Storytime: The Six Swans

Because of theatre, I've had a lot of occasion to think about or look up fairy tales recently. Specifically Grimm ones, which makes me happy for the sake of my heritage and childhood. Best part is, contrary to Disney-popular-belief-control, fairy tales are not all happiness and rainbows. In fact, their original versions are usually really gruesome. Why is this the best part, you ask? Because it's awesome. Culture is awesome. Folklore is awesome. Innocent people being almost put to death, then rescued and replaced with the evil culprit is awesome. And let's just admit it, a bit of blood and gore is super awesome. It's like a horror movie, minus the movie.

Because of this, I've decided that I would like to occasionally put up a post about fairy tales. There are a LOT of tales most people have never even heard of, and I think it would be really cool to retell some of those. Of course, they're really accessible anyway, you just have to Google them, but I figured it could be fun anyway. At least, or especially, for me. So! We begin with the story of the six swans, since I recently researched that one a bit for company.

There was a king who went hunting in the forest. He was really excited about hunting a boar, so he rode ahead of everybody and nobody could keep up. After a while of riding after this boar all alone, he got lost (it was a giant forest and he was alone, so this makes sense. They didn't have GPS back then). He happened to meet an old creepy woman, who of course was actually a witch. She promised to lead him out of the wood, but only if he married her daughter. Her daughter was beautiful but she gave the king the creeps. Cause, you know, she WAS a witch's daughter. And she was evil.

So the king brought his new queen to his castle, but he was scared that she'd somehow hurt his children (he'd already been married once). So he hid them in a castle in the woods somewhere, but it was really difficult to find it, so the king got a magical ball of yarn that showed him the way when he strung it out (again, no GPS). But after a while his wife got suspicious of the fact that the king was spending so much time in the woods (this is reasonable; if your husband spends most of his day, every day, wandering in the woods, you should probably be a little concerned). So she bribed his servants and they told her about the children and the ball of yarn. So she found out where the ball of yarn was, and she made little shirts with charms sewn into them. When the king went hunting one day, she followed the yarn to the children's castle. Thinking it was their father, the six sons raced down to meet her, but when they came up to her, she threw the shirts on them and turned them into swans. (Ok, transforming your stepchildren: not so reasonable.)

When the king came by the next day, only his single daughter remained. He didn't think it was his wife that had cursed his sons, and he didn't want to lose his daughter, too, so he wanted to take her back home with him. But she was scared of her stepmother and asked to stay one more night. Her dad agreed and she ran away in the night. Into the forest. Because when you're scared and alone in the dark, the forest is exactly the kind of place you want to be.

She walked all night and all day without stopping, trying to find her brothers. At the end of the day, she was super tired (duh) and hid in a robber's hut (again, the safest possible place to be). Right before sunset, six swans landed in the robber's hut, blew on each other and turned into boys. Of course it was her brothers, because how many groups of six swan-man hybrids could there be fluttering around this forest? Everybody was glad to see each other, but the boys told her that they could only be human for about 15 minutes each night. They also told her that if she wanted to break the curse, she wouldn't be allowed to speak for six years and she had to make each of them a shirt of starwort. (I will never understand how cursed characters always know the key to lifting their curse. Is there an instruction manual for being transformed by your evil stepmother? Lifting Powerful Curses for Dummies? So You've Been Turned Into A Bird, 1165 Edition?)

The daughter decided to break the curse, or die trying (there's no half-assing anything in Fairytale-land). She sat down by a tree and began making shirts (starwort is a very small flower. Don't ask me how you would go about making shirts out of it). The king of another country found her there, and brought her to his castle. He liked her, so they got married. But his mother didn't like her. After a year, when the young queen had her first child, the king's mother took the baby and put blood on the queen's mouth, then declared her to be a cannibal to the king. The queen couldn't say a word in her defense, but the king wouldn't believe his wife could do such a thing (awe, true love). The mother did this with all three children the queen had, and after the third son had been "eaten", the king had no choice but to have his wife burned (this is why we now have marriage counseling. Although, I guess even that won't help if you can't speak).

The day the queen was to burn happened to be the last day of her six years of silence, so she brought the shirts she'd made along to the stake. They were all done, except the last one, which had no left sleeve. Right before the fire was lit, her swan-brothers came flying by and she threw the shirts on them. The youngest brother still had one swan-wing for an arm, but we don't find out what happens to him. He just has a swan arm. Everybody hugged, and the queen went up to her husband and declared her innocence. The kids they'd had together were brought to them (from the evil mother's Dingy Storage Room Of Children, I guess) and they burned his mom at the stake instead of the queen.

And the King and Queen and her brothers lived happily till the end of their years. We're not sure about the youngest one, though. I imagine he wasn't quite as happy as everyone else.

On a related note, something exciting is happening! I might very possibly be playing the daughter from this story in our play. If not, I'll be playing the king's evil mother. So that's fun!
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