The Six Swans - 2. Una's Silence

Una immediately went to the witch, who regarded her suspiciously. "Haven't needed the charms yet, then?"

"I could find only six when we needed them. If I had found all seven, I could not be asking you for help now. Now my brothers are trapped in swan form because of what you did."

"Your brothers are alive because of what I did, ungrateful girl," the witch snarled. "You asked for help. I did what I could."

"Tell me what I must do to release them from this enchantment."

A slow, sly smile grew on the witch’s face. "What you must do? Yes, as it happens, there is something that you can do to reverse the spell that binds them. But it is hard--too hard for such a young girl."

"Tell me!"

"Very well. For six years you must neither speak nor laugh nor communicate by any sign, and during that time, you must make one shirt for each of your brothers out of wild thistle. At the end of six years, throw the shirts on the swans, and they will regain their human form permanently."

Returning home, Una found that King Edwin’s monthly transformation was no longer a secret. But somehow few in the kingdom were surprised by it. The people seemed to expect such things of their kings. She entrusted her father's care to the chief minister. She packed a few possessions and left the castle, saying to herself, "My brothers need me more now, for my father is human for all but one night a month, but my brothers are human only a quarter of an hour a day." Walking far west into the forest, she began, silently and without laughter, to make shirts out of wild thistle.

Una wandered so far into the forest that she was near the other edge of it. One day, after a few years had passed, she heard the horns of the royal hunting party from the kingdom to the west. She climbed into a tree to escape notice, but the huntsmen saw her. They called to her to come down, but she shook her head, threw down her gold ring, and gestured to them to leave. When they called to her with greater determination, she shook her head again, and threw down her gold necklace. Now less inclined than ever to leave, the huntsmen prepared to climb up after her; she gestured furiously, and threw down her golden belt.

The young king, Lazio, arrived. He said, "Come down, for we will not leave so beautiful a maiden to wander alone. No harm will come to you." At last she came down. King Lazio spoke to her in every language he knew, but she said nothing. Nevertheless, he insisted on taking her to the royal court. Soon he fell in love with her. Though she never said yes to his pleas that she marry him, he took comfort in the fact that she never said no.

In a grand ceremony, they were married, with her vows spoken by proxy. The young queen was soon expecting a child. When the time came near for the child to be born, an old woman arrived at court and begged to be taken into service, saying that she was a skilled midwife. The old woman was the witch from the forest.

King Lazio accepted the old woman's services, and when the baby was born, the witch stole it and gave it to a peasant couple. She smeared blood on Una's mouth. To the king and all assembled she denounced the young queen as a child-murderer and child-eater, but the king would not believe her. Una, of course, said nothing, but continued making shirts out of wild thistle.

When Una was delivered of her second child, the witch did as she had done before. This time the king could not go against the advice of his horrified counsellors. He consented that his young wife should be burned at the stake.

It happened that the day set for the queen's execution was the day when her six years of silence would be complete. She spent every possible minute finishing the last shirt. When the day arrived and she was led to the stake, she carried all six shirts with her, complete except that one lacked the left arm.

The crowd gathered. The young king watched sorrowfully from a distance. The witch impatiently urged the executioners as they bound the young queen and stacked wood around her. Una still said nothing as all this was done, but looked upward, searching the sky in every direction.

The fire was lit. Smoke was beginning to pour upwards when six swans appeared overhead, circling above the queen. Ignoring the mounting flames, she threw the shirts up one by one. One by one, the swans caught them, landed, and struggled into them. They immediately regained their human form, all except the youngest, Benjamin, who kept one swan wing where his left arm should be, where his shirt lacked a sleeve. Quickly they rescued their sister from the fire, and at last she was able to explain to her husband all that had happened.

Then Benjamin said, "You didn't finish my shirt. What am I supposed to do with a wing instead of an arm?"

"I did the best I could," she said. "The witch said it was the only way to break the spell."

"No, I didn't say that," the witch said. "You asked how you could break their spell. I told you the only way that you could do it. You didn't ask me how they could do it. They could have broken the spell at any time, without any such trouble."

"I knew it," another brother said. "You didn't ask her the right question."

"Couldn't you have found some way of signaling what was wrong?" King Lazio asked. "I was starting to think you were crazy, spending all day making shirts out of wild thistles."

"I did not ask you to marry me," Una said. "You insisted, and then see how you stand by me? You believed a witch's absurd accusations rather than defend me. And you, my brothers, why was it always up to me to rescue you? Why did I ever let my two children be taken from me because of an old stale promise to help you? My children are not even my children now. They are peasants' children, and it would be no good trying to get them back. It would simply be another child-theft. I have done enough, and too much! I am through with you, my brothers! And my husband, I am through with you, too! And I am through with whatever power silence brings, and I will not be silent again!"

And she was last seen going off into the forest to take up the practice of witchcraft.