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_The Eleven Wild Swans_ was written by Hans Christian
Andersen (1805-1875), and was translated from the Danish by
M. R. James (1862-1936) as part of his _Hans Andersen Forty-Two
Stories_ (1930).

Title: Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories -- The Eleven Wild Swans
Author: Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)
Translator: M. R. James (1862-1936)
Date of first publication: 1930
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Faber and Faber, 1953
Date first posted: 27 October 2008
Date last updated: 27 October 2008
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #188

This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




The Eleven Wild Swans

by

Hans Christian Andersen

(from _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ [1930]),
translated by M. R. James)


Far away from here, in the lands the swallows fly to when
we are having winter, there lived a King who had eleven
sons and one daughter, Elisa. The eleven brothers, princes
they were, went to school with stars on their breasts and
swords at their sides. They wrote on gold slates with diamond
pencils, and could read backwards as easily as forwards; anybody
could see straight off that they were princes. Their sister Elisa sat
at home on a little stool made of looking-glass, and had a picture
book that had cost half the kingdom to buy.

Ah, those children had a fine time of it, to be sure; but it wasn't
to be like that for ever.

Their father, who was King of the whole country, married a bad
Queen, and she was not at all nice to the poor children; the very
first day they noticed it. There were great doings all over the palace,
and the children played at visitors; but instead of their having all
the cakes and baked apples that were left, she only gave them sand
in a teacup and told them they could pretend it was something
real.

The week after, she boarded the little sister Elisa out in the
country, with some labourers, and it wasn't long before she got the
King to believe such things about the poor princes, that he cared
not a rap about them any more.

"Fly away out into the world, and fend for yourselves," said the
wicked Queen; "fly as big birds without any voice." But she
couldn't do all the harm she would have dearly liked to do, and they
turned into eleven beautiful wild swans. With a strange cry they
flew out of the palace windows, far away over the fields and woods.

It was still quite early morning when they passed the place
where their sister Elisa lay asleep in the labourer's room. There
they hovered over the roof and turned their long necks hither and
thither and flapped their wings, but nobody heard or saw it; they
had to go on, far upward towards the clouds, far out into the wide
world. They flew into a great dark forest that stretched right down
to the sea shore.

Poor little Elisa, in the labourer's cottage, played with a green
leaf--the only toy she had, and she pricked a hole in the leaf and
peeped up through it towards the sun, and it seemed as if she was
looking at the bright eyes of her brothers; and every time the warm
rays shone on her cheek, she thought of all the kisses they had
given her.

One day passed just like another; when the breeze blew through
the great rose bushes outside the house, it whispered to the roses:
"Who can be prettier than you?" But the roses shook their heads
and said: "Why, Elisa!" And when the old woman sat in the doorway,
of a Sunday, and read her hymn book, the breeze would turn
the leaves and say to the book: "Who can be better than you?"
"Why, Elisa!" said the hymn book; and what the roses and the
hymn book said was no more than the truth.

When she was fifteen years old, she was sent for to go home--and
when the Queen saw how pretty she was she became full of
anger and hatred for her. She would have dearly liked to turn her
into a wild swan like her brothers, but that she dared not do at
once, for the King wanted to see his daughter.

Early in the morning the Queen went into the bathroom, which
was built of marble and decked out with soft skins and lovely rugs,
and she took three toads and kissed them and said to the first: "Hop
on to Elisa's head when she gets into the bath, that she may become
as stupid as you. Sit yourself on her forehead," said she to the
second, "that she may become as ugly as you, so that her father
shall not know her. Lie on her heart," she whispered to the third;
"let her have an evil mind, and let her suffer anguish from it." Then
she put the toads into the clear water, which forthwith took on a
greenish tint, and called Elisa and undressed her and made her go
down into the water; and as she dived into it, the first toad clambered
into her hair, and the second on to her forehead, and the
third on to her heart; but Elisa seemed not to notice it. At the
moment when she stood up, there were three red poppies floating
on the water. Had the beasts not been poisonous and not been
kissed by the witch, they would have been changed into red roses.
Still, flowers they did become, merely from resting on her head and
her heart. She was too good and innocent for any witchcraft to
have power over her.

When the wicked Queen saw that, she rubbed Elisa all over with
walnut juice, so that she was all dark-brown, and she smeared her
pretty face with a nasty ointment, and let her lovely hair get all in a
tangle. It was impossible to recognize that pretty Elisa, and so
when her father saw her he was dreadfully shocked and said that
was never his daughter; and indeed nobody knew her but the
watch-dog and the swallows, and they were poor dumb creatures
that couldn't do anything.

Poor Elisa! She cried and she thought of her eleven brothers, all
gone! Sorrowfully she stole out of the palace and walked all day
over field and moor, into the great forest. She had no notion where
she wanted to go, but she was in such trouble, and yearned so for
her brothers, who, she was sure, had been driven out into the wide
world like herself, and she was set on trying to find them.

Only a short while had she been in the forest before the night
fell. She had wandered far from any road or path, so she laid herself
down on the soft moss, said her evening prayer, and rested her head
against a stump. All was quiet, the air was very soft, and round
about in the grass and moss there shone, like a green fire, hundreds
of glow-worms. When she gently stirred a twig with her hand, the
shining creatures fell down beside her like shooting stars.

All night long she dreamt of her brothers. They were playing together
again as children, writing with the diamond pencils on the
gold slates, and looking at the lovely picture book that had cost
half the kingdom. But on the slates they didn't write as they used to
do--noughts and crosses--no, but the bravest of deeds that they
had done and all that they had lived through and seen; and in the
picture book everything was alive: the birds sang, and the people
came out of the book and talked to Elisa and her brothers, but
when she turned the page, they jumped back again at once, so as
not to cause confusion in the pictures.

When she woke up the sun was already high. She could not
actually see it, for the tall trees spread their branches thick and
close; but the rays played through them like a glittering cloth of
gold. There was a fragrance from the fresh greenwood, and the
birds were almost ready to perch on her shoulders. She heard a
splashing of water. There were a number of springs, all falling into
a pool that had the most beautiful sandy bottom. True, the bushes
grew thick about it, but in one place the deer had made a wide
opening, and there Elisa went to the water, which was so clear that
if the breeze had not so stirred the branches and bushes that they
moved she would have thought they were painted on the bottom
of the pool, so sharply was every leaf reflected there, alike those
that the sun shone through and those that were in the deepest
shadow.

As soon as she saw her own face she was quite horrified, so
brown and ugly it was; but when she wetted her little hand and
rubbed her eyes and forehead the white skin gleamed out once
more. So she laid aside all her clothes and slipped out into the cool
water. A fairer King's daughter than she there was not in all the
world.

When she had dressed herself again, and plaited her long hair,
she went to the spouting spring and drank from the hollow of her
hand, and so wandered further into the forest without knowing
whither she went. She thought about her brothers, and she thought
about the good God who certainly would not forsake her. It was
He who made the wild apples grow to feed the hungry; it was He
who guided her to a tree of them, its boughs bending under the
fruit, and there she made her midday meal and set props under the
branches, and then went on into the darkest part of the forest.

It was so still there that she could hear her own footsteps, nay,
every little withered leaf that bent beneath her feet; not a bird was
to be seen, not a sunbeam could pierce between the many close-set
branches. The tall trunks stood so close together that when she
looked straight before her, it seemed as though there was one great
fence of timber, trunk after trunk, closing her in all round; yes,
indeed, there was a solitude here, the like of which she had never
known.

The night was very dark; not a single little glow-worm shone out
of the moss, and with a troubled mind she lay down to sleep; and
then she thought that the branches above her parted and Our Lord
looked down on her with loving eyes, and little angels peeped out
above His head and beneath His arms.

When she woke in the morning she was not sure whether she
had dreamt it or whether it really had happened.

She walked on but a few steps, and then she met an old woman
with a basket of berries, some of which she gave her. Elisa asked
her if she had not see eleven princes riding through the forest.

"No," said the old woman; "but yesterday I saw eleven swans,
with gold crowns on their heads, swimming down the river close
by here." And she guided Elisa some way further to a high bank,
at the bottom of which was a winding stream. The trees on its
banks stretched their long leafy branches across it towards each
other, and where their natural growth did not let them meet they
had torn their roots loose from the earth and leant over the water
and twined their boughs together.

Elisa said good-bye to the old woman, and walked along the
stream to the place where it flowed out, on the broad open sea-shore.
All the beautiful sea lay spread out before the young girl,
and not a sail showed itself, not a boat was to be seen: how could
she get further? She gazed at the numberless pebbles on the beach.
The water had worn every one of them round. Glass, iron, stone,
everything that lay washed up there had taken its shape from the
water, and yet the water was far softer than her own delicate hand.
"It keeps rolling on, untiring, and that is how it shapes the hard
things smooth, and I will be as untiring as it is. I thank you for
your lesson, you clear rolling billows. One day, my heart tells me,
you will bear me to my brothers."

On the seaweed that had been washed up lay eleven swans'
feathers. She gathered them into a bunch; there were drops of
water on them: whether dew or tears, who could tell? It was lonely
down there on the shore, but she did not feel it, for the sea gave her
infinite changes to look at, more within a few hours' space than a
fresh-water lake would show in a whole year. If a big black cloud
came over, it was as if the sea would say: "I too can look black."
Then the wind blew and the waves showed their white sides; but if
the clouds shone red, and the wind fell to sleep, then the sea was
like a rose-leaf. Sometimes it was green, sometimes white; but however
still it slept there was always a gentle movement along the
beach: the water heaved, softly as the breast of a sleeping child.

Just as the sun was about to set, Elisa saw eleven wild swans,
with golden crowns on their heads, flying towards the land; they
floated one behind another, looking like a long white ribbon. Elisa
clambered up the bank and hid behind a bush. The swans alighted
close to her, and flapped their great white wings.

The moment the sun was beneath the waves the swans' skins fell
off and there stood eleven fair princes, Elisa's brothers. She uttered
a loud cry, for though they were greatly altered she knew that it
was they--was sure it must be they--and she sprang into their
arms, and called them by their names. And happy were they when
they saw and recognized their little sister, now so tall and so beautiful.
They laughed and wept, and very quickly they came to know
about each other, and how ill their stepmother had dealt with them
all.

"We brothers", said the eldest, "fly about in the shape of wild
swans so long as the sun is in the sky; when it is set we take our
human shape: so at sunset we must always take care to have a resting
place for our feet, for if we were flying then, up among the
clouds, we should fall in man's form down into the deep. We do
not live here; a fair land like this lies on the other side of the water,
but the way to it is long. We have to cross the wide sea, and there
is no island on our course where we could spend the night. There
is only a little lonely rock that stands up, half-way out: it's only
large enough for us to stand side by side and rest on it; if the sea is
high, the water leaps up high above us, yet we thank God for it.
There we spend the night in our human form; but for it we could
never visit our dear fatherland, for our flight takes up two of the
longest days in the year. Only once a year is it permitted to us to
visit our father's home. Eleven days we can stay here: we fly over
this great forest, and from there we can look at the castle where we
were born and where our father lives, and see the bell-tower of the
church where our mother is buried. Here we feel the very trees and
bushes are an heirloom; here the wild horses gallop over the plains
as we saw them in our childhood. Here the charcoal-burner sings
the old songs we danced to as children. Here is our father's land,
here we grew up, and here we have found you, you dear little sister.
We have still two days to stay here, and then we must away over
the sea, to a land that is beautiful, but is not our own. How can we
take you with us? We have neither ship nor boat."

"How can I contrive to free you?" said their sister. And they
went on talking together almost all night, with only an hour or
two of sleep.

Elisa was wakened by the sound of swans' wings rustling above
her. The brothers were changed once more, and flew about in wide
circles, and at last flew away; but one of them, the youngest, stayed
behind. The swan laid his head on her bosom and she fondled his
white wings: they spent the whole day together. Towards evening
the others came back, and when the sun was down they stood there
in their proper forms.

"To-morrow we fly away from here, and dare not come back for
nearly a whole year; but we cannot leave you like this. Have you
the courage to come with us? My arm is strong enough to carry you
through the forest, and must we not together have strong enough
wings to fly with you over the sea?"

"Yes, take me with you," said Elisa.

They spent the whole night in weaving a net out of the pliant
willow bark and the stout reeds, and it was large and strong. On it
Elisa lay down, and when the sun came up and the brothers
changed into wild swans they gripped the net in their beaks and
flew high up towards the clouds, with their dear sister, who was
still asleep. The sunbeams fell hotly on her face, so one of the
swans flew above her head, that his broad wings might shade her.

They were far from land when Elisa awoke. She thought she was
still dreaming, so strange it seemed to her to be borne over the sea,
high through the air. At her side lay a branch with beautiful ripe
berries on it, and a bundle of sweet-tasting roots. Her youngest
brother had gathered them and laid them by her; and she smiled
gratefully at him, for she knew it was he who was flying straight
over her head and shading her with his wings.

They were so high up that the first ship they saw beneath them
looked like a white gull lying on the water. A great cloud came behind
them, like a mighty mountain, and on it Elisa saw the shadows
of herself and of the eleven swans, flying there as huge as giants; it
was like a drawing, prettier than any she had seen before; but as the
sun climbed higher and the cloud was left farther behind, the moving
shadow-picture disappeared. All day they flew on like a rushing
dart through the air, yet their pace was slower than at other times,
now that they had their sister to carry. Bad weather, too, came on,
and evening grew near. With terror Elisa saw the sun sinking, and
yet the lonely rock in the sea was not in sight. She thought the
swans were playing their wings more strongly. Ah! It was her fault
that they could not go swiftly enough; when the sun was down
they would turn into men and fall into the sea and be drowned!
From the very bottom of her heart she sent up a prayer to Our
Lord; but still she could see no rock. The black cloud drew nearer,
the heavy gusts of wind portended a storm. The clouds gathered
into a single huge menacing billow which sped onward, looking
like a mass of lead. One flash of lightning followed hard on another.

The sun was now at the very rim of the sea. Elisa's heart beat
quickly then; the swans plunged downward so quickly that she
thought she must fall, but then they floated again. The sun was half
beneath the water. Then first she sighted the little rock beneath her,
looking no larger than a seal's head sticking up above the water.
How swiftly the sun sank! It was no bigger than a star. Then her
foot touched the firm ground and the sun went out like the last
spark on a bit of burning paper. She saw her brothers standing
about her, arm in arm, but there was no room for any more than
them and herself. The sea beat against the rock and burst over
them like a shower of rain: the heavens shone with a blaze that kept
flaring out, and the thunder rolled, peal on peal, but the sister and
the brothers held each other's hands and sang a hymn, and it
brought them comfort and courage.

At dawn the air was clear and still, and so soon as the sun was up
the swans flew off with Elisa from the islet. The sea was still rough,
and when they were high up in the air it looked as if the white foam
on the dark green sea were millions of swans floating on the water.

When the sun rose higher, Elisa saw ahead of her, half-swimming
in the air, a range of mountains with shining masses of ice on their
slopes, and in the midst of it there lay, stretched out, a palace--a
good mile long--with one mighty colonnade rising over another.
Low down before it waved groves of palms and wonderful blossoms,
large as mill-wheels. She asked if that were the land she was
bound for, but the swans shook their heads: for that which she was
looking at was the lovely ever-changing cloud-palace of the fairy
Morgana, and into it they dared bring no mortal. Elisa gazed upon
it. Suddenly, mountains, groves and palace all fell to pieces, and in
their place rose a score of noble churches, each like the next, all
with lofty towers and pointed windows. She fancied she could hear
the organ sounding, but it was the sea she heard. And now she was
quite near the churches, but they changed into a fleet of ships sailing
onward beneath her. She looked down, and it was but the sea
wrack that was spreading over the water. Yes, it was an endless
series of changes that she had to look at; but now she saw the real
land she was bound for. There rose the beautiful blue mountains,
with forests of cedar and towns and castles. Long ere the sun had
set she was seated on the slope before a large cave, whose mouth
was grown over with delicate green creeping plants that seemed
like broidered carpets. "Now we shall see what you dream of here
to-night," said the youngest brother, as he led her to her sleeping
chamber.

"If I could but dream how to free you!" said she; and the thought
filled her mind most vividly, and earnestly did she pray to God for
His help--nay, even in her sleep she went on praying; and then it
seemed to her that she flew high up into the air, to the cloud-palace
of the fairy Morgana; and the fairy came to meet her, all beautiful
and shining, but all the same, very like the old woman who had
given her berries in the forest and told her of the swans with the
golden crowns.

"Your brothers can be freed," said she, "but have you courage
and endurance? True it is that the sea is softer than your delicate
hands, and yet can change the shape of the hard stones. But it does
not feel the pain that your fingers will feel: it has no heart, and does
not suffer the fear and trouble that you must go through. Do you
see this stinging-nettle that I hold in my hand? Many of this kind
grow about the cave where you are sleeping, but only they and
those that grow out of churchyard graves are fit for your purpose;
mark you that! These you must pick, though they will burn your
skin into blisters. You must break them up with your feet, and you
will get flax from them, and with it you must weave and hem
eleven shirts with long sleeves. Cast these over the eleven wild
swans, and the spell will be broken. But remember this well: that
from the moment you begin this work, and until it is wholly ended,
even though a year should pass in the meantime, you must not
speak. The first word you utter will pierce the heart of your
brothers like a deadly dagger: on your tongue hangs their life. Take
good heed of these things." And at the same moment she touched
her hand with the nettle: it was like a scorching flame. Elisa awoke
with the touch. It was bright day, and close by where she had slept
lay a nettle like that which she had seen in her dream. She fell on
her knees and gave thanks to God, and went out of the cave to
begin her work. With her delicate hands she grasped the horrible
nettles, which were like fire to touch, and burnt great blisters on her
hands and arms, but she suffered that gladly, if she might but free
her dear brothers. She crushed every nettle with her bare feet and
wound up the green flax from it.

When the sun was down the brothers came, and were terrified at
finding her so silent. They thought it must be a fresh spell cast by
that wicked stepmother; but when they saw her hands they understood
what she was doing for their sake, and the youngest brother
wept, and where his tears fell she felt no more pain, and the burning
blisters vanished.

All night she spent on her work, for she could have no rest till
she had freed the beloved brothers. All the next day, while the
swans were away, she sat in solitude; but the time had never flown so
quickly. One shirt was finished, and she set to work on the second.

Just then a hunting horn rang out among the hills. She was
stricken with fear; the sound came nearer. She heard the baying of
hounds; in terror she took refuge in the cave, and tied the nettles
she had gathered and hackled into a bundle, and seated herself on it.

A great hound came leaping from among the bushes--another
just after it, and yet another. They bayed aloud and ran forward and
then back again. Before many minutes had passed the whole band
of hunters were outside the cave, and the handsomest of them all
was the King of the country. He advanced towards Elisa. Never
had he beheld a fairer maid.

"How came you here, you beautiful child?" said he. Elisa shook
her head, she dared not speak, the saving of her brothers, nay, their
life was at stake: and she hid her hand, beneath her apron, that the
King might not see what she was suffering.

"Come with me," said he, "you must not stop here. If you are as
good as you are beautiful I will dress you in silks and velvets, and
put a golden crown on your head, and you shall have your home in
the finest of my palaces." And with that he lifted her up on his
horse. She wept and wrung her hands, but the King said: "I only
desire your happiness; one day you will thank me." And so off he
rode among the mountains, holding her before him on his horse,
and the huntsmen followed.

At sunset the fair city with its churches and domes lay before
them; and the King led her into the palace where great fountains
plashed in the lofty marble halls, and walls and roof glowed with
paintings; but she had no eyes for that; she wept and sorrowed.
Listlessly she allowed the women to dress her in royal apparel,
twine pearls in her hair, and put delicate gloves upon her blistered
hands.

When at last she stood arrayed in all her splendour, she was so
dazzlingly beautiful that all the court bowed deep and low before
her, and the King chose her for his bride. Yet the Archbishop
shook his head and muttered that this pretty wood-maiden was
surely a witch who had dazzled their eyes, and corrupted the heart
of the King.

But the King would not listen to that. He bade the music ring
out, and the costliest dishes be served, and the fairest girls dance
about her, and she walked through fragrant gardens into splendid
halls; but not a smile came to her lips or into her eyes. Sorrow stood
there, the perpetual heir and possessor. But now the King opened
a little chamber, hard by the place where she was to sleep. It was
decked with costly green hangings, and was just like the cave she
had been in. On the floor lay the bundle of flax she had spun from
the nettles, and from the ceiling hung the shirt that had already
been woven. All this, one of the huntsmen had brought with him
as a curiosity.

"Here you can dream yourself back in your old home," said the
King; "here is the work you were busying yourself with. Now in
the midst of all your splendour it will amuse you to remember that
old time."

When Elisa saw this, which lay so near her heart, a smile played
about her mouth, and the colour came back into her cheeks at the
thought of the saving of her brothers, and she kissed the King's
hand and he pressed her to his heart, and bade all the church bells
proclaim the wedding festival. The lovely dumb girl from the
forest was to be Queen of all the land.

The Archbishop whispered slanderous words into the ear of the
King, but they did not make their way to his heart. The bridal was
to be. The Archbishop himself had to set the crown on her head,
and he spitefully pressed down the narrow ring upon her brow so
that it hurt her, yet a heavier ring lay about her heart; sorrow for
her brothers; she hardly felt the bodily pain. Her mouth was dumb,
for a single word would end her brothers' life, but in her eyes there
lay a deep affection for the handsome King who did everything to
make her happy. With her whole heart, she grew more loving towards
him day by day. Oh, if she could but confide in him and tell
him of her suffering! but dumb she must remain, in dumbness must
she finish her task. So at night she would steal from his side and go
into the little room apart, that was decked out like the cave, and
weave one shirt after another. But when she began on the seventh
she had no flax left.

In the churchyard, she knew, grew the nettles she must use: but
she had to gather them herself. How was she to get there?

"Oh, what is the pain in my fingers to the suffering in my
heart," she thought; "I must risk it! Our Lord will not let me fall
out of his hands." With a pain at her heart as if it were a crime she
was plotting, she stole down to the garden, in the bright moon-light
night, and went along the long avenues out into the empty
streets, away to the churchyard. There she saw seated on one of the
largest of the gravestones, a ring of Lamias, horrible witches. They
put off their rags as if they meant to bathe, and then dug down with
their long thin fingers into the newly made graves, pulled out the
corpses and ate their flesh. Elisa had to pass close by them, and they
fastened their dreadful eyes on her, but she prayed her prayer, and
gathered the burning nettles and carried them back to the palace.

Only one person had seen her--the Archbishop. He was awake
while everyone else was asleep. Now, then, he had found the truth
of what he suspected! All was not as it should be with the Queen.
She was a witch, and that was how she had corrupted the King and
the whole people.

In the confessional he told the King what he had seen and what
he feared, and as the cruel words came from his tongue, the carven
images of the saints shook their heads, as if to say: "It is not so;
Elisa is innocent." But the Archbishop interpreted it otherwise; he
said they were bearing witness against her, shaking their heads at
her guilt. Two heavy tears rolled down the King's cheek! He went
home with misgiving in his heart, and he feigned to be asleep at
night, but no sleep came to his eyes: he saw how Elisa got up, and
each night she did so again, and every time he followed her quietly
he saw that she disappeared into her tiny chamber. Day by day his
mien grew sadder. Elisa saw it, but did not understand the cause,
yet it troubled her; and what did she not suffer at heart for her
brothers! On the royal velvets and purple her salt tears ran down,
and lay there like glistening diamonds; while everyone who saw her
rich attire wished they were Queen.

Meanwhile she was nearly at the end of her task; only one shirt
was still wanting. But flax she had none, and not a single nettle.

Once again then--only this time--must she go to the churchyard
and pluck some handfuls. She thought with horror of the lonely
journey and the frightful Lamias: but her will was as steadfast as
her trust in God.

Elisa went, but the King and the Archbishop followed. They
saw her disappear through the iron gates into the churchyard, and
when they neared it, there sat the Lamias upon the gravestones, as
Elisa had seen them: and the King turned away, for among them,
he thought, was she whose head had that very evening rested on
his bosom.

"The people must judge her," said he. And the people did judge
her: "She shall be burned in the red fire." From the splendid royal
halls she was taken away to a dark damp vault where the wind
whistled through the barred window. In place of velvet and silk
they gave her the bundle of nettles she had gathered--she might
lay her head on that. The coarse heavy shirts she had woven should
be her mattress and coverlets: but nothing dearer to her could they
have given her. She began again upon her work and prayed to her
God. Outside, the street-boys sang mocking ballads about her, and
no soul comforted her with a kind word.

Towards evening came the sound of a swan's wing; it was the
youngest of the brothers: he had found his sister; and she sobbed
aloud with joy, though she knew that the night now coming on was
perhaps the last she had to live. But now, too, the work was all but
finished, and her brothers were there.

The Archbishop came to pass the last hours with her: he had
promised the King that he would. But she shook her head and with
look and gesture prayed him to go. That night she must finish her
task, or else all would have been in vain; everything--the pain, the
tears, the sleepless nights. The Archbishop went away with slanderous
words against her, but poor Elisa knew she was guiltless, and
went on with her work.

The little mice ran over the floor and dragged the nettles to her
feet to help her ever so little: and the thrush perched on the window
bar and sang the whole night as gaily as he could, that she might
not lose heart.

It was still little more than dawn, an hour before the sun would
be up, when the eleven brothers were at the palace gate, demanding
to be brought to the King. But it could not be, was the answer: it
was still night, the King was asleep and could not be roused. They
besought, they threatened, the guard came, nay, the King himself
came out and asked what it all meant. At that instant the sun rose,
and there were no brothers to be seen, but over the palace eleven
wild swans were flying.

The whole population came streaming out of the city gates to see
the witch burnt. A wretched horse drew the tumbril in which she
sat: they had put on her a kirtle of coarse sackcloth; her beautiful
long hair hung loose about her fair head, her cheeks were deathly
pale, her lips moved a little, while her fingers twined the green flax.
Even on her way to death she did not leave off the work she had
begun. Ten of the shirts lay at her feet, and she was working at the
eleventh.

The crowd jeered at her. "Look at the witch mumbling there. No
hymn book in her hands, no. She's still messing at her foul job.
Tear it from her into a thousand shreds." They all crowded in upon
her and tried to tear it to bits. But there came eleven swans flying
and perched round about her on the tumbril and flapped their
great wings. The mob retreated, in terror.

"It's a sign from heaven. Surely she is innocent," many of them
whispered; but they dared not say it aloud.

Then the executioner seized her by the hand, but hastily she
threw the shirts over the swans, and there stood eleven beautiful
princes! But the youngest had one swan's wing instead of an arm,
for a sleeve was lacking to his shirt; she had not quite finished it.

"Now I may speak," she said, "I am innocent." And the people
who beheld what had come to pass, bowed down before her as
before a saint. But she sank lifeless into the arms of her brothers, so
hardly had the suffering, the fear and the pain weighed upon her.

"Yes, she is innocent," said the eldest brother. And he began to
tell all that had befallen: and, while he spoke, there spread abroad a
perfume as of millions of roses, for every faggot in the pyre had
taken root and put forth branches: a fragrant bush stood there, tall
and bright with red roses. At its summit was a flower, white and
shining, that glistened like a star. The King plucked it and laid it on
Elisa's breast, and she awoke with peace and gladness in her heart.

And all the church bells rang out of their own accord, and the
birds came in great flocks, and such a bridal train went back to the
palace, as no King yet had ever seen.




Transcriber's Notes:

1. page 113: added semi-colon in sentence '...nice to the poor children;
   the very first day they noticed it.'

2. page 115: changed 'Eliza went to the water' to 'Eliza went to the water',
   in order to match other instances of the princess' name

3. page 125: added semi-colon in sentence '...been in vain; everything--
   the pain, the tears...'


[End of _The Eleven Wild Swans_ by Hans Christian Andersen,
from _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_, translated by
M. R. James]