one else.

Even as queen, she kept her promise to her brothers. Day after day she quietly brought wild asters into the palace, and night after night she sewed in secret. She never said a word and never laughed once, whatever happy or sad things went on around her. But the king's mother did not much like her silent new daughter-in-law. She often whispered to the people around her that no one knew where this girl who never spoke had come from. She doubted that such a girl was fit to be the queen of a kingdom.

In the first year, the queen gave birth to her first child. That very night the baby vanished from its cradle, and no one knew how. The queen could not say a word to defend herself or tell what had happened in the night, so the first doubts crept into the court. The king loved his wife and would not believe the whispers. He quietly let the matter pass.

The next year a second child was born, and the same thing happened again. The baby vanished in the night, and still the queen could not speak. This time the whispers spread wider through the palace. The king went on defending his wife, though in his heart he could not help feeling some unease.

In the third year a third child was born, and once again the baby vanished without a trace. This time, when the queen still said not a single word in her own defense, the king had no other choice. Heartbroken, he had to bring her to trial. The silence she kept to save her brothers had now become the very thing that kept her from saving herself.

The day that would decide the queen's fate was set. By a bitter twist, it was the very last day of her six years of silence. For six long years she had not spoken a word or let out a single laugh. Now she had to stand before the court and hear the judgment on her own life. Still she could not open her mouth to defend herself, not even with one sentence. All she could do was hold the six small shirts tightly in her arms. They were almost finished. Five were complete, but the sixth still lacked its whole left sleeve, because time had run out before she could finish it.

At that very moment, a rush of wings sounded from the sky above the square. Six snow-white swans swooped down right in front of her. With no time to think, the queen threw the six small shirts over the six swans, one shirt for each. As soon as a shirt touched the feathers, the white plumage fell away like rice husks. Five brothers stood there in their own shape, healthy and whole as before. Only the youngest was different. His shirt was missing a sleeve, so when he became a man again, a white swan's wing remained in place of his left arm. It could never become a human arm again. The six brothers threw their arms around one another in the middle of the square. In that same moment, her six years of silence came to an end, and the queen felt clearly that she could speak again.

The queen lifted her head and spoke her first words in six long years. Her voice trembled, but every word was clear. She told the whole story from beginning to end. How her brothers had been turned into swans by magic. How she had stayed silent and sewn shirts for six years to break the curse. And how she had never harmed a single hair on the heads of her three children.

At once the truth about the wicked mother-in-law came out before the whole court. The three children were alive after all, and soon afterward they were found and brought home safely. Faced with such plain proof, and with six swans turned back into men right there in the square, no one could deny it or speak up for the lying mother-in-law any longer. She received the punishment her wicked deeds deserved, and from then on no one at court had to fear her again.

From that day on, the queen, the king, the six brothers and the three little children lived together in peace and happiness. The six small shirts, their work now done, were folded carefully and kept as a keepsake of those six long years of silence. And whenever the youngest brother reached out, everyone in the family could see that where his hand should have been, there was still a snow-white swan's wing. It opened and closed gently with every breath, a quiet trace of the silent years that the love of a family had carried through.