The Six Swan Brothers Read Free

there were three finished shirts folded into the cedar-wood chest in her bedchamber. Then, in the spring of her third year of marriage, she was once more expecting the birth of a baby. Cora felt the Old Queen watching her as she grew large; felt an icy wickedness reaching out to her, wherever she went.
    When Cora’s second child was born, the Old Queen stayed far away, and instead allowed the servants to attend her daughter-in-law. One of them came to her after the child was born, and gave her a glass of cool water to drink, but this woman was the Old Queen’s creature, and did her bidding at all times. She had put a sleeping draught into the cup and before long, Cora’s eyes closed and she slept.
    When she woke up, the baby had disappeared, and the blood was caked and dry in the corners of her mouth. Once again, the Old Queen shrieked terrible accusations at her son, and once again his wife lay silent and turned her face to the wall. The weeping Prince stood at the foot of the bed and refused to believe his mother. And Cora once again became like a madwoman, fretting and weeping and roaming the dark corridors in absolute silence.

    After five years, five shirts were ready, and lay carefully folded in the cedar-wood chest. Cora began to dream of the day when the spell that bound her brothers would be broken for ever. Then she found that she was pregnant again and her heart was full of fear. Still, she did not stop weaving the dry stems of river reeds and the green starwort stalks, either by day or by night.
    On the day that her third child was born, the sixth shirt was complete but for the left sleeve. When my baby is here, Cora told herself, I will finish it and all will be well for ever.

    When the baby was born, everything that happened twice before, happened again. This time, the Prince had to believe his mother and he condemned Cora to death. She would be burned at the stake, he told her, weeping, because that was the customary punishment for witches.
    As the time for the execution drew near, Cora went to the cedar-wood chest in her bedchamber and unfolded the starwort shirts that she had made. She carried them as she went to the stake, and all who saw her wondered at the strange garments that filled her arms as she walked. Cora thought of nothing but her brothers, and she closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.
    Then, all at once the air was filled with the sound of beating wings, and the crowd looked up and saw six white swans flying overhead. Down and down they fluttered to where Cora was standing, and they surrounded her in a cloud of feathers. Cora took a shirt and covered the first swan, and as she did so, the bird’s neck shrank and shrank, and its head grew and grew and soon a man stood before her. She did the same with the other shirts she had woven, and there all at once were her six beloved brothers: complete men but for the youngest who, because she had not woven the left sleeve of the sixth shirt, still had one swan wing. Cora cried out with joy and her brothers kissed her and held her in their arms and rejoiced in their new human forms.
    â€˜You have saved us, little sister,’ they said. ‘You have saved us with your silence, and now your own life is in danger. Speak. Tell your husband everything.’
    Cora said: ‘My heart is singing to see you again, my brothers, and you, my dear husband, must now know the truth, which I could not speak before.’
    She turned to the Old Queen and pointed at her. ‘You took my children from me and murdered them. You are the wickedest of women.’
    â€˜No, no,’ cried the Old Queen. ‘How could I murder my own grandchildren? They are living in a cottage beyond the forest.’
    The Prince spoke sadly: ‘You may not have murdered them, Mother, but you were willing to stand by and see my wife go to her death. You will perish instead of her.’
    And so the Old Queen was burned at the stake, and Cora’s children