yellow fairy tale book

Chapter 2 The Six Swans
A king was hunting in a great forest.He was so eager and eager for the hunt that the courtiers could not keep up with him.As night fell, he stopped and looked around, only to find that the courtiers and retinue were not around.He looked for a way out but couldn't find it.An old woman, who was a witch, came up to him, shaking her head.

"Good lady," said the King, "can you show me the way out of the forest?"

"Oh, of course, Mr. King," said the witch. "Of course I can give advice, but on one condition. If you don't agree to this condition, you won't be able to get out of the forest, and you will starve to death."

"On what terms?" asked the king.

"I have a daughter," said the old woman, "and she is so beautiful that there is no other in the world, and she is just right to be your wife. If you make her queen, I will show you the way out of the forest."

The king was very reluctant, but had to agree to the old woman's terms.So the old woman led the king into a room where her daughter was sitting by the fire.The daughter rose to receive the king, as if she had known of his coming.The king saw that she was indeed very beautiful, but he didn't like her, and always felt a little scared.The king put the old woman's daughter on to the horse, and the old woman showed the way, and the king returned to the palace, and the wedding took place.

The king had a queen, and had seven children—six boys and a girl, and he loved them more than anything in the world.Now, fearing that the stepmother would dislike them and might even hurt them, the king hid them in a lonely old castle in the forest.The place was so hidden that he himself would not have been able to find his way were it not for a ball of thread given to him by a wise woman.This ball of thread is a treasure, as long as you throw the ball of thread forward, the ball of thread will roll forward by itself, leading a path.The king's frequent visits to his children at the castle made the queen very displeased.The queen did not know where the king was going, but wondered how much he liked going to the forest.So she bought some servants with a lot of money, and the servants told her the truth, and they also talked about the ball of thread.The Queen at once found out the ball of thread, wove some clothes out of it, and bewitched them, as her witch mother had taught her to do.

When the king was away, the queen took her clothes and guided the way with a ball of thread, and found the castle.When the king's children saw someone approaching the castle, they thought it was their dear father, and came out joyfully to meet him.The queen threw her cloak towards them, and when it touched their bodies, the six princes turned into six swans, which flew up into the air at once.The queen returned to the palace with great joy, and thought that she was free of her stepchildren.In fact, when the six princes ran out of the castle, their sister did not come out with them, and the queen knew nothing about it.

The next day, the king came to visit his children again, but saw only one daughter.

"Where is your brother?" asked the king.

"Ah! dear father!" the princess replied, "they are all gone, and I am the only one left." She told her father that she saw how the six brothers turned into swans and flew into the air outside the window that day, and she picked up the some of the swan feathers from her to show her father.The king was very sad, and he couldn't imagine that it was the queen who did the bad thing.He was worried that the queen would hurt his daughter, and wanted to take her back to the palace to protect herself.But the daughter, afraid of her stepmother, begged her father to allow her to stay another night at the castle.The poor girl thought to herself: "This is not my home anymore, I am going to find my brother." When the night came, she escaped from the castle and entered the dense forest.She walked night after day, and was too tired to walk.She saw a hut, went in, and found six beds in it.Not daring to go to bed, she crawled under one of the beds and slept on the hard floor, intending to spend the night that way.As the sun was setting, she heard a noise and saw six swans fly in through the window.They stood on the ground, blowing on each other, and blowing all over their feathers, so that the feathers turned into shirts.The princess recognized the six brothers at once, and crawled out from under the bed in great joy.The brothers were equally happy to see her.However, the joy did not last long.

"You cannot stay here," said the brothers to their sister. "This is a den of robbers. If they come back and find you, they will kill you."

"Can't you protect me?" the little sister asked.

"No," replied the brothers, "we have only a quarter of an hour each night to take off our goose coats and become men again, and after that quarter of an hour we become swans again."

The little girl burst into tears and said, "Can't you be free?"

"No, no," they said, "it's too hard. You've got to go six years without laughing or talking, and in those six years we've woven six shirts out of 'star flowers'. If you say a word, your All your hard work will be in vain." When the brothers said this, after a quarter of an hour, they turned into swans and flew out of the window again.

The girl is determined to save her dear brothers at the cost of her own life.She left the hut, went into the woods, and climbed a tree to spend the night.The next morning, she set out to gather "star flowers" and began to weave.She can't talk to anyone, can't laugh, and can only work in silence.

She lived thus for some time, when the king of the country came to hunt in the woods.The attendant found someone on the big tree and asked, "Who are you?"

She did not answer.

"Come down," they said, "we won't hurt you."

She shook her head silently.They pressed some more questions, and she simply took a gold chain from her neck and dropped it.When they still did not go away, she threw them a belt, and if that was not enough, she threw down her garter, her dress.The hunters did not want her to be left alone, so they climbed up the tree, brought her down, and brought her to the King.The king asked her, "Who are you? What are you doing on the tree?"

She doesn't answer.

The king asked her questions in the languages ​​he understood, but she remained silent.Seeing how beautiful she was, the king was immediately overwhelmed by her.He wrapped her in his cloak, mounted his horse, and returned to his castle.The king had the girl dressed up in gorgeous clothes, and the girl was immediately dazzling, but she never said a word.The king seated her by his side at the meal, and she pleased him so much with her actions and appearance that he said, "I will marry this woman, and no one else will think of it." A few days later, the wedding took place.However, the king's mother was a witch, and she was very displeased with the marriage, saying, "Who knows who she is, and she can't speak, and she is not worthy of a king at all."

A year later, the queen gave birth to her first child, and the queen mother took the child away.Then she went to the king and said that the queen had killed the child.The king didn't believe it and didn't allow anyone to hurt the queen.The queen just knits in silence, taking no troubles to heart.In the second year, another child was born, but the queen mother still took the child away, but the king still refused to believe that it was the queen who did it.The king said: "She is so lovely and kind, she would never do such a thing. If she is not deaf and dumb, she will defend herself and prove her innocence." However, after the third child disappeared again, the queen Still unable to plead his innocence, the king had to go to court and sentenced the queen to be burned alive.The day of execution came, and it was the last day of six years.After six years, she will be able to undo the magic on the six brothers.Six shirts have been woven, and the left sleeve of only one has not yet been woven.

The queen was led up to the stake, and she held six shirts with one arm.Just as she was standing on the pyre, about to light the fire, she looked around and saw six swans flying across the sky.She knew the time of deliverance had come, and her heart was filled with joy.The swans circled above her head, flying lower and lower, so that she could throw her shirt on them.As soon as the six swans touched the shirt, the goose feathers fell off immediately, and six teenagers stood next to the younger sister alive, healthy and handsome.Only the youngest little brother has a left arm which is still a swan's wing.They hug and kiss each other.The queen walked up to the bewildered king, and said to him: "My dear husband, now I can speak, and I will publicly declare my innocence, and I will be cleared of my wrong."

The Queen told the King how the Witch Queen Mother had cheated and how she had taken away the three children secretly.To the great surprise of the king, all three children were found, and the witch queen mother did not end well.

For many years the king, queen and her six brothers lived in joy and peace.

(End of this chapter)