The Six Swans

"The Six Swans" (German: Die sechs Schwäne) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812 (KHM 49). It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451 ("The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"), commonly found throughout Europe. Other tales of this type include The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, and The Twelve Brothers. Andrew Lang included a variant of the tale in The Yellow Fairy Book.

Scholars and folktale catalogues report variants of the tale type across Europe, the Middle East, and even India and Japan, although the number of brothers and their animal form may vary between tales.

The fairy tale is about a princess whose six brothers are turned into swans by their stepmother. To break the spell, the princess mustn't speak for six years while sewing six star-flower shirts for her bewitched brothers. Halfway through her task, things become more difficult for the princess when she marries a foreign king and gets falsely accused by her mother-in-law of eating her own children.