Three whole grilled oxen stuffed with ducks and hens were set up in the marketplace; everyone could cut off a piece. The fountains flowed with the most delectable wine, and if you bought a little pastry at the bakery, you got six big buns thrown in, and with raisins in them at that.
In the evening the entire city was lit up, and soldiers fired cannons and boys fired caps, and there was eating and drinking, toasting and dancing at the castle, where all the elegant men and lovely women danced with each other; you could hear their song from far away:
But the princess was still a witch, of course, and didn’t care about Johannes at all. The traveling companion knew this, and so he gave Johannes three of the swan feathers and a little flask filled with some liquid and told him that he should have a large tub set by the bridal bed. When the princess was ready to climb into bed, he was to give her a little push so she fell into the water, where he was to dunk her three times after throwing in the feathers and the drops. Then she would be free of her spell and would fall in love with him.
Johannes did everything the traveling companion told him to do. The princess shrieked loudly when he dunked her under the water and squirmed under his hands in the shape of a big black swan with flashing eyes. When she came up the second time, the swan was white except for a black ring around its neck. Johannes prayed piously to the Lord, and let the water for the third time slip over the bird, and in that instant it changed into the most beautiful princess. She was even lovelier than before and thanked him with tears in her marvelous eyes because he had broken the spell.
The next morning the king came with all the court, and the receiving line went on until late in the day. At the very end came the traveling companion. He had his walking stick in his hand and his knapsack on his back. Johannes kissed him over and over and asked him not to go away—he wanted him to stay with them since he was responsible for all his happiness. But the traveling companion shook his head and said mildly and gently, “No, my time is up. I have only repaid my debt. Do you remember the dead man plagued by those wicked men? You gave everything you had so that he could have peace in his grave. That dead man is me!”
He disappeared at once.
The wedding feast lasted for an entire month. Johannes and the princess were very much in love, and the old king lived many happy days. He bounced their little children on his knee and let them play with his scepter. But Johannes was the king of the whole country.
NOTE
1. In 1820 a typical wage for a tradesman would be about ten dollars (Danish
THE WILD SWANS
FAR AWAY FROM HERE, where the swallows fly during the winter, there lived a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, Elisa. The eleven brothers, who were princes, went to school with stars on their breasts and swords by their sides. They wrote on gold slates with diamond pencils and knew their lessons by heart, and you could tell right away that they were princes. Their sister Elisa sat on a little footstool of plate glass and had a picture book that had cost half the kingdom.
Oh, those children had a good life, but it wasn’t going to stay that way!
Their father, who was the king of the entire country, married an evil queen, who was not good to the poor children; they noticed it already on the first day. There was a big celebration at the castle, and the children were playing house, but instead of the cookies and baked apples they usually got plenty of, she gave them sand in a teacup and told them to pretend it was something else.
The next week she farmed little sister Elisa out to some peasants in the country, and it wasn’t long before she was able to get the king to imagine all sorts of wicked things about the princes so that finally he didn’t care about them anymore.
“Fly out in the world and take care of yourselves!” said the evil queen. “Fly as great voiceless birds!” but she wasn’t able to make it quite as bad as she wanted—they became eleven lovely wild swans. With a strange cry they flew out of the castle windows and over the park and the forest.
It was still early morning when they flew over the peasant’s cottage where their sister Elisa was sleeping. They hovered over the roof, twisted their long necks, and flapped their wings, but no one saw or heard them. They flew away again, high up towards the clouds and far away into the wide world and into a big dark forest that stretched all the way to the sea.
Poor little Elisa stood in the peasant’s cottage playing with a green leaf because she didn’t have any other toys. She pierced a hole in the leaf and peeked up at the sun through it, and it was as if she saw her brothers’ clear eyes, and each time the sunshine hit her cheek, she thought about their many kisses.
One day passed like another. When the wind blew through the big rose hedges outside the house, it whispered to the roses, “Who can be more beautiful than you?” but the roses shook their heads and answered, “Elisa.” And when the old woman sat by the door reading her hymnal on Sundays, the wind turned the pages and said to the book, “Who can be more pious than you?” “Elisa,” said the hymnal, and what the roses and the hymnal said was the solemn truth.
When she was fifteen years old, she was to return home, and as soon as the queen saw how beautiful she was, she became angry and hateful to her. She would have liked to turn Elisa into a wild swan, like she did to her brothers, but she didn’t dare do it right away since the king wanted to see his daughter.
Early in the morning the queen went into her bathroom, which was built of marble and was decorated with soft cushions and the loveliest carpets. She took three toads, kissed them, and said to the first, “Sit on Elisa’s head when she gets into the bath, so that she will become sluggish, like you.”
“Sit on her forehead,” she said to the second one, “so she will become ugly like you, and her father won’t recognize her.”
“Sit on her heart,” she whispered to the third. “Give her a bad disposition, so she’ll suffer from it.”
Then she put the toads into the clear water, which immediately took on a greenish hue, called Elisa, undressed her, and had her step into the bath, and as she went under the water, the first toad sat on her hair, the second on
