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TF Tuseday Tidbits: The Wild Swans..
🕑 Added 2021-01-19 22:13:55 +0000 UTCHey yall! Happy TfTuseday, Today I wanted to do a review/share a bit about my favorite Tf Fairy tale The Wild Swans by Hans Christen Anderson.
When I was little my mom had this big college text book about fairytales ( because she was studying to be an English teacher) and I loved reading from it because it had stories that I had never heard before or variations on popular stories that were way different than the Disney versions I had grown up with. The Wild Swans was one of these stories and I love reading it over and over again.
Here's some links to different versions!
Hans Christen Andersons version
Andrew Langs Versions ( both one and two)
and a Collection of various variations
The basic plot synopsis is this, A king with a large amount of sons and one young daughter remarries to an evil queen to keep his country secure. in some versions he knows she is evil straight off and so hides his children away in a castle in the woods but in others he doesn't. The evil Queen quickly does what evil queens do and Curses all of the Kings sons to transform into wild swans ( or ravens or even ducks in some stories)
the only one who gets away from this unscathed is the Young Princess. This young princess the runs away to the woods to escape. There after a season she is reunited with her brothers who are cursed to be swans during the day but can regain their human form at night. her brothers are happy to see her and the live together peacefully in the woods for a while.
During this time The princess has a dream or is told by a fairy that she can break the curse on her brothers by taking nettles stamping them into flax with bare feet and weaving shirts out of them. the only other condition is that she must remain completely silent until all the shirts are complete. honestly this princess is freaking Metal you guys because she decides to do it and she has a stupid amount of brothers that she has to make shirts for. ( sometimes its 6 brother sometimes its 7, heck sometimes its 11 or 12!)
Eventually a different king comes riding through the woods, sees the princess while her brothers are away and is so stricken by her beauty that he takes her to a castle to be his wife. the princess cant object to this because again VOW OF SILENCE. So she marries the king and despite its dubious start the marriage is pleasant all things considered. She continues making the shirts.
Eventually Evil forces conspire ( sometimes its her new mother-in-law sometimes its the local bishop) but The Princess is accused of witchcraft due to her non speaking thing and her going out at midnight to collect the nettles for her brothers shirts. The king tries to defend her but after their first child goes missing relents and has the Princess tried and sentenced for witchcraft. Since she obviously cant speak to defend herself the Princess throws herself into working on the shirts and is trying to complete them even as she is being dragged up to the stake.
When she is tied to the stake her wild swan brother come to her defense and do what swans do best- which is hissing and beating the crap outa things. She throws the shirts onto them and they are returned to human form! She then yells " IM Innocent!" and passes the heck out because its been a super super shitty 24 hrs for her. the brothers explain what was going on, the townspeople find the baby, and All is well except that the youngest of the brothers still has a swan wing for a left arm because she couldn't finish his shirt sleeve on time.
This story is one that always really enjoyed and honestly I kind of wish that It would get the Disney Animated treatment. After all it has a Princess who is the one doing the rescuing and honestly I could see that fitting right in to the modern Disney princess push! ( with a bit of adjustment though the part about the king marrying her without consent is a bit iffy.)
The story has just the right amount of drama and it leaves some interesting things unresolved ( like the poor swan armed prince) which means its rife the spin off and continuations.
Id love to hear your guys thoughts on the stories in the comments so feel free to leave a message there!
Comments
Mara Briggs
I was definitely surprised at all the variations!
Not Here
I remember this one from a children's book when I was a wee tot–I had no idea it had a longer history!
Radian
oh! Oh I haven't heard this one- thanks for bringing it to my attention! Fairy tales and stuff are always really interesting to me, and this one's no exception!
