FAR away, where the swallows fly when our winter comes on, lived a King, who had eleven sons, and one daughter named Eliza. The eleven brothers were Princes,and each went to school with a star on his breast and his sword by his side. They wrote with pencils of diamond upon slates of gold, and learned by heart just as well as they read; one could see directly that they were Princes.Their sister Eliza sat upon a little stool of plate glass, and had a picture-book which had been bought for the value of half a kingdom.
Oh, the children were particularly well off; but it was not always to remain so.
Their father, who was King of the whole country,married a bad Queen who did not love the poor children at all. On the very first day they could notice this. In the whole palace there was great feasting, and the children were playing at receiving guests: but instead of these children receiving, as they had been accustomed to do,all the spare cake and all the roasted apples, they only had some sand given them in a tea-cup, and were told that they might make believe that was something good.
The next week the Queen took the little sister Eliza into the country, to a peasant and his wife; and but a short time had elapsed before she told the King so many falsehoods about the poor Princes that he did not trouble himself any more about them.
“Fly out into the world and get your own living,”said the wicked Queen.“Fly like great birds without a voice.”
But she could not make it so bad for them as she would have liked, for they became eleven magnificent wild swans. With a strange cry they flew out of the palace windows, far over the park and into the wood.
It was yet quite early morning when they came by the place where their sister Eliza lay asleep in the peasant's room. Here they hovered over the roof, turned their long necks, and flapped their wings; but no one heard or saw it. They were obliged to fly on, high up towards the clouds, far away into the wide world; there they flew into a great dark wood, which stretched away to the sea shore.
Poor little Eliza stood in the peasant's room and played with a green leaf, for she had no other playthings.And she pricked a hole in the leaf, and looked through it up at the sun, and it seemed to her that she saw her brothers' clear eyes; each time the warm sun shone upon her cheeks she thought of all the kisses they had given her.
Each day passed just like the rest. When the wind swept through the great rose hedges outside the house, it seemed to whisper to them,“What can be more beautiful than you?”But the roses shook their heads and answered,“Eliza!”And when the old woman sat in front of her door on Sunday and read in her hymn-book, the wind turned the leaves and said to the book,“Who can be more pious than you?”and the hymn-book said,“Eliza!”And what the rose bushes and the hymn-book said was the simple truth.
When she was fifteen years old she was to go home.And when the Queen saw how beautiful she was, she became spiteful and filled with hatred towards her. She would have been glad to change her into a wild swan, like her brothers, but she did not dare to do so at once, because the King wished to see his daughter.
Early in the morning the Queen went into the bath,which was built of white marble, and decked with soft cushions and the most splendid tapestry; and she took three toads and kissed them, and said to the first,
“Sit upon Eliza's head when she comes into the bath,that she may become as stupid as you. ----Seat yourself upon her forehead,”she said to the second,“that she may become as ugly as you, and her father may not know her.----Rest on her heart,”she whispered to the third,“that she may receive an evil mind and suffer pain from it.”
Then she put the toads into the clear water, which at once assumed a green colour; and calling Eliza, caused her to undress and step into the water. And while Eliza dived, one of the toads sat upon her hair, and the second on her forehead, and the third on her heart; but she did not seem to notice it; and as soon as she rose, three red poppies were floating on the water. If the creatures had not been poisonous, and if the witch had not kissed them,they would have been changed into red roses. But at any rate they became flowers, because they had rested on the girl's head, and forehead, and heart. She was too good and innocent for sorcery to have power over her.
When the wicked Queen saw that, she rubbed Eliza with walnut juice, so that the girl became dark brown,and smeared an evil-smelling ointment on her face, and let her beautiful hair hang in confusion. It was quite impossible to recognize the pretty Eliza.
When her father saw her he was much shocked, and declared this was not his daughter. No one but the yard dog and the swallows would recognize her; but they were poor animals who had nothing to say in the matter.
Then poor Eliza wept, and thought of her eleven brothers who were all away. Sorrowfully she crept out of the castle, and walked all day over field and moor till she came into the great wood. She did not know whither she wished to go, only she felt very downcast and longed for her brothers: they had certainly been, like herself,thrust forth into the world, and she would seek for them and find them.
She had been only a short time in the wood when the night fell; she quite lost the path, therefore she lay down upon the soft moss, said her evening prayer, and leaned her head against the stump of a tree. Deep silence reigned around, the air was mild, and in the grass and in the moss gleamed like a green fire hundreds of glowworms when she lightly touched one of the twigs with her hand, the shining insects fell down upon her like shooting stars.
The whole night long she dreamed of her brothers.They were children again playing together, writing with their diamond pencils upon their golden slates, and look ing at the beautiful picture----book which had cost half a kingdom. But on the slates they were not writing, as they had been accustomed to do, lines and letters, but the brave deeds they had done, and all they had seen and experienced; and in the picture-book everything was alive----the birds sang, and the people went out of the book and spoke with Eliza and her brothers. But when the leaf was turned, they jumped back again directly, so that there should be no confusion.
When she awoke, the sun was already standing high. She could certainly not see it, for the lofty trees spread their branches far and wide above her. But the rays played above them like a gauzy veil, there was a fragrance from the fresh verdure, and the birds almost perched upon her shoulders. She heard the plashing of water; it was from a number of springs all flowing into a lake which had the most delightful sandy bottom. It was surrounded by thick growing bushes, but at one part the stags had made a large opening, and here Eliza went down to the water. The lake was so clear, that if the wind had not stirred the branches and the bushes, so that they moved, one would have thought they were painted upon the depths of the lake, so clearly was every leaf mirrored,whether the sun shone upon it or whether it lay in shadow.
When Eliza saw her own face she was terrified----so brown and ugly was she; but when she wetted her little hand and rubbed her eyes and her forehead, the white shin gleamed forth again. Then she undressed and went down into the fresh water: a more beautiful King's daughter than she was could not be found in the world.
And when she had dressed herself again and plaited her long hair, she went to the bubbling spring, drank out of her hollow hand, and then wandered farther into the wood, not knowing whither she went. She thought of her dear brothers, and thought that Heaven would certainly not forsake her. It is God who lets the wild apples grow,to satisfy the hungry. He showed her a wild apple tree,with the boughs bending under the weight of the fruit.Here she took her midday meal, placed props under the boughs, and then went into the darkest part of the forest.
There it was so still that she could hear her own footsteps, as well as the rustling of every dry leaf which bent under her feet. Not one bird was to be seen, not one ray of sunlight could find its way through the great dark boughs of the trees; the lofty trunks stood so close together that when she looked before her it appeared as though she were surrounded by sets of palings one behind the other. Oh, here was a solitude such as she had never before known!
The night came on quite dark. Not a single glowworm now gleamed in the grass. Sorrowfully she lay down to sleep. Then it seemed to her as if the branches of the trees parted above her head, and mild eyes of angels looked down upon her from on high.
When the morning came, she did not know if it had really been so or if she had dreamed it.
She went a few steps forward, and then she met an old woman with berries in her basket, and the old woman gave her a few of them. Eliza asked the dame if she had not seen eleven Princes riding through the wood.
“No,”replied the old woman,“but yesterday I saw eleven swans swimming in the river close by, with golden crowns on their heads.”
And she led Eliza a short distance farther, to a declivity, and at the foot of the slope a little river wound its way. The trees on its margin stretched their long leafy branches across towards each other, and where their natural growth would not allow them to come together, the roots had been torn out of the ground, and hung, intermingled with the branches, over the water.
Eliza said farewell to the old woman, and went beside the river to the place where the stream flowed out to the great open ocean.
The whole glorious sea lay before the young girl's eyes, but not one sail appeared on its surface, and not a boat was to be seen. How was she to proceed? She looked at the innumerable little pebbles on the shore; the water had worn them all round. Glass, ironstones, everything that was there had received its shape from the water, which was much softer than even her delicate hand.
“It rolls on unweariedly, and thus what is hard becomes smooth. I will be just as unwearied. Thanks for your lesson, you clear rolling waves; my heart tells me that one day you will lead me to my dear brothers.”
On the foam-covered sea grass lay eleven white swan feathers, which she collected into a bunch. Drops of water were upon them----whether they were dew-drops or tears nobody could tell. Solitary it was there on the strand, but she did not feel it, for the sea showed continual changes----more in a few hours than the lovely lakes can produce in a whole year. Then a great black cloud came. It seemed as if the sea would say,“I can look angry, too;”and then the wind blew, and the waves turned their white side outward.But when the clouds gleamed red and the winds slept, the sea looked like a rose leaf; sometimes it became green,sometimes white. But however quietly it might rest, there was still a slight motion on the shore; the water rose gently like the breast of a sleeping child.
When the sun was just about to set, Eliza saw eleven wild swans, with crowns on their heads, flying towards the land: they swept along one after the other, so that they looked like a long white band. Then Eliza ascended the slope and hid herself behind a bush. The swans alighted near her and flapped their great white wings.
As soon as the sun had disappeared beneath the water, the swans' feathers fell off, and eleven handsome Princes, Eliza's brothers, stood there. She uttered a loud cry, for although they were greatly altered, she knew and felt that it must be they. And she sprang into their arms and called them by their names; and the Princes felt supremely happy when they saw their little sister again; and they knew her, though she was now tall and beautiful. They smiled and wept; and soon they understood how cruel their stepmother had been to them all.
“We brothers,”said the eldest,“fly about as wild swans as long as the sun is in the sky,but directly it sinks down we receive our human form again. Therefore we must always take care that we have a resting-place for our feet when the sun sets; for if at that moment we were flying up towards the clouds, we should sink down into the deep as men. We do not dwell here:there lies a land just as fair as this beyond the sea. But the way thither is long; we must cross the great sea, and on out path there is no island where we could pass the night, only a little rock stands forth in the midst of the waves; it is but just large enough that we can rest upon it close to each other. If the sea is rough, the foam spurts far over us, but we thank God for the rock. There we pass the night in our human form: but for this rock we could never visit our beloved native land, for we require two of the longest days in the year for our journey. Only once in each year is it granted to us to visit our home.For eleven days we may stay here and fly over the great wood, from whence we can see the palace in which we were born and in which our father lives, and the high church tower, beneath whose shade our mother lies buried.Here it seems to us as though the bus hes and trees were our relatives; here the wild horses career across the steppe,as we have seen them do in our childhood; here the charcoal-burner sings the old songs to which we danced as children; here is our fatherland: hither we feel ourselves drawn, and here we have found you, our dear little sister.Two days more we may stay here; then we must away across the sea to a glorious land, but which is not our native land. How can we bear you away? For we have neither ship nor boat.”
“In what way can I release you?”asked the sister;and they conversed nearly the whole night, only slumbering for a few hours.
She was awakened by the rustling of the swans' wings above her head. Her brothers were again enchanted, and they flew in wide circles and at last far away; but one of them, the youngest, remained behind, and the swan laid his head in her lap, and she stroked his wings; and the whole day they remained together. Towards evening the others came back, and when the sun had gone down they stood there in their own shapes.
“Tomorrow we fly far away from here, and cannot come back until a whole year had gone by. But we cannot leave you thus! Have you courage to come with us? My arm is strong enough to carry you in the wood; and should not all our wings be strong enough to fly with you over the sea?”
“Yes, take me with you,”said Eliza.
The whole night they were occupied in weaving a net of the pliable willow bark and tough reeds; and it was great and strong. On this net Eliza lay down; and when the sun rose, and her brothers were changed into wild swans, they seized the net with their beaks, and flew with their beloved sister, who was still asleep, high up towards the clouds.The sunbeams fell exactly upon her face, so one of the swans flew over her head, that his broad wings might overshadow her.
They were far away from the shore when Eliza awoke:she was still dreaming, so strange did it appear to her to be carried high through the air and over the sea. By her side lay a branch with beautiful ripe berries and a bundle of sweet-tasting roots. The youngest of the brothers had collected them and placed them there for her. She smiled at him thankfully, for she recognized him; he it was who flew over her and shaded her with his wings.
They were so high that the first ship they descried beneath them seemed like a white seagull lying upon the waters. A great cloud stood behind them----it was a perfect mountain; and upon it Eliza saw her own shadow and those of the eleven swans; there they flew on, gigantic in size. Here was a picture, a more splendid one than she had ever yet seen. But as the sun rose higher and the cloud was left farther behind them, the floating shadowy images vanished away.
The whole day they flew onward through the air,like a whirring arrow, but their flight was slower than it was wont to be, for they had their sister to carry. Bad weather came on; the evening drew near; Eliza looked anxiously at the setting sun, for the lonely rock in the ocean could not be seen. It seemed to her as if the swans beat the air more strongly with their wings. Alas! She was the cause that they did not advance fast enough. When the sun went down, they must become men and fall into the sea and drown. Then she prayed a prayer from the depths of her heart; but still she could descry no rock.The dark clouds came nearer in a great black threatening body, rolling forward like a mass of lead, and the lightning burst forth, flash upon flash.
Now the sun just touched the margin of the sea.Eliza's heart trembled. Then the swans darted downwards, so swiftly that she thought they were falling, but they paused again. The sun was half-hidden below the water. And ............