so
hidden, and the way to it was so hard to find, that he himself could
not have found it out had not a wise-woman given him a reel of thread
which possessed a marvellous property: when he threw it before him it
unwound itself and showed him the way. But the King went so often to
his dear children that the Queen was offended at his absence. She grew
curious, and wanted to know what he had to do quite alone in the wood.
She gave his servants a great deal of money, and they betrayed the
secret to her, and also told her of the reel which alone could point
out the way. She had no rest now till she had found out where the King
guarded the reel, and then she made some little white shirts, and, as
she had learnt from her witch-mother, sewed an enchantment in each of
them.

And when the King had ridden off she took the little shirts and went
into the wood, and the reel showed her the way. The children, who saw
someone coming in the distance, thought it was their dear father
coming to them, and sprang to meet him very joyfully. Then she threw
over each one a little shirt, which when it had touched their bodies
changed them into swans, and they flew away over the forest. The Queen
went home quite satisfied, and thought she had got rid of her
step-children; but the girl had not run to meet her with her brothers,
and she knew nothing of her.

The next day the King came to visit his children, but he found no one
but the girl.

'Where are your brothers?' asked the King.

'Alas! dear father,' she answered, 'they have gone away and left me
all alone.' And she told him that looking out of her little window she
had seen her brothers flying over the wood in the shape of swans, and
she showed him the feathers which they had let fall in the yard, and
which she had collected. The King mourned, but he did not think that
the Queen had done the wicked deed, and as he was afraid the maiden
would also be taken from him, he wanted to take her with him. But she
was afraid of the step-mother, and begged the King to let her stay
just one night more in the castle in the wood. The poor maiden
thought, 'My home is no longer here; I will go and seek my brothers.'
And when night came she fled away into the forest. She ran all through
the night and the next day, till she could go no farther for
weariness. Then she saw a little hut, went in, and found a room with
six little beds. She was afraid to lie down on one, so she crept under
one of them, lay