The Wild Swans

Infobox Book |
name = The Wild Swans
title_orig = De vilde svaner
translator =


image_caption = Vilhelm Pedersen illustration
author = Hans Christian Andersen
country = Denmark
language = Danish
series =
genre = Fairy tale
published_in = Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Ny Samling. Første Hefte. 1838.
publication_type =
publisher = C.A. Reitzel
media_type = Print
pub_date = 1838
english_pub_date =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Wild Swans" ( _da. De vilde svaner) is a fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about a princess who rescues her brothers from a spell cast by a wicked queen. The tale was first published 1838 and has been adapted to various media including ballet and animated film.

Plot

In a faraway kingdom, there lives a King with his twelve children: eleven princes and one princess. One day, he decides to remarry. He marries a wicked Queen who is actually a witch. Out of spite, the queen turns her eleven stepsons into swans and forces them to fly away. They carry their fifteen year old sister Elisa to safety in a foreign land where she is out of harms way of her stepmother. There, Elisa is guided by the queen of the fairies, to take a vow of silence and to gather nettles in graveyards; she knits these into shirts that will eventually help her brothers regain their human shapes. The king of another faraway land happens to come across the mute Elisa and falls in love with her. He grants her a room in the castle where she continues her knitting. Eventually he proposes to crown her as his Queen and wife. One night Elisa runs out of nettles and is forced to collect more in a nearby church graveyard. She is spotted by an evil Archbishop who is looking for an excuse to accuse her of witchcraft. He convinces the King that Elisa is a witch. She is tried, but can speak no word, and is sentenced to death by burning at the stake. Even as the tumbril bears her away, she continues knitting, determined to keep it up to the last moment of her life. At the place of execution, the swans descend and rescue Elisa. She throws the shirts over them, and the brothers return to their human forms. Elisa can now speak and explain the reason for her mysterious work. Elisa's courage prevails and she is forever reunited with her brothers.

ource

The source for Andersen's tale is Matthias Winther's "The Eleven Swans" from Winther's "Danish Folktales" (1823). "The Twelve Brothers", "The Seven Ravens", and "The Six Swans" are similar tale types found in the 1812 and 1815 collections of Grimm's Fairy Tales collections. [Tatar, Maria. "The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen". Norton, 2008. ISBN 9780393060812.] The tale may have originated in Ireland as The Children of Lir.

Publication

The tale was first published by C.A. Reitzel in Copenhagen 2 October 1838 in "Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. First Booklet. 1838." ("Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Ny Samling. Første Hefte. 1838."). The tale was republished twice during Andersen's lifetime: 18 December 1849 as a part of "Fairy Tales. 1850." ("Eventyr. 1850."), and again 15 December 1862 as a part of "Fairy Tales and Stories. First Volume. 1862." ("Eventyr og Historier. Første Bind. 1862."). [ [http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/register/info_e.html?vid=21 Hans Christian Andersen Center: Hans Christian Andersen: The Wild Swans] ]

Adaptations

*The American television program "Shirley Temple's Storybook" presented a live-action adaptation of "The Wild Swans" 12 September 1958 starring Olive Deering as Queen Flavia, Grant Williams as King Julio, and Phyllis Love as Elisa. The production was written by Jean Holloway and directed by Robert Morris. [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0026153/filmoseries Filmography by TV series for Hans Christian Andersen (I)] Retrieved 31 January 2008.]
*"The Wild Swans" ( _ru. Дикие лебеди; tr.:Dikiye lebedi) is a 1962 Soviet traditionally-animated widescreen feature film directed by the husband-and-wife team of Mikhail Tsekhanovsky and Vera Tsekhanovskaya. It was produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow.
*The thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House was celebrated with a ballet choreographed by Meryl Tankard based on Andersen's tale called "Wild Swans". The world premiere performance was 29 April 2003. The role of Hans Christian Andersen was performed by Stephen Baynes. The ballet is a mix of dance and photographic and video illuminations created to a specially commissioned score for orchestra and soprano voice by Elena Kats-Chernin. The visual design was inspired by the eccentric paper cut-outs of Hans Christian Andersen. [ [http://www.australiadancing.org/subjects/3581.html Australia Dancing - Wild Swans] Retrieved 31 January 2008.]
*"The Wild Swans", a puppet opera for adults and children based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale with music and libretto by Susan Hulsman Bingham and puppets by Christine Rugullies won a special commendation at the Vienna Masterworks 2004 Nancy Van de Vate International Composition Competition for Opera. [ [http://www.chancelopera.com/bbOTHER%20OPERAS/SwansDREAM.html Swans] Retrieved 31 January 2008]

ee also

* List of works by Hans Christian Andersen
* Vilhelm Pedersen, first illustrator of Andersen's fairy tales

References

External links

* [http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheWildSwans_e.html The Wild Swans] Jean Hersholt's English translation
* [http://www.adl.dk/adl_pub/vaerker/cv/e_vaerk/e_vaerk.xsql?ff_id=22&id=2253&hist=fmD&nnoc=adl_pub "De vilde svaner"] Original Danish text