"The Six Swans" () is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812 (KHM 49). It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451 ("The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"), commonly found throughout Europe.Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: Animal tales, tales of magic, religious tales, and realistic tales, with an introduction. FF Communications. p. 267 - 268.Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. Berkeley Los Angeles London: University of California Press. 1977. p. 111. Other tales of this type include The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, and The Twelve Brothers. Andrew Lang included a variant of the tale in The Yellow Fairy Book.
Scholars and folktale catalogues report variants of the tale type across Europe, the Middle East, and even India and Japan, although the number of brothers and their animal form may vary between tales.
The fairy tale is about a princess whose six brothers are turned into swans by their stepmother. To break the spell, the princess mustn't speak for six years while sewing six star-flower shirts for her bewitched brothers. Halfway through her task, things become more difficult for the princess when she marries a foreign king and gets falsely accused by her mother-in-law of eating her own children.
Origin The tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1812, and substantially rewritten for the second edition in 1819. Their source is Wilhelm Grimm's friend and later wife Henriette Dorothea (Dortchen) Wild (1795–1867).See German wikipedia.de Wild(familie) for more info on tales that came from the Wilds.
Synopsis
A king gets lost in a forest while hunting for game. An old witch promises to help the lost king get back home, on the condition that he marry her beautiful daughter. The king suspects the mysterious maiden to be wicked, but agrees to marry her. He has six sons and a daughter from his first marriage, however, and fears that the children will be harmed by his new wife. So, before the wedding, the king sends his children to a hidden castle in the forest, secretly visiting them by following a magical reel of thread given to him by a wise woman.
The new queen becomes offended at her husband's frequent absences. Curious, she bribes the servants into revealing her stepchildren's whereabouts and her husband's reel. The queen, who is also a witch, then sews seven magical white shirts. When the king leaves for an errand one day, the queen follows the reel to the hidden castle. Mistaking their stepmother for their father, the six princes rush out to greet her. The queen then throws the shirts over her stepsons, transforming them into swans.
Believing that she has cursed all seven of her stepchildren, the queen goes home. But the princes' sister remains human and has witnessed the enchantment. When her father does visit, the princess tells him everything and begs to remain at the hidden castle for fear of her stepmother. When the king leaves, the princess runs away, finding her brothers in a robbers' hut. The accursed princes can only take their human forms for fifteen minutes every evening. They tell their sister the only way to lift the curse: for six years, she mustn't speak while sewing six star-flower shirts for her brothers; should she speak before the end of the sixth year, however, the spell will never be broken. The princess agrees to do this and, sheltering in a tree, dedicates herself solely to gathering the star-flowers and sewing the shirts in silence.
In the fourth year, the young king of another country goes hunting in the forest and finds the princess sewing her brothers' shirts. Taken by her beauty, the king takes the princess to his kingdom and makes her his wife. However, the king's wicked mother doesn't consider her daughter-in-law fit to be a queen. When the young queen gives birth to her first child, her mother-in-law kidnaps the baby and accuses the queen of killing and eating him, but the king refuses to believe it.
During the next two years, the queen has two more babies, but twice more, her mother-in-law kidnaps them and falsely claims that the queen has killed and eaten her own children. The king is unable to keep on protecting her, and unable to properly defend herself, the queen gets sentenced to be burned at the stake as a witch.
On the day of the queen's execution, the six years expire and she has sewn all six star-flower shirts, but the last lacks a left sleeve. When the queen is brought to the stake, she takes the shirts with her. Just as she is about to be burned, the six swans come flying through the air. The queen throws the shirts over her brothers, and they regain their human form, but the youngest retains a left wing instead of an arm (in some variants, the sister is unable to finish the last shirt in time, leaving her youngest brother a swan permanently).
The queen is now free to speak and, with her brothers' support, proves she is innocent of the crimes against her. The queen's three missing children are found alive, and her mother-in-law is the one who is burned at the stake as punishment.
In the end, the queen, her husband, three children, and six brothers live happily ever after.
Analysis Folklorist Stith Thompson points out that the stories of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther ATU 451 tale-type follow a long literary history, beginning with the tale of the Dolopathos, in the 12th century.Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. Berkeley Los Angeles London: University of California Press. 1977. pp. 110-111. The Dolopathos, in medieval tradition, was later used as part of the Knight of the Swan heroic tale.
Fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes cites that the Brothers Grimm considered an origin in Greco-Roman times, with parallels also found in French and Nordic oral traditions.The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: the Complete First Edition. [Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm; translated by] Jack Zipes; [illustrated by Andrea Dezsö]. Princeton University Press. 2014. p. 493.
The Brothers Grimm themselves, in their annotations, saw a connection between "The Six Swans" tale with a story of seven swans published in the Feenmärchen (1801) and The swan-ride of the Knight of Swan (Lohengrin). They also saw a connection with the swan shirts of the swan maidens of the Volundarkvida.Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. Kinder Und Hausmärchen: Gesammelt Durch Die Brüder Grimm. 3. aufl. Göttingen: Dieterich, 1856. pp. 84-85.
In his notes on Children of Lir tale, in his book More Celtic Fairy Tales, folklorist Joseph Jacobs wrote that the "well-known Continental folk-tale" of The Seven Swans (or Ravens) became connected to the medieval cycle of the Knight of the Swan.Jacobs, Joseph. More Celtic fairy tales. New York: Putnam. 1895. pp. 221-222.
Variants Distribution The tale type is said to be "widely recorded" in Europe and in the Middle East, as well as in India and in the Americas.Kooi, Jurjen van der. "Het meisje dat haar broers zoekt". In: Van Aladdin tot Zwaan kleef aan. Lexicon van sprookjes: ontstaan, ontwikkeling, variaties. 1ste druk. Ton Dekker & Jurjen van der Kooi & Theo Meder. Kritak: Sun. 1997. p. 239. In Europe only, there exist "over two hundred versions" collected and published "in folktale collections from all parts" of the continent.Angelopoulos, Anna and Kaplanoglou, Marianthi. "Greek Magic Tales: aspects of research in Folklore Studies and Anthropology". In: FF Network. 2013; Vol. 43. p. 11.
French scholar Nicole Belmont identified two forms of the tale type in Europe: one "essentially" present in the Germanic area and Scandinavia, and another she dubbed "western version". She noted that in this western version, the youngest sister, after she settles with the brothers, asks for fire from a neighbouring ogre, and a tree sprouts on their yard and bears fruit that causes the transformation.Belmont, Nicole. "Motif «aveugle» et mémoire du conte". In: Bohler, Danielle. Le Temps de la mémoire: le flux, la rupture, l'empreinte. Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2006. pp. 185-194. . DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pub.27721. Web (en ligne): <http://books.openedition.org/pub/27876>.
Variants have also been collected in Japan with the name 七羽の白鳥 (Romanization: Nanaha no hakuchō; English: "The Seven Swans"). However, Japanese scholarship acknowledges that these tales are restricted to Kikaijima and Okinoerabujima.小高 康正 [Yasumasa Kotaka]. "『グリム童話集』注釈の試み(5)(KHM9～11)" [Untersuchungen der Anmerkungen zu den Kinder-und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm (5) Nr. 9～11]. In: 長野大学紀要 [BULLETIN OF NAGANO UNIVERSITY] Vol. 18, issue 4 (1997-03-26). pp. 73-74. . Japanese folklorist Keigo Seki also found variants in Kagoshima.
Literary predecessors A literary predecessor to the tale is The Seven DovesBasile, Giambattista; Strange, E. F. (Ed.); Taylor, John Edward (translator). Stories from the Pentamerone. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited. 1911. pp. 212-228. (Neapolitan: Li sette palommelle; Italian: I sette colombi), in Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone, where the brothers are transformed into doves.Basile, Giambattista; Croce, Benedetto. Lo cunto de li cunti (Il Pentamerone): Testo conforme alla prima stampa del MDCXXXIV - VI;. Volume Secondo. Bari: Gius, Laterza e Figli. 1925. pp. 207-221.
Number of brothers In the tale from the Brothers Grimm, there are six brothers and they are transformed into swans.
In other European variants, the number of princes/brothers alternates between three, seven or twelve, but very rarely there are two,"Die beiden Raben". In: Sommer, Emil. Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen 1. Halle 1846. pp. 141-146. eight,"Vom Mädchen, das seine Brüder sucht". In: Kuhn, Adalbert. Märkische Sagen und Märchen nebst einem Anhange von Gebräuchen und Aberglauben. Berlin: 1843. pp. 282-289.Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 227-234. nine, ten or even eleven,Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 70-75. such as the Danish fairy tale collected by Mathias Winther, De elleve Svaner (English: "The Eleven Swans"), first published in 1823,Winther, Matthias. Danske Folkeeventyr, samlede. (Gesammelte dänische Volksmärchen). Kjobehavn: 1823. pp. 7-11. Winther, Matthias. Danish Folk Tales. Translated by T. Sands and James Rhea Massengale. Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 1989. pp. 5-11. or Ligurian tale Les onze cygnes.Andrews, James Bruyn. Contes ligures, traditions de la Rivière. Paris: Leroux. 1892. pp. 80-82.
Hungarian folk tale collector Elisabeth Sklarek compiled two Hungarian variants, Die sieben Wildgänse ("The Seven Wild Geese") and Die zehn Geschwister ("The Ten Siblings"), and, in her commentaries, noted that both tales were related to the Grimm versions.Sklarek, Elisabet. Ungarische Volksmärchen. Einl. A. Schullerus. Leipzig: Dieterich 1901. p. 290. A third Hungarian is titled A tizenkét fekete várju ("The Twelve Black Ravens").László Merényi. Dunamelléki eredeti népmesék (1. kötet). Vol. I. Pest: Kiadja Heckenast Gusztáv. 1863. pp. 115-127.
Ludwig Bechstein collected two German variants, The Seven Crows and The Seven Swans.Bechstein, Ludwig. As pretty as seven: and other popular German tales. London: John Camden Hotten. pp. 75-80 and 187-194.