A king was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted so eagerly that none of his courtiers could follow him. When evening came, he found himself lost. He saw an old woman with a shaking head coming towards him; she was a witch.
"Good woman," he said, "can you not show me the way out of the wood?"
"Oh, certainly, Sir King," she replied, "but on one condition. If you do not fulfill it, you will never get out and will die of hunger."
"What is the condition?" asked the King.
"I have a daughter," said the old woman, "who is so beautiful she has not her equal in the world and is well fitted to be your wife. If you will make her your queen, I will show you the way."
The King, in his anguish, consented. The old woman led him to her little house where her daughter sat by the fire. She received the King as if expecting him. He saw she was beautiful but felt a secret horror. He lifted her onto his horse, the witch showed the way, and the King reached his palace where the wedding was celebrated.
The King had been married before and had seven children by his first wife: six boys and one girl, whom he loved dearly. Fearing their stepmother might harm them, he hid them in a lonely castle in the middle of the wood. The way was so hard to find that he needed a magic reel of thread from a wise-woman to guide him.
The new Queen grew curious about his frequent absences. She bribed his servants, learned the secret of the reel, and found where he kept it. Then, using witchcraft learned from her mother, she sewed enchantments into six little white shirts.
When the King rode off, she took the shirts and followed the thread to the castle. The children, seeing someone approach, joyfully ran to meet whom they thought was their father. The Queen threw a shirt over each boy. Upon touching them, they were changed into swans and flew away over the forest. Satisfied, the Queen returned home, unaware the girl had not run out with her brothers.
The next day, the King found only his daughter. "Where are your brothers?" he asked.
"Alas! dear father," she answered, "they have gone and left me alone." She told him she had seen them flying over the wood as swans and showed him the feathers they had dropped. The King mourned but did not suspect the Queen. Afraid for his daughter, he wanted to take her with him, but she, fearing the stepmother, begged to stay one more night.
The poor girl thought, "My home is no longer here; I will go and seek my brothers." That night, she fled into the forest. She ran until exhausted, then found a little hut with a room containing six little beds. Too afraid to lie on one, she crept under a bed.
At sunset, she heard a noise and saw six swans fly in the window. They stood on the floor, blew at each other, and their feathers and swan-skins fell off like shirts. The maiden recognized her brothers and crept out joyfully. Their reunion was brief.
"You cannot stay here," they said. "This is a den of robbers. We can only lay aside our swan skins for a quarter of an hour each evening. Then we are changed back."
"Can you not be freed?" she cried.
"The conditions are too hard," they said. "You must not speak or laugh for six years and must make six shirts for us out of star-flowers. If you utter a single word, all your labour is vain." As they finished speaking, the quarter-hour ended, and they flew away as swans.
The maiden was determined to free her brothers, even at the cost of her life. She left the hut, climbed a tree, and spent the night there. The next morning, she collected star-flowers and began to sew in silence.
She lived thus for some time until the king of that country was hunting in the forest. His hunters found her in the tree. They called to her, but she gave no answer. They pressed her, and she threw down her golden chain, then her girdle, her garters, and finally her dress, but they would not leave. They climbed the tree, brought her down, and led her to their king.
The King asked who she was in all the languages he knew, but she remained silent. Struck by her beauty and modest demeanor, he fell in love, wrapped her in his cloak, and brought her to his castle. He had her dressed in rich clothes, and her beauty shone. He decided, "I will marry this maiden and none other," and soon did so.
However, the King had a wicked mother who disapproved. "Who knows who this dumb girl is?" she said. "She is not worthy of a king."
After a year, when the young Queen had her first child, the old mother took it away and told the King the Queen had killed it. The King would not believe it. The same thing happened with the second child, and still the King doubted. But when the third child disappeared and the Queen, bound by her vow of silence, could not defend herself, the King was forced by law to condemn her to be burned at the stake.
The execution day was the last of the six years. The six shirts were done, save for the left sleeve of the last one. As she was led to the stake with the shirts on her arm, she saw six swans flying through the air. Her heart danced for joy. The swans fluttered low, and she threw the shirts over them. The swan-skins fell off, and her brothers stood before her, living and well—all but the youngest, who had a swan's wing instead of his left arm.
They embraced. The Queen then went to the astonished King and spoke: "Dearest husband, now I can speak. I am innocent and falsely accused." She told him of her stepmother's deceit and how her own mother-in-law had taken and hidden the children. The children were fetched, to the King's great joy, and the wicked mother came to no good end.
The King and Queen, with her six brothers, lived many years in happiness and peace.