MythDancer | Bringing Myths to the Modern World

Hello all!

Today I wanted to take a look at a fairy tale I really enjoy.  There's several different versions of it (the one by the Grimms is, of course, significantly more violent), but the one I know best comes from Andrew Lang's The Yellow Fairy Book.  The story itself is called The Six Swans.  Shall we begin?


Once upon a time there was a king who was out hunting with his court.  The king got himself quite lost in the woods, and found himself hungry and thirsty, with no idea where he was or how to get back.  He wandered for a time before he met an old woman - a witch.

The witch told the king that without her help, he would never find his way out of the woods.  He would die of starvation, all alone.  Left with no choice, the king begged the witch for help.  She led him to her home, where her daughter, a beautiful maiden, sat waiting.  (The book actually says "She received the King as if she were expecting him" - I've always wondered if the witch or her daughter cast some spell to get the king lost.)

A deal was offered by the witch.  If the king married her daughter, she would show him the way out of the forest.  On the surface, the deal was not a bad one; the witch's daughter was quite beautiful and well behaved.  Yet a sense of dread filled the king every time he looked at her.  Left with no choice, the king reluctantly accepted the witch's offer.  He and the witch's daughter left the woods, and were soon married at his castle.

This was not the king's marriage.  He was a widower, and his previous wife had given him seven children: six boys and one girl.  The king's sense of unease about his new spouse lingered, and he feared for the safety of his children.  Without telling her of their existence, he whisked the seven children away to a small castle in the woods, where they could live in safety.

But the king was a doting father, and he did not like to be separated from his children.  Because of this, he visited them frequently, disappearing into the woods for hours at a time.  The queen took note of this, and did not like his absences.  Since the king refused to tell her where he went, she bribed some of his servants, who admitted to the existence of the children.  (Since girls were considered inconsequential at the time, only the boys were mentioned.  As such, the queen thought that there were only six kids.)

The queen did not like that at all.  Her mother had taught her some of her witchcraft, so she set out for the castle with magic in hand - six enchanted shirts she had sewn.  When the children saw a rider approaching they ran to meet it, expecting their father.  However, the daughter was more cautious, and stayed back to watch.  She was horrified to see the queen throw the shirts over her six brothers.  One by one, the boys fell to the ground...where they transformed into swans!


The queen rode back to the castle, satisfied that her job was done.  As for the swans, they flew off into the night, leaving the king's daughter all alone.

When the king came to visit the next day, he was horrified to find his sons missing.  The princess explained everything that had happened to him, but she did not know that the attacker was the queen.  Not wanting to lose his only remaining child, the king begged his daughter to return with him to the castle.  However, she was afraid of the place, and instead ran away.

After she grew tired of running, the princess found shelter in a tiny cottage.  There were six beds within the home, and she fell asleep underneath one of them.  She awoke to the sound of wings.  Six swans were flying in through the window.  One by one they landed - and then they transformed into her brothers.

The boys were delighted to see their sister, and much hugging ensued.  However, they warned her that she could not stay in the cottage, as its owners were rough brigands.  They sadly told her that they would be unable to protect her, for the curse only allowed them to transform back into humans for fifteen minutes each evening.

The princess wanted nothing more than to find a way to break the curse on her brothers.  They told her that such a thing was impossible, and that the effort required would be too great.  Undaunted, she demanded to know what she needed to do.

In order to break the curse, the brothers explained, the princess would need to spend six years in complete silence.  She could not speak a word, or even utter a laugh.  In addition, she would need to sew six shirts out of starflowers.  (In the Brothers Grimm version of the story, the shirts must be sewn out of nettles - a plant which would be significantly more painful to work with.)  Despite their warnings about its difficulty, the princess vowed to do this in order to save her brothers.

With their fifteen minutes up, the brothers transformed back into swans and flew away.


With her brothers gone, the princess found a tree and climbed it to sleep.  As soon as she awoke the next morning, she gathered as many starflowers as she could find.  The princess began to sew.

Some time passed, and there came a day when huntsmen stumbled upon the tree the princess was sewing in.  They hailed her, but she did not answer.  Question after question they asked her, but the girl continued to sew in silence.  When they continued to bother her, she threw down her jewelry in the hopes of quieting them; when that did not work, she began to throw down her clothing, one piece at a time.

The huntsmen were soon joined by their king, who ruled over a nearby land.  He was struck with curiosity about the girl, who still refused to speak.  The tree was climbed, and the princess carried down to be presented to the king.  He flung his cloak around her and put her on his horse.  They rode back to his castle together.

Even though she was voiceless, it didn't take long for the king to fall in love with the beautiful princess.  Soon they were married, and she became his queen.

But not everyone in the kingdom was happy about this.  The king's mother still lived in the castle, and she was an evil, conniving woman.  She disliked the new queen, and was distrustful of her silence.  She began to spread nasty rumors about the queen.

Time passed, and the queen kept true to her word - she never spoke, or laughed, and she sewed every day on the shirts.  Eventually she became pregnant, and bore a child to the king.  However, as soon as the child was born, the king's mother whisked it away.  She spread a rumor that the queen had killed the child.  The king refused to believe it, but the queen remained silent on the matter, simply taking up her sewing once more.


Again the queen became pregnant, and once more the king's mother stole away the child, claiming that the queen had killed it.  The king still refused to believe that his gentle wife could do such a thing, but she was unable to speak up in her own defense.  When the third child of the king and queen likewise disappeared, the king was left with no choice but to turn his wife over to the castle guards.  She was sentenced to be burned at the stake the next day.

All the while, the queen continued to sew.  When dawn came and she was lead away to the stake to face her punishment, she took the shirts with her.  They were all finished, save for the left sleeve on the sixth shirt.

It so happened that the day she was to be burned alive was also the last day of the six years of her silence.  As the queen was led to the stake, she looked up and saw six swans flying towards her.  She smiled then.


The swans swooped in, and the queen flung a shirt onto each of them.  One by one, the swans transformed back into her brothers.  (One of them was left with a wing instead of a left arm, because he wore the shirt that she had been unable to complete.)

Her trial completed, the queen stepped down from the stake and approached her husband, who was staring in wonder at the swans-to-men.  She spoke to him for the first time, and told him that she was now free to defend herself against the allegations of his mother.  The queen explained that it was the king's mother who had stolen their children.  The castle was searched, the children were found, and they were brought before their father.

The king's mother was punished for her wickedness.  (In some versions of the story, she is attacked by the swans before they are turned back into princes.  In others, she is so overcome with rage at her plan's failure that she falls into a fit and dies.)

As for the king and queen, they lived in joy and peace with the six brothers for the rest of their days.

What did you guys think of the story?  If it sounds familiar, there's a good reason why.  There are an enormous number of fairy tales in which the female is unable to speak for some reason (The Little Mermaid is a great example of this).  There are also many in which children are transformed into birds.  Sometimes these are other fowl, such as ravens - but this particular version of the story used swans for a reason.  Its origins lie in the Celtic myth of The Children of Lir, which I discussed in an earlier post.


I hope you guys enjoyed!  I had a great time looking for pictures to use for this post.  I'll be back next week with another story!

Hey guys, how are you all doing today?  I hope everyone is having a nice weekend!  We passed the 2000 pageview mark here, so I'm pretty happy.  Thank you, my readers!

Our story today is called The Children of Lir.  It's a little more well-known than some of the other stories I've been talking about in Celtic mythology, so you might have heard of it.  The Children of Lir is one of those interesting stories that somehow blends Celtic mythology and Christianity.  Its main characters are children of the Tuatha De Danann, the Celtic gods.  Despite this, they build a friendship with the Irish monk Mo Chaemoc, and ultimately convert to Christianity.

The children of gods become Christian.

This intrigues me to no end.

Anyway: the story.  It begins in ancient times, but ends after Saint Patrick brings Christianity to Ireland - sometime around the fifth or sixth century.  The spelling of its characters' names can vary drastically.  I'm sticking with what's in the books I have, but if you're interested you should look up the characters.  For example, even Lir, which is by far the shortest name in this story, is sometimes spelled Lear.  (You might be familiar with that version of spelling.  Yes, he's that Lear - or, at least, the inspiration for him.)

The story also has some truly fascinating parallels to certain fairy tales - both Cinderella and Snow White come to mind when I read it, as does the tale of Hase-Hime.  Of course, there's also some similarities to The Black Swan.  Keep an eye out for them!

The story begins when the Tuatha De Danann are electing a king.  Lir, a prominent member of the group, fully expects the crown to fall to him.  As such, he is quite furious when another member named Bobd is named king instead.  Lir storms out of the assembly in a huff, and keeps to himself for quite some time.

Well, not entirely to himself.  Lir has a wife whom he loves very much, and she keeps him company as he sulks.  Then, one day, she falls ill.  It is not long before she dies, leaving Lir heartbroken by his loss.

While Lir mourns his wife, Bobd begins to think.  Lir's long absence from the Tuatha De Danann has not gone unnoticed, and King Bobd wants to bring him back into the fold.  To this end, Bobd offers to let Lir marry his choice of one of Bobd's foster daughters.

The prospect of a new wife cheers Lir up considerably; he accepts Bobd's offer and takes his eldest foster daughter, Aeb, to be his wife.  A great wedding feast is held, and the couple are happy together...for a time.

Not long after the wedding, Aeb becomes pregnant.  Soon she gives birth to twins - a boy and a girl, named Luke and Leia.

(Kidding.  Their actual names are Aed and Fionnguala.)

Shortly thereafter, Aeb becomes pregnant again.  Once more she gives birth to twins.  This time they're both boys, who are named Fiachra and Conn.  Sadly, their birth is a difficult one.  Both boys survive, but Aeb does not.

The loss of a second wife pushes Lir into despair.  Only his children are capable of comforting the grief-stricken man, who clings to his remaining family.

(I love that he doesn't blame the children for their mother's death.  That's actually pretty common in stories, particularly in fairy tales - both Snow White and Donkeyskin/Tattercoats come to mind.)

Wanting to help, Bobd once again offers Lir his choice of wife from amongst Bobd's foster daughters.  (Pretty generous, right?  At this point, Lir has outlived two wives.  I'm not sure I'd be offering him any more with that kind of bad luck!  Then again, Bobd might not like his foster daughters too much...)

Lir takes Aoife to be his wife, and she returns with him to his home. Lir dotes on his children as they grow up, and often takes them to see their grandfather Bobd.  The youths are kind and intelligent, and everyone loves them...except for one person.

In the beginning Aoife tried to care for her step-children.  She wanted to please her husband and honor her sister, so she cared for the four young ones as if they were her own brood.  Over time, however, Aoife began to grow jealous.  Everyone was so enamored with the children that they failed to notice the step-mother - even her husband, Lir.

One day Aoife couldn't stand it anymore.  She faked an illness (which I'm sure made Lir pretty nervous, given what happened to his previous wives...) and took to her bed.  She spent a year there, "resting" - when in fact she was plotting the downfall of her step-children.

When the year was over Aoife was convinced she had a scheme that would work.  She sprang from her bed, cured - look!  It's a miracle! - and announced that she wanted to take the children to visit Bobd.

Lir was thrilled to see his wife recovered and agreed to the idea at once, despite the protestations of his daughter Fionnguala.  (Alright, I finally got curious and looked up the pronunciation of her name.  I might be messing this up, but I think it's "Fin-ooh-la".  Pretty, right?)  Fionnguala had a sense that her stepmother was planning something evil.  Unfortunately, her premonitions were dismissed.  She and her brothers were sent with Aoife and some servants for their journey to Bobd's castle.

When they were some distance away from the castle, Aoife called some servants to her.  She offered them whatever they wanted if they would kill Lir's children for her.

(It took her a year to think up that plan?!?)

The servants were horrified and refused, calling the mere idea evil.  Yet, for some reason, they didn't warn the kids, and they didn't turn around and head straight back to Lir.  Gee, nice going, servants...

Instead, the group marched on.  Aoife considered killing the children herself, but couldn't quite work up the nerve.  Then, as they neared a lake, an idea struck her.  Aoife stopped the group and told the children to take a bath in the nearby waters.  As soon as they were in the lake she used her druidic powers and turned them into swans!


Fionnguala was horrified when she realized what had happened.  Unable to reverse the curse herself, Lir's daughter turned to her step-mother.  She pleaded with Aoife, begging her to set a time limit on the transformation so that they would not remain cursed for all eternity.  I'm sure Fionnguala was hoping that Aoife would make the curse only last for a year or two.  Unfortunately, Aoife really hated her step-children.  She condemned them to spend 300 years trapped on that lake in swan form.  After that the four siblings would be forced to fly to another lake, where they would spend another 300 years.  When the time was up they would fly to one last lake and spend an additional 300 years there.  There would be no escaping the curse; because Fionnguala herself had requested a time limit, the spell could not possibly be lifted before the 900 years were up.

Evil Aoife left her distressed swan step-children (the victims of fowl play) and continued on to Bobd's palace.  Immediately the king wanted to know where his grandchildren were.  Aoife told him that Lir would not let her take the children, for he did not trust her.  Perhaps Aoife was hoping that her foster-father would attack Lir for this insult, and her misdeeds would be hidden in the chaos of war.  If so, she was out of luck.  Bobd, while furious, did not take up arms against Lir.

Instead the king sent Lir an angry message demanding an explanation.  A confused Lir responded that he had sent the children with Aoife.  Before too long, the woman's treachery was revealed.  Horrorstruck by what she had done to his grandchildren, Bobd used his own druidic powers to turn Aoife into a wind demon.  She was forever cursed to roam the skies as recompense for her actions.

Bobd and Lir then raced for the lake, where they found four beautiful swans.  The swan children sensed the distress of their relatives, so they swam to the edge of the lake and began to sing.  The music was unlike anything the listeners had ever heard before.  It was so sweet and pure that all negative emotions were driven away by its sound.

Word of the swan children of Lir - and their beautiful songs - soon spread.  For the next 300 years they were never alone.  People travelled from all over the country just to hear their song and be healed by it.  The lilting music made all of their cares melt away; it was well worth the trip.


Eventually the 300th year passed, and the swans were forced by their curse to move to a new lake far from home.  This one was a far less pleasant place, for its waters were often tossed by violent storms.  There were times when the siblings were separated by fierce winds and feared that the others had drowned, only to be reunited when the storm ended.


Their torment was eventually broken by visitors from the Tuatha De Danann.  They told Fionnguala and her brothers about their family, and that all was well with their people.  The news cheered the swans, but the messengers soon departed.  Fionnguala and her brothers were once again left to the mercy of the storms.

The swans were grateful when their 300 years were up.  They flew to their new home, which was a little more bearable than the last.  During their time there Christianity spread to Ireland, and a small oratory was built by the waters of the lake.  The monk that built it, Mo Chaemoc, had never heard the stories of the magical swans.  He was quite surprised to hear them begin singing one morning after the monks had finished their own songs.

Mo Chaemoc inquired after the swans, and soon he knew the story of the Children of Lir.  He called the swans to him and kept them as his companions.  In Mo Chaemoc's company Fionnguala and her brothers learned of Christ, and found themselves hopeful.

They passed the last of their cursed years as friends, until their curse at last was lifted.  Mo Chaemoc watched as his swan friends transformed back into humans - but humans who rapidly aged 900 years before his eyes.  Though old and wizened, the siblings held on to life long enough for Mo Chaemoc to baptize them.  Then they passed on and were buried - Fionnguala in the center, with her brothers surrounding her.

I think the story is beautiful (albeit somewhat depressing).  It's an immensely popular tale, too - there are still statues of the Children of Lir



 and the story continues to be told.  I hope you guys enjoyed it!

As a few sidenotes - spell check really hated me on this post.  Interestingly enough, the only name it didn't try to tell me was misspelled was Aoife.  I wonder why?

As far as the monks and their singing goes...have you guys ever heard the singing of monks?  It is astonishingly lovely.  I first heard it through the mystery TV show Cadfael.  Here's a link to a video of the opening theme; the episodes often feature the monks singing.

I'll be back next week with a post about Cath Palug, who is one of my favorite characters in Celtic mythology.  He's an evil kitty cat!  After that I've got one more Celtic post planned, and then we'll switch to a different set of legends.  I'll let you know next week what it'll be; see you then!