Once upon a time there was a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, and he loved them all very much. And everyone in the kingdom knew that they were princes because they all wore golden crowns

The Wild Swans

Once upon a time there was a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, and he loved them all very much. And everyone in the kingdom knew that they were princes because they all wore golden crowns on their heads. Their sister Elise was a beautiful princess and they all lived happily in the palace together until one day their mother, the queen, died.

Their life changed completely when their father married a wicked queen. She was not at all kind to the poor children. Even at her wedding feast she didn’t allow them to eat any cake; all they were given was a cupful of sand.

“Ha, ha, ha, you, little fools! You’ll have to pretend you are having a party”, said the new queen.

The king’s children had never thought so unhappy. Instead of playing happily with their lovely toys and beautiful books, they just moved around the palace all day looking sorely miserable.

Since the wicked queen had come to live in the palace, nobody had laughed and nobody had smiled. The wicked queen realized that the king was very fond of his children and soon became very jealous. And because the king loved Elise best of all and lavished beautiful gifts on her, the queen sent her away to a farm to live the life of a poor peasant girl.

The king was so sad when his daughter was sent away that he transferred his affection to his sons. But the wicked queen felt left out.

“Fly away and look after yourselves.” She told the princes as she turned them into eleven beautiful swans.

With a sad and strange cry the swans flew out of the palace windows and into the woods. There was nobody in the kingdom could change the spell, everybody knew that the swans were really princes because they wore tiny golden crowns on their heads.

The king was so sad when he saw that his sons had been turned into swans that he spent many hours wandering in the corridors of the palace. He wept openly and no one could console him.

“Please, please, let my daughter come back to the palace,” he repeated over and over again until the queen finally gave in and allowed her to return home. But it came with a great shock to the queen when Elise did return: over the years she had grown into a beautiful young woman. The queen thought about turning her into a wild swan too, but she knew that the king wouldn’t let get her away with this.

So, early one morning, the queen took three toads and told each of them what they must do. To the first she said: “When Elise has her morning bath sit on top of her hand so she becomes as lazy as you.” To the second toad she said, “Sit on her forehead so she becomes as ugly as you.”

And, finally, to the third one she said, ”Stay close to her heart so her head becomes full of wicked thoughts.”

So, when Elise stepped into her morning bath the toads did exactly what the wicked queen had told them. But the queen’s magic had no effect on the lovely Elise, and when the queen saw this, she was so angry that she smeared Elise’s face with smelly ointment and hit her silver hairbrush so her hair became matted. Elise looked so ugly that her father didn’t recognize her.

Elise was so unhappy that she felt she could no longer live in the palace. So she crept out into the woods and sat with her head in her hands. She had no idea where to go next, but she knew that she had to look for her brothers. One nightfall she had wandered so far that she had to rest on a bed of moss in the woods. And as she slept she dreamed that her brothers were flying above her. But the next morning when she awoke, she was all alone and realized that it was just a dream. So, Elise walked on through the woods looking for food and drink and soon she came to a pond. She lent over it and cupped her hands to take a drink. But when she saw her reflection, she leapt back in a horror: “Oh, how ugly I have become,” she said to herself. But Elise had no need to worry. For as sooner she washed her face in the water, she became lovely again.

Elise felt much happier now, but she hadn’t forgotten why she was in the woods. So, she carried on searching for her brothers.

Elise then went for a little swim. And while she was swimming, she saw an old woman, carrying a basket of fruit she had gathered.

“Tell me,” said Elise. “Have you seen eleven princes riding through this wood?”

“No,” said the old woman. “But yesterday I saw eleven swans wearing golden crowns swimming in the river.”

“Oh, please, take me to the place where you saw them,” cried Elise.

So, the old woman followed a trail of feathers and took Elise to the exact spot where she had seen the swans swimming.

Just before sunset Elise saw eleven wild swans wearing golden crowns flying towards the land. For a while they hovered in the air, so Elise climbed on a tall rock to get a closer look at the beautiful creatures. Then, as the sunset was below the horizon, their feathers fell off, and they turned into eleven handsome princes. And when the beautiful princess saw her brothers, she cried out to them, “Oh, my brothers! How happy I am to see you again!” And each prince hugged Elise in turn and there was much laughter and happiness. But the happiness was tinged with sadness.

“As long as the sun is in the sky, we all fly as swans,” said her eldest brother. “It is only when the sun goes down, we turn into princes again.”

“Oh, how I wish the sun would never rise,” sobbed Elise when she heard this.

And for most of the night Elise and her brothers talked about all the happy times in the palace until Elise was exhausted with talking and fell asleep.

At sunrise Elise was woken by the sun and the swans flapping their wings. And before she had opened her eyes, the swans had flown far into the distance. Elise waited all day for the swans to return and at sunset just as expected she heard the familiar flapping sound. Once again the swans shed their feathers and turned into princes. And as soon as they had become human, the eldest one turned to Elise and said, “Tomorrow we’ll be flying away and not returning for a whole year, but we don’t want to leave you behind. Will you come with us?”

“Oh, yes. Take me across the sea with you,” said Elise.

So Elise and all her brothers spent the rest of the night making a net by plaiting seaweeds. By sunrise the net was ready. So Elise lay down on it, and a few moments later her brothers turned into swans again. They carried Elise away in the net. High into the sky they flew until they were so high up that a ship on the water looked like a seagull.

All day long the swans withdrew the air, but they flew very carefully as they were carrying their precious sister. Their journey was a pleasant one, but just before the sunset many black clouds appeared and it looked as it was going to be the wildest storm.

“Hurry, hurry!” cried Elise to her brothers. “Flap your wings faster or you turn into human beings and we all will crash to the ground, and be drowned.”

By now a fear scale was blowing, and the sun had sunk so far down that it was almost below the horizon. Elise was terrified. The poor girl was so busy looking at the sun setting that she didn’t realize the swans were dotting towards the rock below. With a small pump they all landed on a tiny island. They were just in time: a few seconds later the swans turned into princes again. The waves dashed around the little rock and great thunderclap could be heard in the sky, but they were all felt secure on the island.

The next morning, when the princes turned into swans once again, they flew away with Elise.

“Where are we going today, my brothers?” she asked, but they didn’t answer: they just flew away with her until they reached the cloud palace of Morgana, the fairy queen.

When they had landed safely, her brothers turned into princes again, and Elise was so tired that she soon fell asleep. And while she slept she dreamt that Morgana said this to her, “Your brothers can be set free. You see the stinging nettle I have here. There are many growing in the palace gardens. If you pick them and crash them, you can make them into flax and with this you can weave eleven shirts for your brothers. If you throw these over the eleven wild swans, the spell will be broken.”

“But,” continued Morgana, “it is very, very important that while you were weaving, you do not talk to your brothers. Any word you utter while you are doing this work, will stab your brothers like a knife.” And when Morgana had said this she touched Elise’s hand with the nettle and woke her up.

So, the next morning, when the princes turned into swans again and flew away, she searched the nettle. She did exactly what Morgana had told her to do and crashed all the nettle with her belly feet turning them into green flax. All day she worked weaving flax into shirts. After sunset her brothers returned, but they were surprised to see Elise so silent. Whenever her brothers asked her a question, she just looked at them with sad eyes. She spent all night working and all the next day she continued to work. One shirt had been finished already, and she was about to start the second.

Later that day, when Elise was resting, she saw a horseman coming towards her. He was wearing a crown.

“What are you doing here, beautiful child?” said the horseman, but Elise daren’t speak. “I am the king of the land.” he said. “Let me take you back to my magnificent palace. I will dress you in the most beautiful silk and velvet gowns and give you jewellery made of gold and precious diamonds.”

Elise didn’t want to be taken away, but she didn’t want to upset the king, either. So she sat on the back of his horse and let him take her away. And when they reached the king’s palace, she was taken to one of the grandest rooms. But she wasn’t happy there. She wanted to go back to her simple life in the cave and finish making the shirts for her brothers. The king saw how unhappy she was and thought she might be a little home sick. So he showed her to a special room where she was to sleep. It was decorated in a way that made look like a cave where she had been working. On the floor there was a bungle of flax she had spun from the nettles, and from the ceiling hung the shirts that she had already finished.

“I hope that makes you feel like at home,” said the king. “Here is the work that is keeping you busy. You can carry on with it if you like.”

This made Elise smile so in the hope that she might save her brothers every night she worked at making the shirts. Every day she became more and more fond of the king and longed to tell him about her trouble. But she knew that if she spoke, her brothers would meet with a terrible fate.

The king followed Elise throughout the palace hoping that eventually she would speak to him. He was a very patient man and didn’t get angry with her.

One day Elise went for a walk in one of the palace gardens, and when she was out walking, she saw a group of horrible looking witches sitting in a circle. They were clothed in the dirtiest rags and kept clawing at the air with their horrible skinny fingers. The eyes of the evil-looking creatures seemed to bore straight into her, so she gathered up the stinging nettle quickly and ran away as fast as she could. But as she was running away, she heard one of the creatures muttering: “That girl is not what she appears. She is a witch and has taken in the king and all his subjects.” On hearing this cruel word, Elise was so upset and frightened that she burst into tears.

Soon rumors started to spread about Elise: “Have you heard that the girl is really a witch?” The king heard his people whisper, and when he heard this he would rush fast his hands into his ears shouting: “I don’t believe you. You are all talking absolute nonsense.”

“But I have heard Elise muttering about magic spell,” the archbishop told the king. And eventually the archbishop convinced the king that it was his duty to have Elise beheaded. The poor thing was placed upon a cart and taken to the market square for the execution. Elise tried to remain calm because she had almost finished the eleven shirts. All that remained to be finished was one sleeve of one of the shirts. But then above the noise of the crowd Elise heard the familiar flapping sound: the swans had come to save her. Elise quickly threw the eleven shirts over the swans and the swans turned into her brothers once more. But the youngest brother still had a swan’s wing instead of an arm for he had been given the shirt with a missing sleeve. At last Elise was free to speak.

“Listen to me,” she said. “I am innocent. I have broken the spell that was put on my brothers by a wicked witch.

And when the king saw the eleven handsome princes standing in the city square, he bowed down her and asked her for a humble apologize.” Then the church bell rang and the king asked Elise to be his bride. So they were married straight away and the eleven princes were, of course, the guests of honour.

Answer the following questions

Who had eleven sons and one daughter?

Why did everyone in the kingdom know that the king’s sons were princes?

What happened with the children’s mother?

When was the children’s life completely changed?

Why did the children look miserable?

What did the wicked queen do with the princess and princes?

Why did Elise look so ugly that her father didn’t recognize her?

What did Elise do when she realized that she could no live in the palace?

Who helped Elise to meet with her beloved brothers?

How did the princes carry Elise with them?

What had Elise to do to free her brothers?

Why didn’t Elise talk to her brothers while she was working over the shirts?

Who took Elise to a magnificent palace? What did she do there?

Was Elise really a witch as some people thought?

How did Elise break the spell?

What happened in the end of the fairy tale?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04