Saturday, 9 April 2022

Good Reading: "The Seven Swans" by Ludwig Bechstein (translated into English)

Once on a time a young and wealthy king who lived in a noble castle, went hunting in his forest. There he found a hind that was whiter than snow. She fled away from him and tried to hide among the thickets. The king followed her till he came to a dark, gloomy valley. There he lost sight of her and at last had to call his dogs together and get back.

On his way he passed a pool of water. Beside it a young woman stood washing herself while she was holding a golden chain in one of her hands. The sight of her charmed the king so much that he got down from his horse and, gliding up behind the woman, took the chain from her hand.

The girl was so pretty that the king forgot all about the white hind and his dogs and led the young woman home to his castle and married her.

Now the young king had a mother, and she disliked his son's wife very much: She feared that now that he was married she should lose much of her influence, she who until now had managed about everything. So the mother-in-law began to hate her daughter and tried hard to make the new queen and her husband quarrel.

But the old queen's son would not hear what she had to say and even got angry with her for talking down on his wife. So the queen-mother now began to be very willing to help and did all she was told to do by her son and his wife. But she was only hiding lots of evil schemes and plans.

In time six sons and a daughter were born to the young queen. Each had a golden ring round the neck. The old queen was in the room when this happened. As soon as the mother fell asleep she put seven kittens in the bed instead of the new-born babies. Then she carried the babies away to a faithful servant she had, and made him swear that he would throw them into a pond in the forest. He took the children with him to drown them, but when he got to the pond he found that he could not do such a heinous thing, and left them lying on the ground. But he told the queen-mother that he had done as she had told him to.

An old hermit lived in the forest. He happened to find the abandoned children and took them home to his hut. For seven long years he fed them as well as he could on the milk of his goats and other good food he could get.

Meanwhile the queen-mother showed her son the seven young kittens and told him he was their father. The king believed his mother in this, and stopped loving his wife. He would not listen to one word she said, but had her buried up to her waist in the earth somewhere outside the castle, with some stone slabs to keep her in place. The poor queen endured this mistreatment for seven years, while her hair grew so long that it covered her naked body rather soon. Many passers-by gave her food and drink and sheltering things so that she survived. They understood the king's treatment of her was over the top.

The seven children in the forest meanwhile learnt to hunt and fish for their living. Once their father caught sight of them when he himself was hunting. He noticed the golden chains around the neck of each as they sported about in the sun. When he came home he mentioned what he had seen to his mother and his friends. The old mother-queen was frightened when she heard it and and hastened away to ask her servant if he had killed the children well or not. He said that had left them lying under a tree, where they must have died.

She said, "No, they are not dead," and ordered him ride to the forest at once, search for the children and take from them their gold chains. If the servant did not, both he and she would be put to shame, she told him.

The frightened servant obeyed at once. After three searching for the children for three days he found them at a time when had laid aside their chains and were swimming about a lake in the shape of swans. Only the little girl was keeping her human form and watched the antics of her brothers.

The slave crept nearer and seized the six chains; but the little girl saw him in time to escape. The servant then returned to the queen and gave her the chains. She took them to a goldsmith and asked him to make a cup of them.

But the goldsmith found that the gold was finer and purer than any gold he had had before. It could neither be formed with the hammer nor melted in the fire. So he was satisfied with beating one chain into a ring. The other chains he weighed and put way, while he made a cup of gold from a gold bar he had in his smithy. When he had made the cup, he handed the chain and cup over to the queen-mother - and she locked them up in her cabinet.

But the swans could not become humans again when they did not have their gold chain. They swam sadly to and fro, singing notes which reminded of the cries of children. At last they flew up and away to see if they could find a good place to live. When they saw a large clear lake they settled down on it.

This lake nearly surrounded a tall rock. On the top of the rock stood a castle. It belonged to the young king. From the window of his dining-room there he often looked out over the lake. The day after the six swans came to the lake, he saw they swimming beneath his castle and threw down pieces of bread to them. He also bade his servants never hunt or in any way annoy them, but feed them regularly. This went on for so long that the swans at last became quite tame and came daily at stated times to be fed.

The little sister meanwhile also happened to come the castle of her father. She saw the young queen sitting neglected and forlorn in the earth. Together the girl and the queen started to share what each received from charitable people. The girl did not know that the half-buried woman was her mother, although she slept by her side every night. Every morning she went down to the lake and fed the swans. When she came to feed them, they used to fly to her and eat out of her hand and made her fondle and caress them.

The people at the castle wondered about all this and also noticed that the young girl wept when she stood by the queen, and looked like her too.

The king too was strangely moved, for he too noticed that the girl looked much like his wife and that the girl wore a gold chain around the neck. One day he asked her, "Child, where are you from, and who do you belong to? Who are your parents? And how did you tame these swans so that they eat out of your hands?"

The poor child sighed heavily and answered, "I never knew my parents. But he swans are my brothers, brought up in the forest by a dear old man. One day my brothers laid aside their golden chains when they bathed in a lake. Without their chains they had to take the form of swans. When they were bathing as swans, their gold chains were stolen. and since then my brothers could not become humans again, and remained swans."

The girl finished her tale while the cruel queen-mother and servant looked at each other in dismay.

The girl's tale made a mighty impression on the young king. Shortly afterwards he went out think of it while he walked. At the same time his hard-hearted mother sent her servant to kill the girl when she went as usual to feed her brothers. The servant hastened along with a drawn sword in his hand. However, the young king caught sight of the servant before he reached the girl, stepped in and beat the sword out of the servant's hand. Then the servant fell on his knees and confessed all the evil things he had done against the children, and how he had done everything at the bidding of the queen-mother.

The king at once sent for his mother and made her open her chest and give him the cup which she supposed was made of the chains. The king next sent for goldsmith and asked him about the cup. The goldsmith then said he had five of the golden chains. They were too hard to work with for him, so he had used other gold to make the cup instead. But the sixth chain he had made into a ring.

The king soon got the six chains and gave them to the girl. She placed them around the necks of her brothers and they became humans again, all except one. His chain was lost, so he was compelled to remain in the form of a swan until they found a way to liberate him.

While this was being done, the king rescued his wife from the pit and let great physicians care for her. She recovered well, and was soon as pretty and healthy as before her seven long years of undeserved misery.

The false and evil mother-queen was put in jail.

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