The Six Swans

The Six Swans (in German : Die sechs Schwäne) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm as tale number 49. Andrew Lang included a variant in The Yellow Fairy Book. It is Aarne–Thompson type 451: the brothers who were turned into birds. Other tales of this type include The Magic Swan Geese, The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, and The Twelve Brothers.

Six brothers from a King's first marriage have been turned into swans by their stepmother. The brothers can only take their human forms for fifteen minutes every evening. To free them, their sister named Elsa must make six shirts out of Nettles and can't make a sound for seven years or the spell will never be broken.

The King of another country finds her doing this, is taken by her beauty, and marries her. When Elsa, now queen, has given birth to their first child, the King's own wicked mother-in-law takes away the child and accuses the queen of destroying it. Unable to defend herself, the queen is sentenced to be burned at the stake as a witch.

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, the seven years expire and six swans come flying through the air. She throws the shirts over her brothers and they regain their human form. (In some versions she does not finish the sixth shirt in time, or a sleeve is missing.) The queen, now free to speak, can defend herself against the accusations. Her mother-in-law returns the baby she stole, and in anger she falls into a fit and dies.

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