The Six Swans

ONCE    THERE   WAS   A   KING   WHOSE    QUEEN    HAD
died, leaving him with six sons and a little daughter who was the youngest of them all. He loved the children dearly, and they each, like their dead mother, had a golden star on their foreheads.

Now one day this King was riding in the forest, hunting the wild deer. He chased a great stag so eagerly that it wasn't long before he had left his attendants far behind. On and on he galloped, quite alone, but when, at last, he lost all trace of the stag, he found that not only was he in a part of the forest that was strange to him, but that it was growing dark. What was he to do? He tried this way and he tried that, and the worst of it was that soon he found that he was always getting back to the same place. His horse was so tired that he could urge it on no more.

At last, as he sat bewildered, he saw, coming towards him, an old woman whose head nodded and shook as she walked.

"Good woman," said he, "can you tell me the way out of this forest?"

"Oh yes, Lord King, very easily! But it is a way that you will never find by yourself, and I will only show it to you on one condition."

"What kind of condition is that?" asked the King.

"I have a beautiful daughter,' said the old witch. "She is as beautiful as any maiden in the land and well deserves to be your Queen. Agree to marry her and I will show you the way! If you refuse you will never get out."

"Lead on," answered the King, "and let me at least see this daughter of yours that you say is so beautiful."

So, with the old witch going before and the King leading his tired horse, they soon reached a little hut. There, by the fire, sat one of the most beautiful young women that the King had ever seen. She rose gracefully from her place, just as if she had been expecting him and she greeted him in a soft low voice.

And yet, beautiful as she was, and sweetly as she spoke, the King could not help shuddering as he stood there in the hut and indeed, for a moment or two, he could hardly bear to look at her. But he said to himself that there was really no reason why he should feel like this, and he thought his shuddering must be because of his weariness and the fear he had been in when he found that he was lost in the forest.

The end of it was that the King agreed to the bargain. He would make the beautiful young woman his Queen. He promised that if the old witch would show him the way now, he would come back to fetch his bride as soon as the wedding could be arranged. Then he said farewell and the old woman showed him a quick and easy way back to his own palace.

Now a promise is a promise. Yet still the King did not feel easy in his mind. How could he be sure that the beautiful Queen that he was going to bring home would be good to his children? So he resolved to put them somewhere where he could be sure that they would be out of harm's way. He remembered that he had a castle that lay in a lonely place and was indeed so hard to find that he would scarcely have been able to get to it himself if it had not been that a wise woman had given him a magic ball of yarn. When he threw this ball it would roll along the right path, so that, if he held the end in his hand, he could always find the place.

So, before the wedding, and before he brought home the bride, the children had all been hidden away.

Now the King loved his children very much, so that he often wanted to visit them, and so it was not long before the new Queen noticed that, on one excuse or another, her husband was always riding off alone, and she could not rest till she knew what his secret was.

The Queen offered great sums of money to this ser­vant and that, and at last one of them took the bribe and not only told her about the six sons, but also that the castle where the King had hidden them could only be found by means of the magic ball of yarn.

The wicked Queen said nothing to her husband about what she had found out, but, in secret, she sewed six little shirts of white silk and, having learned many magic arts from her mother the witch, she sewed a charm into each.

Now it happened that the servant had said nothing about the little girl, so, when the six silk shirts were finished, the Queen imagined that, as soon as she could find the bail of yarn, everything would be ready.

At last she managed to discover where the King kept the magic ball, and, watching her opportunity, she took it from its hiding-place, put the little shirts over her arm and throwing the ball before her, off she set, and it wasn’t long before she saw a castle in the distance. The young Princes happened to be watching and when they saw that someone was moving, as usual, on the lonely path that led to their hiding-place, they supposed that it must be their father, so that all six ran joyfully out. But alas! As each came up, the wicked Queen threw one of the little shirts over him, and no sooner had she done this than each boy was turned into a swan which immediately spread its great wings and, first wheeling over the castle, flew far away—over trees, seas and mountains.

Now the little Princess had not run out with her brothers, but, from a window in the castle, she had seen that something was wrong, and then she had seen how six snow-white swans had flown over the castle. But the Queen, who knew nothing about a little sister, thought she had now got rid of all the children and went home delighted.

Next day, when the King went to visit his children as usual, he found no one there but the little girl.

"Alas, dear Father," she said, "they have all gone away and left me alone!" Then she told him as much as she had seen from her high window and she showed him six feathers that the swans had let fall as they flew wheeling over the castle tower.

The King could not believe that it could have been the Queen who had done this wicked thing, but what he did fear was that whoever it was who had done it might also steal the little Princess, so he wanted to take her back with him. But, though she had not been able to see everything clearly, the little girl felt very much afraid of the new Queen, so she begged her father to let her stay just one more night in the lonely castle. At last the King agreed and said he would come next day and then she must come with him.