Flights of Fairytale Fancy: The Six Swans

            I love fairy tales.  To be clear I’m referring to the original versions were the villains meet their demise by dancing in red-hot metal shoes until they keel over, and the like.  (I’m sorry Disney, but not every villain will fall to his or her death.)

            I love them, but I’ve come to the realization that if I were the protagonist the plot would be radically different.  For example, the story “The Six Swans” recounted by the Brothers Grimm starts in a similar fashion to many fairy tales: There is an evil Queen who is stepmother to seven children.  Being a witch she turns the six brothers into swans but forgets to do the same to the little sister. Eventually the sister undertakes to break this spell, but in order to do so she “may neither speak nor laugh” for six years and during that time she must make six shirts for her brothers.  (Depending on the version the shirts are made of different materials, like thistles or starflowers, but that’s not exactly central to the story.)  If she speaks even one word during that time all her work will be for naught.

            Here is where I would first run into issues: I talk a lot, even to myself.  On the off chance that I managed to keep my personal dialogue inside my head, I still have a tendency to giggle and even laugh out loud for no apparent reason.  My siblings would be so doomed.

            Anyway, time passes and this girl has been working on these shirts.  She’s been living in the forest and one day she’s sitting in a tree; a young king and some of his men are out hunting and come across her.  Naturally, upon seeing a pretty young woman in a tree, they commence to harass her with questions, which she, of course, won’t answer.  After a while she gets fed up and hoping (in a rather delusional way) to rid them of their curiosity, she begins to throw down various personal items to them, such as her jewelry, etc.  This has the opposite effect and the huntsmen climb into the tree and somehow managed to fetch her down with them.

            Tirade time: Why must a damsel be in need of assistance if she’s in a tree?  Trees are awesome places to relax!  Why don’t the louts give up after she refuses to talk to them? Also, what nice girl (especially one who’d taken a vow of silence) would feel inclined to talk when accosted by a horde of grubby men?  Seriously.  In addition: what girl who wants to get rid of a guy (or group thereof) throws down her personal possessions?  I mean, you are in a tree! Grab a branch, or if it’s a fruit-bearing tree, grab some of that to hurl at them! I feel like that would convey the message “leave me alone” much more effectively.

            So, they get her out of the tree and bring her to the king and he starts asking some more questions using every language he knows.  Still they get no response, but the girl is so lovely that the king decides he’s in love with her.  (Yes, despite being an avid fan of fairy tales I am a cynic when it comes to the concept of love at first sight. I certainly believe in attraction at first sight, and that it can lead to a deeper connection, but love is too deep and complex an emotion to be forged based solely on initial physical attraction.)  Well, the king takes her back to his castle and is so charmed by her manners and such that he’s like, “I’m going to marry this woman.”

            His mother, the Dowager Queen, is not a fan of this plan; in fact, she’s downright opposed due to the unknown lineage of the girl.  In keeping with over-bearing mother tradition, she doesn’t believe this forest girl is worthy of her son, especially since he’s a king.  However, the marriage takes place anyway.  We are never really told how the main character really feels about this development when it happens, but she doesn’t seem to have been unhappy about it. 

            Anyway, time goes by and the young queen has a child, but her mother-in-law still has it in for the girl and steals the child away in the night and, covering the mother’s hands with blood, accuses her of being a satanic cannibal.  The king doesn’t believe this, and I have to give him credit for the fact that he seems to have taken time to become acquainted with his wife’s character, despite her lack of speaking.  Well, “dear old mum” doesn’t give up and does the same thing with her second grandchild.  The king again doesn’t believe and contends that his wife would prove her innocence if only she weren’t mute.  The young queen, for some reason that is never explained, seems rather unaffected by the loss of her two children and continues to work on her brothers’ shirts.  With the disappearance of his third child the King is finally forced to give into his mother (and at this point, the voice of the people), and delivers his wife up to “justice”.

            Fortunately, the day she’s to be executed is also the last day of the six years and so she’s able to free her brothers and explain everything to her husband.  And also, fortunately, the Dowager Queen was only trying to kill her daughter-in-law and didn’t quite have it in her to kill her grandchildren, so they find their lost children (and of course no one questions whether they are the royal children or some other random toddlers).  Then in true medieval justice, the king decides that it’s only fair that his mother be punished in his wife’s stead and she’s burnt at the stake.  And they all live happily ever after!

            All in all, the story has a number of holes, the largest one being that the young queen doesn’t seem to care about her babies randomly disappearing!  I’m sorry, but I can’t handle that.  If I had children that were disappearing I would not stop until I found them, or died trying, whichever came first.

There’s actually a German film version of this story, or a variation of the story anyway, where the behavior of the girl is much more believable.  First off, her husband hasn’t taken the throne yet and is still under the jurisdiction of his mother. His mother is trying to convince him that his wife, whom he calls “Fee” or fairy, is a witch.  The queen steals her grandchild away while her daughter-in-law is asleep, and pours some blood-like substance on the girl’s hands.  When Fee wakes up she freaks out and goes wandering the castle looking for her baby and her stained hands alarm all the servants.  Then she returns to her chamber to find the Queen there, and in an understandably upset manner tries to grab the Queen (this isn’t the first time the Queen has done something bad to Fee) to find out where her child is. She’s restrained and then her husband, the prince, comes in because he’d just been informed of this whole development.  He doesn’t believe Fee is guilty, but he doesn’t know what other explanation there is for his baby’s disappearance. His mother pretends to be sympathetic and says that she’ll take care of everything for him, and then leaves him alone next to the empty crib.

             Anyway, I don’t want to ruin everything in that movie, because it’s a lovely film. It’s called Die Sechs Schwäne and you could probably find a subtitled version, although if you know the story it isn’t too hard to follow even without them, especially since the lead actress has fantastic body language.  

            Here, however, is another slight rant related to both the movie and the original story: if only she’d been literate there wouldn’t have been a problem!  This is why education is so important!  If you can read and write you can tell your husband that his mother is a murderous kidnapper intent on your demise and that you’re innocent!

            Short-story-long, if I were the girl in that story they would have never gotten me out of that tree.  And I probably would have broken my vow of silence while they tried (if I’d even managed to keep it that long).  I’m sorry, my hypothetical, six cursed-swan brothers. You will never be human again, or at least, I won’t have anything to do with breaking the spell if that does happen.  You should have known better than to rely on me.