The Six Swans

The Six Swans is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. [Jacob and Wilheim Grimm, "Grimm's Fairy Tales", " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/49sixswans.html The Six Swans] "] It is tale number 49, and Aarne-Thompson type 451, the brothers who were turned into birds. Andrew Lang included a variant in "The Yellow Fairy Book". [Andrew Lang, "The Yellow Fairy Book", " [http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/047.htm The Six Swans] "]

ynopsis

Six brothers have been turned into swans by their evil stepmother. They can only take their human forms for fifteen minutes every evening. In order to free them, their sister must make six shirts out of starwort for her brothers, and neither speak nor laugh for six years. A king finds her doing this, is taken by her beauty and marries her. When the Queen has given birth to their first child, the King's wicked mother takes away the child and accuses the Queen, and again with the second and the third. The third time, the Queen is sentenced to be burned at the stake. On the day of her execution, she has all but finished making the shirts for her brothers; only the last shirt misses a left arm. When she is brought to the stake she takes the shirts with her, and when she is about to be burned, six swans come flying through the air. She throws the shirts over her brothers and they regain their human form, except for the youngest brother, who is left with a swan's wing instead of a left arm (in some versions she does not finish the sixth shirt in time, and the youngest brother is left as a swan.) The Queen, now free to speak, can defend herself against the accusations. Her mother-in-law is burned at the stake instead.

Commentary

The mother-in-law's hostility to her son's marriage is a motif in common with Perrault's version of "Sleeping Beauty", [Maria Tatar, "The Annotated Brothers Grimm", p 230 W. W. Norton & company, London, New York, 2004 ISBN 0-393-05848-4] and it is repeated in the variant "The Twelve Wild Ducks", where the woman is modified to the king's stepmother. Accusations of killing her own child also feature in "The Lassie and Her Godmother", "Mary's Child", and "Bearskin".

This tale, like "The Twelve Brothers", "The Seven Ravens", and "Brother and Sister", features a woman rescuing her brothers. In the era and region in which it was collected, many men were drafted by kings for soldiers, to be sent as mercenaries. As a consequence, many men made their daughter their heirs; however, they also exerted more control over them and their marriages as a consequence. The stories have been interpreted as a wish by women for the return of their brothers, freeing them from this control. [Jack Zipes, "The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World", p 72, ISBN 0-312-29380-1] However, the issues of when the stories were collected are unclear, and stories of this type have been found in many other cultures, where this issue can not have inspired them. [Jack Zipes, "The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World", p 75, ISBN 0-312-29380-1]

Some folklorists connect this tale to the more general practice of ultimogeniture, in which the youngest child would inherit. [Jack Zipes, "The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm", p 641, ISBN 0-393-97636-X]

Modern interpretations

"Daughter of the Forest", the first part of Juliet Marillier's "Sevenwaters Trilogy" is a re-telling of the fairy tale, in an ancient Celtic setting.

"Black Feather" by K. Tempest Bradford (published in the "Interfictions" anthology, 2007) references commonalities between the "Six Swans", "The Seven Ravens", and "The Twelve Brothers" while building a new narrative for the sister character found in all three versions.

"The Swan Kingdom", by Zoe Marriott, is a re-telling of the fairy tale.

ee also

*The Raven
*Udea and her Seven Brothers
*The Wild Swans
*Retelling in Jim Henson's "The Storyteller"
*Rafe Martin's "Birdwing", a juvenile fiction novel centered around the youngest brother who was left with a single wing.
*Elena Kats-Chernin's "Wild Swans" is a ballet based upon this story.

References

External links

* [http://www.fairyland.tv/fairytales/six-swans.html Fairyland "Six Swans"]
* [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sixswans/index.html SuLaLune's annotated "Six Swans"]