A long time ago, there was a princess named Elisa. When she was just a child, her mother died and her father remarried. Her stepmother possessed the powers of foresight; she looked into the future and saw that Elisa would become a queen on her eighteenth birthday. The furious queen decided to get rid of Elisa and her six brothers too.

First, she cast a curse on the six brothers, and they disappeared from the castle. Elisa searched for them for several days but could not find them. Then the queen summoned her stepdaughter to her room. "I wish I had a camera for this moment," the queen said thoughtfully.

"A what, stepmother?" Elisa asked.

"Something that will come in the future," she said, brushing aside the girl's question. "I don't want you around anymore, girl. You're getting locked up here and tomorrow I'll figure out what to do with you." Then she left the room and locked her in.

Elisa cried for the entire day, and as night fell she heard a fluttering sound at the window. Sniffing back her tears she went to the window and saw six swans sitting outside of it. Confused, she nonetheless opened the window as one of them tapped on it insistently. She stepped aside as the swans flew in and landed on the floor.

Before her eyes, the swans morphed into her six brothers. The youngest, Eli, wrapped her in an embrace. "Sister!" he cried. "We weren't too late!"

Elisa looked at him, puzzled. "Why were you swans?" she asked.

"It's a long story," said the oldest brother Edric, frowning at his youngest brother. "Listen, Elisa. In fifteen minutes we'll return to swans and we'll carry you out of here on a bench. Quick, boys, start tearing up those sheets!"

"Those are Stepmother's favorites!" Elisa protested.

One of her middle brothers, Evan, grinned. "Oh yes they are," he said gleefully, and set about tearing them into strips with a vengeance.

Soon, they had a decent swing for Elisa to sit on. Edwin, another of the middle brothers had been standing guard at the door. He motioned to his brothers. "Get her on there, quick! She's coming!"

Her final two brothers, Edmund and Edward, held up the seat while Elisa sat on it. The knob of the door jiggled. "We've got to go," Edmund said tensely.

Elisa could see feathers beginning to grow on their skin. They jumped out of the window, and Elisa screamed as they free-fell for several seconds. Then they fully transformed into swans and took flight, holding their sister aloft.

As they flew away from the castle and over the ocean, Elisa fell asleep. She dreamed she was in a cave and an old woman came up to her. "Elisa!" she said. "If you seek to free your brothers from their curse, you must gather brambles and knit shirts for each of them. But be warned; a single word, a small syllable that passes from your lips shall kill them."

When Elisa woke, her brothers had left her in relative safety at a small, abandoned cave. She immediately set about gathering brambles to knit the shirts for her brothers. They pricked at her palms, but remembering the old woman's words not a sound of protest passed from her lips. Once she had some, she started knitting a shirt for her oldest brother.

It wasn't long after that when a king and his men rode by on a hunting excursion. Elisa had returned outside and continued picking brambles, and the king took pity on the girl. He knelt beside her, and she looked up, meeting his big brown eyes. "Miss," he said quietly, "why are you injuring your hands so?"

She shook her head when he tried to take them from her. Still, he wouldn't budge. "I'm taking you back to the castle with me," he said. "My name is Hans. You can continue your knitting there; it's dangerous to travel around by yourself."

Elisa had no choice as the man placed her on the horse in front of him. She held the piece she'd knitted of her brother's shirt in her arms, along with the precious brambles. She would finish her brothers' shirts and break the curse on them.

Even without Elisa being able to speak, Hans still fell in love with her in the ensuing weeks at his castle. He was immensely patient with her strange habit of knitting with the brambles, and soon she had a decent stack of shirts—four out of six. He asked her to marry him, and happily, she agreed. But she managed to get her point across even without being able to speak; she wouldn't marry him until she'd finished the shirts.

Hans had never seen her brothers. They came in the evening for fifteen minutes and flew off before he saw them. He knew there was something odd about Elisa, but it didn't matter to him. All he cared about was that she was beautiful, sweet, and innocent.

His mother, though, disapproved and despised Elisa. Her hands were always cut from the brambles, and she avoided the queen when she could. Finally, when Hans became engaged to Elisa, she decided to get rid of the girl. She had one of her men follow the girl one night, and when he saw her go to the graveyard and pick the brambles growing around the stones he accused her of being a witch.

Brought to trial, Elisa remained loyal to her brothers and said not a word. Convicted as a witch, she was tossed into a cart and brought to be burned. She had only a half a shirt remaining, and even going to her death she kept going. Holding the shirts in her arms, they put her on the stake and one of the men started carrying a torch to her.

Her brothers appeared as swans and attacked the man, driving him away from Elisa. She threw the shirts on her brothers, and one by one they each regained their normal form. Only the youngest, Eli, still had a bird's wing for his arm; he had the incomplete shirt, missing a sleeve.

Freed from her burden, Elisa turned to Hans. "My love," she said, "today is my eighteenth birthday. My stepmother prophesied that I would become a queen today, and I believe that you will make that prophecy true. I am not a witch; she was the witch. But I owe her everything, because she was the key to my meeting you."

Hans freed her and they were married that day. Elisa's six brothers returned home after the wedding and killed their stepmother, ruling over that kingdom and forging a strong alliance with Elisa and Hans's kingdom.

And they all lived happily ever after.