Embedded Files
“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” warned the store clerk, but too late.
“Ow!” The teenager jumped back and stuck their finger in their mouth. “That hurt! What’s that made of?!”
“Nettles,” said the clerk, taking a pair of leather gloves from their pocket and slipping them on. “The creator did her best to remove all the stingers, but she missed some.” Gently, the clerk picked up the fabric and unfolded it. Making sure not to let it touch skin, the clerk held up what was revealed to be a man’s shirt, with one long sleeve. Where the left sleeve should have been were just some threads.
“Did someone have to wear that as punishment? I can’t imagine getting stung all over by that,” the teenager grumbled, nursing their finger.
“Not quite. They only had to wear it briefly.” The store clerk carefully refolded the shirt before setting it down. “You’re familiar with the Brothers Grimm?”
“Yeah, from Germany? They compiled a bunch of fairy tales.”
“Good to see you didn’t blow off every English unit.” The employee removed the gloves as they continued. “People think the Brothers collected fictional folklore and stories, not actual history. But that’s exactly what the Brothers did, and this shirt is from one such event.
“There was a king who had seven children from his first wife: six sons and a daughter, the oldest. The king eventually got remarried. He didn’t trust his new wife, so he took his children away from the palace and to a castle deep in the woods. In fact, the only way the king could find his way there was by using a magic ball of yarn. He’d throw it on the ground, and it would roll along and guide him. When it was time to leave his children, he’d follow the path it showed, winding it back into a ball as he walked.”
“He was so bad at directions that he couldn’t find his way to his children?” asked the teen skeptically.
The employee snorted. “He wasn’t known for his sense of bearing. Supposedly he conquered another kingdom purely because he led his army the wrong way and managed to surprise the enemy. There aren’t Greek gods in Germany, but someone with power watched over him. Besides, his lack of direction is how he acquired a new wife. He got lost in the woods, and the only way this old witch would help him was if he agreed to marry her daughter.
“Anyway, this arrangement worked for a while, but his new wife grew curious about where he was spending so much time. Thanks to bribery, she learned what was in the forest and how the king guided himself there. Shockingly, she had learned witchcraft from her mother, and sewed six silk shirts. When the king went hunting one day, his wife stole the ball of yarn and followed it to the children’s home. The boys were all outside and she caught them unaware. She threw a shirt onto each boy; as soon as it touched skin, the boy turned into a swan and flew away.
“Now, the queen hadn’t learned everything. She didn’t know that the king had a daughter in addition to the boys. The daughter was inside when this happened, so she escaped unharmed, although she witnessed everything. The queen went home, put the yarn back, and acted like nothing happened. When the king went to visit his kids the next day, all he found was his daughter crying. She told him everything, but she hadn’t gotten a good look at the queen, so the king had no idea his wife was responsible.
“The king decided that he would take his daughter to the castle, since she couldn’t be left alone in the forest. However, she begged him to leave her for one more night so she could mourn her brothers and pack. The king agreed and left. But that night, the daughter wrote a note for him and left. She didn’t know what her stepmother was like, but her gut told her not to go with her dad.
“So the princess wandered around for a day, until she happened upon a clearing where there were six nests made out of grass and feathers. She was so tired, she curled up in one and fell asleep. To her delight, she was woken by her brothers! For an hour each evening, they shed their feathers and became human. They were happy to see she hadn’t suffered their fate, but warned her they would have to leave soon. They also told her there was a way to break the spell, but it would be difficult. She couldn’t talk or write a word for six years and had to weave six shirts out of nettles. If she slipped up and spoke, she would have to start again.
“After her brothers left in the morning, the princess wandered through the forest until she found a tree near a patch of nettles. She made the tree her home and set to work. Somehow she managed not to swear while handling the nettles, and so lived quietly for about a year. But eventually another king and his hunting party discovered her. She didn’t speak, but they captured her. This king was captivated by the princess and her beauty. And with gestures, the princess indicated she liked him too. So naturally, they married.
“But the princess now had a mother-in-law who was too attached to her son, and who didn’t trust the princess. The princess kept her tasks and never said a word. But when she became pregnant and gave birth, her mother-in-law snuck into her room and stole the newborn. With a dab of blood at the mouth, the mother-in-law made it look like the princess had done something to her child. The king refused to believe the ‘evidence,’ but the mother-in-law did the same thing to the next two children the princess bore. Between the disappearing children, her refusal to speak, and her insistence on constantly working on the shirts, the king eventually gave into his mother’s demands and gave the order to execute his wife. Peer pressure at its finest.
“Fortunately, the last day of the six years was when the princess was to be killed. She worked on the final shirt even as they tied her to the stake. Right before the fire was set, her brothers flew into the courtyard. She threw the nettle shirts onto them, and they all changed back. Only the youngest brother wasn’t totally human; there wasn’t time to finish the left sleeve, so he had a swan wing. The princess could now speak freely and explained everything to her husband. As it turned out, her children were still alive and living with a friend of the mother-in-law. The king was more than happy to put his mother on the pyre for her actions, and they all managed to lead a somewhat normal life after that.”
“So this is the shirt that was made for her youngest brother?” asked the teen, looking closely at the shirt without touching.
“Yep. I wouldn’t recommend wearing this; it’s better to display it as an artifact. It serves as a nice reminder of how perseverance can win in the end.” The clerk pointed towards some frames on the wall. “If you decide on this, we can frame it up for you, and use special glass to make sure it can’t be touched.”
“I don’t think so. My grandma might forget and try to wear it, or accidentally gift it to someone else. How about this thing right here? What is it?”
Author’s note: it turns out this is a difficult story to shorten, but I did my best to keep it at the right length while still retaining all the details. The story of the Six Swans has been revised a lot, and there are lots of versions floating around that involve the brothers turning into different types of birds (ravens, crows, etc). The original Brothers Grimm story has them turning into swans. For a specific source I decided to use Margaret Hunt’s Household Tales. I knew I was going to include this story right from the beginning of creating the storybook, because the story is focused around a textile: fabric! This is also one of my favorite stories because a lot of authors expand on it in detail, so it’s something I’ve read a lot and I know the general outline. In Hunt’s translation, the shirts have to be made from starwort, which is a generic name for any plant that has star-shaped leaves. But in other translations, the shirts have to be made from nettles or some other form of stinging plant. I decided to make the plant nettle, because it made for a good intro to the story and it also shows how devoted the sister was to helping her brothers, to have to deal with being stung so much. Some stories also differ about whether the daughter is the oldest or youngest of the siblings. Hunt didn’t specify, but I made the daughter the oldest because it made sense to me that she would feel maternal towards her brothers to do the task.
Google Sites
Report abuse