Oldal 251 [251]
THE SIX SWANS. I99
soon he was in his royal castle again, where the wedding was
held.
The king had been married before, and his first wife had
left seven children, six boys and one girl, whom he loved
better than all the world, and as he was afraid the step-mother
might not behave well to them, and perhaps would do them
some mischief, he took them to a lonely castle standing in the
middle of a wood. There they remained hidden, for the road to
it was so hard to find that the king himself could not have
found it, had it not been for a clew of yarn, possessing wonder¬
ful properties, that a wise woman had given him; when he
threw it down before him, it unrolled itself and showed him
the way. And the king went so often to see his dear children,
that the queen was displeased at his absence ; and she became
curious and wanted to know what he went out into the wood
for so often alone. She bribed his servants with much money,
and they showed her the secret, and told her of the clew of
yarn, which alone could point out the way; then she gave
herself no rest until she had found out where the king kept
the clew, and then she made some little white silk shirts, and
sewed a charm in each, as she had learned witchcraft of her
mother, And once when the king had ridden to the hunt,
she took the little shirts and went into the wood, and the clew
of yarn showed her the way. ‘The children seeing some one
in the distance, thought it was their dear father coming to see
them, and came jumping for joy to meet him. Then the
wicked queen threw over each one of the little shirts, and as
soon as the shirts touched their bodies, they were changed
into swans, and flew away through the wood. So the queen
went home very pleased to think she had got rid of her step¬
children ; but the maiden had not run out with her brothers,
and so the queen knew nothing about her. The next day the
king went to see his children, but he found nobody but his
daughter.
‘Where are thy brothers ?” asked the king.
“ Ah, dear father,” answered she, “ they are gone away and
have left me behind,” and then she told him how she had seen
from her window her brothers in the guise of swans fly away
through the wood, and she showed him the feathers which they
had let fall in the courtvard, and which she had picked up. The