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The Six Swan Brothers

    Retold by Adèle Geras
    Illustrated by Ian Beck

    THERE WAS ONCE a King who had seven children: six strong sons and a daughter whose name was Cora. They lived in a palace on the shores of a lake, and they loved one another greatly. Their mother died on the very day her daughter was born, and the King and his sons mourned her for a long time. Later, when Cora grew up, laughter returned to the palace, and the days were as like one another as beads on a string, all sparkling with happiness.
    Then one day, the King went hunting in the forest. His men rode with him, of course, but he soon left them far, far behind him. He had caught sight of a wild boar, and plunged after it into the places where the trees grew closest together, and branches knotted into one another overhead to make a canopy that kept out the light of the sun.

    All at once he came to a clearing, and there was no sign of the boar. He realized that he was lost and called to his men, but there was no answer. Suddenly a woman stepped out from between the dark columns of the trees. The King knew at once that she was a witch, because her head nodded and nodded, and her yellow eyes were weak and rimmed with scarlet.
    â€˜Greetings, good lady,’ he said in as firm a voice as he could manage. ‘Will you show me the best way home? I fear I am lost.’
    â€˜I have the power to send you home along straight paths,’ the woman whispered, and her voice was like a rusty blade. ‘But you must do something for me in return, or I will leave you here alone and soon you will be nothing but a complicated arrangement of bones.’
    â€˜I will do anything,’ said the King, for there was nothing else that he could say.
    He followed the Witch to her hut, and there beside the fire sat a beautiful young woman.
    â€˜This is my daughter.’ The Witch twisted her mouth into something like a smile. ‘You will marry her and make her Queen. That is my condition.’
    â€˜It will be my pleasure,’ said the King, and he took the young woman’s hand and set her on his horse. The touch of her fingers filled him with a loathing and disgust he did not understand. She is beautiful, he told himself as they rode together. I should be happy, but her eyes are full of ice and darkness and her red lips seem stained with poison. He made up his mind that she should never know anything about his children, for he was sure that she would harm them if she could. And so, he took the Witch’s Daughter to a house near the palace, and said to her:
    â€˜You will stay here only until I make all ready for our wedding, my dear. Everything must be perfect.’
    And she was satisfied.

    That very night, the King took his children to another castle, which was so well hidden in the green heart of the forest that even he could not find it without help. He had in his possession a ball of enchanted yarn, which a wise woman had given him, and if he threw that along the ground a little way, it unrolled all by itself, and showed him the path he had to follow.
    So there they stayed, the King’s six sons and Cora, his little daughter, hidden and safe, while the King and the new Queen celebrated their marriage. After the wedding, the new Queen noticed that he was away from the palace almost every day, and she became suspicious.
    â€˜He is hiding something from me,’ she said to herself, ‘and I will discover what it is no matter what I have to do.’
    She summoned the stable-hands, and said to them: ‘My husband leaves my side each day, and goes somewhere. Tell me,’ she whispered, and her voice was like treacle. ‘Tell me where he goes, and I will pay you in gold pieces … more gold pieces than you will ever count.’
    And because gold has the power to bend and twist even the strongest will, the stable-hands told her of the magical yarn, and of what it could do. Then, one day when the King was visiting a