The Six Swans

A king hunting in a great forest chased a beast so hard that his attendants were left behind. Evening found him lost. An old woman with a nodding head came toward him—a witch. She would show the way only if he married her daughter. In his fear of starving he agreed. At the hut the daughter sat by the fire, beautiful yet somehow dreadful to his secret sense. He set her on his horse; the witch showed the path; the wedding was held at the palace.

The king had been married before and had seven children he loved above all—six boys and a girl. As he now feared that the stepmother might not treat them well, and might even do them injury, he took them to a lonely castle in the midst of a forest. It lay so concealed, and the way was so hard to find, that he himself would not have found it if a wise woman had not given him a ball of yarn with wonderful properties: when he threw it down before him, it unrolled itself and showed him the path. He visited so often that the queen grew curious. She bribed servants, learned of the yarn, stole it, and sewed little white silk shirts with witchcraft in the seams. While the king hunted, she followed the ball to the castle. The children ran out thinking their father had come. She flung a shirt over each boy; they became swans and flew over the trees. The girl had not run out; the queen knew nothing of her and went home pleased.

Next day the king found only his daughter. She told how her brothers had flown away as swans and showed feathers from the yard. He mourned, never suspecting the queen, and wanted to take the girl away; she begged one more night, then fled into the forest to seek her brothers.

She walked day and night until she could go no farther and found a robbers’ hut with six small beds. She crept under one. At sunset six swans flew in, blew their feathers off, and stood as her brothers for a quarter of an hour only. Joy was short: she could not stay—the robbers would kill her—and they could be human only that brief time each evening. To free them she must neither speak nor laugh for six years, and sew six little shirts of starwort; one word would ruin all. Then they were swans again and flew out.

She resolved to deliver her brothers even if it cost her life. She left the hut, walked into the heart of the forest, seated herself in a tree, and spent the night there. At morning she gathered starwort and began to sew. She spoke to no one and had no wish to laugh; she looked only at her work. After a long time the king of that country hunted nearby; his huntsmen came to the tree and called up questions. She shook her head, threw down her necklace, girdle, and garters to be left alone, until she had only her shift. They climbed up, fetched her down, and led her to their king. He asked who she was in every language he knew; she stayed mute as a fish. Her beauty moved him; he wrapped her in his mantle, set her before him on his horse, and took her to his castle. Rich clothes made her shine like daylight, yet no word came. Her modest ways pleased him so much that he married her.

The king, however, had a wicked mother who disliked the marriage and spoke ill of the young queen. “Who knows where this speechless creature comes from?” she said. “She is not worthy of a king.” After a year, when the young queen bore her first child, the old woman took it away, smeared the sleeper’s mouth with blood, and went to the king accusing her of being a man-eater. He would not believe it and would let no one harm her. She sat continually sewing the shirts and cared for nothing else. The next time she bore a beautiful boy, the false mother-in-law used the same treachery; still the king could not credit it. “She is too pious and good,” he said. “If she could speak and defend herself, her innocence would come to light.” But when the old woman stole the newborn a third time and the queen uttered not one word of defence, he delivered her for judgment, and she was sentenced to die by fire.

The day of execution was the last day of the six years. The six shirts were ready—only the left sleeve of the sixth was wanting. Led to the stake with the shirts on her arm, she saw six swans flying toward her as the fire was about to be lit. She threw the shirts over them; swan-skins fell; her brothers stood whole and handsome—except the youngest, who kept a swan’s wing for a left arm because of the missing sleeve. They embraced. Then she went to the king and spoke at last. “I am innocent,” she said. “I was falsely accused.” She told of the old woman’s theft of the three children. The children were brought back; the wicked woman was bound to the stake and burnt. The king and queen lived many years in peace with the six brothers.

Where this story comes from

“The Six Swans” is a German tale from the Brothers Grimm, not an Indian one. It is number 49 in Margaret Hunt’s translation, published in 1884 (Die sechs Schwäne), and this retelling follows Hunt’s text on Project Gutenberg.

The Grimms’ note says it came from Hesse and is related to “The Seven Ravens”, except that here the brothers are bewitched through no fault of their own. A story from German Bohemia links the two. The Grimms thought it very old, connecting the swan-shirts to the swan-maidens of Norse poetry and to the swan-knight legend of Lohengrin.

The sister’s mother-in-law is burnt at the stake at the end, as in Hunt. She is distinct from the witch-stepmother who transformed the brothers.

Read the original: Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, tr. Margaret Hunt (Project Gutenberg #5314, The Six Swans)

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: includes stolen babies, a false accusation of cannibalism, threatened burning and an execution by fire.

Silence is not evidence of guilt

The sister’s silence has a purpose the court cannot see. Her mother-in-law exploits that gap by stealing the babies and manufacturing a bloodstain as evidence. The king first believes in her goodness, then permits punishment without discovering where the children went. Her inability to answer does not make that judgment just.

The missing sleeve leaves one brother with a wing. This incomplete restoration preserves a trace of the long ordeal instead of erasing every cost at the happy ending.

Ask the question the court misses

List the accusations and the facts the court would need to establish. Write two questions an investigator could ask without requiring the queen to break her silence. Then explain how the surviving wing changes the reunion scene.

Talk about it

• Why couldn’t the sister speak or laugh for six years?
• The king’s mother kept stealing the babies. Why do you think the queen still didn’t speak to defend herself?
• How could the court have investigated the missing babies without treating the queen’s silence as proof of guilt?

Related stories

• The Seven Ravens — a Grimm sister who travels to a glass mountain to free her brothers
• The Goose-Girl — a Grimm princess bound to silence who waits for the truth to come out
• The Pink — a Grimm queen falsely accused of losing her child and shut away for years