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 around 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 wisewoman 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. 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 of thread which alone could point out the way. She had no rest now until she had found out where the king guarded the reel, and then she made some little white shirts, and as she had learned from her witch-mother, sewed an enchantment in each of them.
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. 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 gotten rid of her stepchildren; 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." 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, 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."
When night came she fled away into the forest. She ran all through the night and the next day, until 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. 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." 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. 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 the 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. The king had a wicked mother who was displeased with the marriage, however, 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. 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
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