6

The Nestling

Now the nestling must enter the world all on its own, piercing the shell from within. Not even the most attentive parent can help with this moment of emergence.

—G. Gordon’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Pacific Northwest

Once there was a queen who had a baby who cried and cried and would not be comforted. “Oh, how I wish you would turn into a raven and fly away,” the queen said with impatience. In a flash, the baby changed into a large black bird and was gone, and the queen wept and her heart broke.

Once there was a king who had six sons, and a witch turned them into wild swans. When their little sister grew up, she went to look for them and discovered their hidden cottage deep in the woods. At sunset the swans flew down to the little house and turned back into her beloved brothers. If she were silent for seven years and knit them each a shirt imbued with her tears, she could break the spell, they said. She lived her vow of silence and others accused her of being a witch. And the little sister would not speak to save herself from dying by fire. But the swans flew down and she cast a magic shirt over each one and they changed back into her brothers, and they freed her.

Once there was a crow and the crow said, “I am not really a black crow, but an enchanted prince, who has been doomed to spend his life in misery because of a curse. If you only liked, you could save me.”

Once there was a boy and he broke all the things and they said he was a very naughty, very naughty boy, and he wanted to change into a bird and fly away into the woods and disappear.