The Six Swans
You may think the Brothers Grimm made up "The Six Swans." They did not! They wrote it down from people telling it aloud. It came out in 1812.
Long before that, a French writer named Madame d'Aulnoy told a very similar tale. So this story is over three hundred years old.
It is not only German. People tell it in Norway, Russia, and many other lands. That makes it a story loved all over the world.
The sister must stay silent for years. She sews shirts from stars. One shirt is left without a sleeve — and that tiny missing sleeve changes everything!
Once there was a kind king. He lived in a big castle on a hill.
The king had six sons and one small daughter. They all loved him very much.
Every day, the children played together in the green garden. They ran and laughed under the tall trees.
It was a happy home, full of joy.
One day, the king brought home a new queen. She was not kind.
The new queen did not like the children at all. She wanted them gone.
So she used her magic. She said secret words and waved her hands.
In a flash, the six brothers became six white swans!
Up, up, up flew the six swans! They went high into the sky.
The little sister ran after them. She ran and ran, and she cried and cried.
But she could not catch them. The swans flew far away.
The poor girl was left all alone.
The sister walked into the dark woods to find her brothers.
The woods were big and black. She walked and walked and got very tired.
At last, she saw six white swans fly down. They landed near a small hut.
She crept close and hid behind a tree.
The sun went down. The sky turned red.
Then the six swans turned back into her six brothers! They ran to her and hugged her tight.
But the brothers said, "We can only be boys for a short time each night."
The sister was so happy and so sad.
The brothers had a way to set them free.
"You must stay silent for six long years," they said. "You cannot say one word."
"And you must sew six little shirts out of star-shaped flowers."
The sister looked at them and nodded. She would do it.
"Yes! I will do it!" said the sister. She climbed high into a big tree. She sat on a branch and sewed and sewed. She sewed star shirts day and night.
She never said one single word. Not to the birds. Not to the wind. She stayed quiet and kept sewing.
One day a king came hunting in the woods. He saw her high in the tree. "She looks so kind and lovely," he said. He helped her down and took her home.
She became his queen. But she still said not one word. The king thought she was good and gentle.
The king's mother was mean. She took the queen's babies away and hid them. Then she told the king, "Your silent queen is bad!"
The king was sad. The queen could not speak to tell the truth. So she just kept sewing her star shirts.
Six years passed. The six swans flew to her. The sister threw the six star shirts over them. The swans became six boys again!
"You saved us!" they shouted. And from that day on, the six brothers stayed boys forever.
