Fairy Tale Analysis: The Six Swans
As a child, like most children, I was read a few fairy tales. One of the reasons that children are read fairy tales is because it can teach them lessons about life early on so that they can implement them into their lives as soon as possible so that they can grow up having basic human interaction skills. I remember being read and reading stories such as “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Jack and The Beanstalk”, and “The Three Little Pigs”. This was the first time I had ever heard of the story “The Six Swan’s”. Reading it for the first time, the story seemed vaguely familiar. Like I had read it before. This is because it has similar lessons, such as the concept of family and trust, to other fairy tales that we are read as children.
In the story “The Six Swans” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, a king must hide his seven children from their witch stepmother. When the stepmother finds out about the children, she makes shirts that will turn them into swans. The stepmother then finds the children and throws the shirts on the six boys that come out to greet her because they thought she was their father. Little does the witch know that there is still another little girl that did not come out. This girl then has to turn the boys back into swans and the only way to do so is for her to sew six shirts and remain silent for 6 years. While she is silent, a new king comes and falls in love with her and marries her. When they have children, this king’s mother decides to accuse the girl of being a cannibal by hiding the children and smearing blood on her face while she is sleeping. When the six years come to an end, the girl is just about to be executed when she is able to throw the shirts over the swans and her brothers are turned back into humans. She is now able to talk and is then able to tell the king what really happened and the evil mother in law is burned at the stake.
When I first read this story, I thought about the theme of trust and how these characters were too trusting of people that they did not know. As a child, I was taught not to talk to strangers. In the story, every time that a character talks to someone they do not know, they get themselves into trouble. The first time this happens is when the first king talks to the witch in the forest. By talking to her, he is given an ultimatum that forces him to marry her daughter.
The second time it happens is when the kids run out to greet their dad without even knowing if it is in fact him. By doing this, the six boys are transformed into swans. When the girl meets a new person, she must be silent because she wants to save her brothers. This works out in her favor because she is able to get to know the person without having to talk and knows who she can and can not trust. You need to know that the person loves you before you can trust them. Once a person knows that they are loved, and they can trust that person, they typically would do almost anything to help them such as how the girl would do anything to save her brothers.
The more I read this story, the more I think of the sacrifice the girl makes to try and save her brothers. Her brothers tell her:
You would not be allowed to speak or to laugh for six years, and in that time you would have to sew together six little shirts from asters for us. And if a single word were to come from your mouth, all your work would be lost. (Grimm)
She takes this challenge and says that she would do this even if it were to cost her her life. This shows that family is a very large part of her life. Even though it was not her fault that the boys were turned into swans, she is still willing to sacrifice everything to bring them back. She shows this is true when she is almost burned at the stake because she doesn’t want to speak and ruin the chance of her saving her brothers. I can relate to the girl in the sense that I lost my brother when I was fifteen. I would try anything and everything possible to have him back. Family is very important to me.
Family is the most important thing in my life. Many people believe that family is only people that you are related to by blood. To be family, you don’t have to be blood related or married, it is just about love. I learned this when my brother passed away. I learned this because of all the support that I got from my hockey team. When he passed away I got texts and calls from everyone on my team showing their support. Also, they decided that they were going to have us line up in the formation of number 14 for the national anthem because that was his number when he played. The way that nothing else mattered to them and they dropped everything to help a teammate in need showed how close we all were and how we all loved each other. They felt like family to me.
As I was reading this story for the first time, I noticed the story seemed somewhat familiar to me and then I realized it reminded me of the movie Shrek that I saw when I was younger. This is because the movie Shrek is basically a parody of a bunch of other fairy tales. In the story of Shrek, the theme of family and friendship are present just like in “The Six Swans”. At the beginning of the movie, the main character, an ogre named Shrek, meets Donkey who is a talking donkey. The theme of family is present in this story because when Shrek and Donkey first meet, Shrek hates Donkey and just wants him to leave him alone, but as the story progresses, they become so close that they are like family. This is similar to “The Six Swans” because of how the second king in the story becomes family to the girl and her brothers by the end and would do anything to help them like how he had his own mother stoned because she almost got the girl stoned. Another way that Shrek is similar to “The Six Swans” is that Princess Fiona was cursed by a witch. In Shrek, Princess Fiona must have her true love’s first kiss in order to stop the curse. This is similar to “The Six Swans” because the six boys are also cursed by a witch and must rely on someone else to help them reverse their curse. This has the theme of trust intertwined in it because both the king and Princess Fiona should not have trusted the witches and also Princess Fiona and the six boys had to trust someone that they loved, or is going to love in princess Fiona’s case, to reverse their curse.
Fairy tales are an important part of a child’s development into becoming a decent human being. Not only do fairy tales teach kids how to read and understand language, it can teach them lessons about life. By reading the story “The Six Swans”, you can learn lessons about family and trust. Family is not defined by the people that you share blood with, but by the people that you love and that love you back. People that would do anything they can to help you when you are in a time of need. Trust is something that people need to earn because if you are not careful, people that you think you trust can turn out to be not so trustworthy. These lessons are so important for people to learn and the earlier children learn them, the better they will understand human interaction and become more productive members of society.
Works Cited
Adamson, A., & Jenson, V. (Directors). (2001). Shrek [Motion picture on TV]. United States: Dreamworks Studios.
Grimm, J., & Grimm, W. (n.d.). The Six Swans. Retrieved from https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm049.html