“Fly out into the world and make your own living,” the wicked Queen told them. “Fly away like big birds without a voice.”

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But she did not harm the Princes as much as she meant to, for they turned into eleven magnificent white swans. With a weird cry, they flew out of the palace window, across the park into the woods.”

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—The Wild Swans (1838)

By Hans Christian Andersen,

translated by Jean Hersholt