her forehead, and the third on her breast, but Elisa didn’t seem to notice. As soon as she rose up, there were three red poppies floating on the water. If the animals hadn’t been poisonous and kissed by the witch, they would have been changed to red roses, but they became flowers anyway by resting on her head and on her heart. She was too pious and innocent for the black magic to have any power over her.
When the evil queen saw this, she rubbed walnut oil on Elisa so she became dark brown. Then she spread a stinking salve over the beautiful face and left her lovely hair tangled and matted. It was no longer possible to recognize the lovely Elisa at all.
When her father saw her, he became quite alarmed and claimed that she wasn’t his daughter. No one else would acknowledge her either, except the watchdog and the swallows, but they were just poor animals and didn’t count.
Poor Elisa wept and thought about her eleven brothers, all of whom were gone. She crept sadly out of the castle and wandered the whole day over moor and meadow and into the big forest. She didn’t know where she wanted to go, but she felt so sad and longed for her brothers, who had been chased out into the world like her. Now she would search them out and find them.
She had only been in the woods for a short time before night fell. She had wandered clear away from the path, so she lay down on the soft moss, said her prayers, and rested her head on a stump. It was so quiet, the air was so mild, and around about her in the grass and on the moss there were hundreds of glowworms shining like green fire. When she gently touched one of the branches with her hand, the shining insects fell down to her like falling stars.
All night she dreamed about her brothers. They were children playing again, writing with the diamond pencil on golden slates, and looking at the lovely picture book that had cost half the kingdom. But they didn’t draw only circles and lines on the slates, like before, rather they wrote about the most daring deeds that they had done, everything they had experienced and seen. Everything in the picture book was alive. Birds sang and the people came out of the book and talked to Elisa and her brothers, but when she turned the page, they leaped back in again, so that the pictures wouldn’t get mixed up.
When she awoke, the sun was already high in the sky. She couldn’t see it because the branches of the tall trees were spread across the sky, but the rays danced up there in the treetops like a fluttering veil of gold. All the green plants gave off a fragrance, and the birds almost perched on her shoulders. She heard water splashing from a great many large springs that all pooled into a pond with a lovely sand bottom. All around the pond bushes were growing densely, but in one spot the deer had cleared a big opening, and Elisa was able to get to the water, which was so clear that if the wind hadn’t stirred the branches and bushes so they moved, you would have thought that they were painted on the bottom, so vividly was every leaf reflected there, both in sunshine and in shade.
When she saw her own face, she was frightened because it was so brown and ugly, but when she took water in her little hand and rubbed her eyes and forehead, the white skin shone through again. Then she took off all her clothes and went into the refreshing water, and there was no more beautiful princess anywhere.
When she was dressed and had braided her long hair, she went to the bubbling spring, drank from the hollow of her hand, and wandered further into the forest, not knowing where she was going. She thought about her brothers and about the good Lord, who wouldn’t desert her. He let the wild crab apples grow, to feed the hungry, and He showed her such a tree with branches heavy with fruit. She had her dinner here, propped up the branches of the tree, and then walked into the darkest part of the forest. It was so quiet that she could hear her own footsteps, hear every little shriveled leaf that crunched under her feet. Not a bird could be seen, and not a ray of sunshine could shine through the big thick tree branches. The tall trunks stood so close together that when she looked straight ahead, it was as if she had a fence of thick posts all around her. Oh, here was a loneliness such as she’d never known!
The night became pitch dark, and there was not a single little glowworm shining on the moss. Sadly she lay down to sleep. Then she thought that the tree branches above her parted, and the Lord with gentle eyes looked down on her, and small angels peered out over his head and under his arms.
When she awoke in the morning she didn’t know if it had been a dream or if it had really happened. After walking a short way, she met an old woman who had some berries in her basket. The old woman gave her some of these, and Elisa asked if she had seen eleven princes riding through the forest.
“No,” said the old woman, “but yesterday I saw eleven swans with gold crowns on their heads swimming in the river not far from here.”
And she led Elisa a little further to a steep slope with a river winding below it. The trees on each bank stretched out their long leafy branches towards each other, and wherever they couldn’t reach with natural growth, they had torn their roots out from the soil and were leaning out over the water with branches woven together. Elisa said goodbye to the old woman and walked alongside the river until it flowed out onto a wide open shore.
The whole beautiful ocean lay there in front of the young girl, but neither a sail nor a boat could be seen out there. How was she to get any further? She looked at all the innumerable little stones on the shore; the water had polished them smooth. Glass, iron, stone—everything that was washed up on the beach had been shaped by water, water that was softer still than her white hand. “They roll tirelessly, and so they smooth out the roughness; I’ll be just as tireless! Thank you for your wisdom, you clear rolling waves. My heart tells me that some day you’ll carry me to my dear brothers.”
Lying in the washed-up seaweed there were eleven white swan feathers that she gathered in a bouquet. There were water drops on them, but no one could tell if it was dew or tears. It was lonely there on the beach, but she didn’t feel it since the ocean changed constantly—more in a few hours than a lake would change in a whole year. If a big black cloud came over, it was as if the ocean said, “I can also look dark,” and then the wind blew, and the waves showed their white caps. If the clouds were glowing red and the wind was sleeping, then the sea was like a rose petal. First it was green, then white, but no matter how quietly it rested, there was always a slight movement by the shore; the water swelled softly, like the chest of a sleeping child.
Just before the sun went down, Elisa saw eleven white swans with gold crowns on their heads flying towards land. They were gliding across the sky one after the other like a long white ribbon. Elisa climbed up on the slope and hid behind a bush while the swans landed close by her and flapped with their great white wings.
After the sun had set, the swan skins suddenly slipped off, and there stood eleven handsome princes, Elisa’s brothers. She gave a loud cry, because even though they had changed a lot, she knew that it was them. Indeed, she felt that it must be them and ran into their arms, calling them by name, and they became so happy when they saw and recognized their little sister, who had grown so big and beautiful. They laughed and they cried, and soon told each other how badly their step-mother had treated them all.
The eldest brother said, “We brothers fly as wild swans so long as the sun is up, but when it sets, our human shapes are returned to us. That’s why we always have to be careful to be on land at sunset because, if we were to be flying up in the clouds, then we would fall to the ground. We don’t live here, but in a land just as beautiful as this one on the other side of the sea. It’s far far away, and we have to cross the ocean. There is no island on our route where we can spend the night except a lonely little rock that sticks up way out in the middle of the sea. It’s so
