And of course, all the usual fairy tale elements are present too – a prince, the fairy godmother and the triumph over evil. Elisa is a strong character, a young woman with a determined attitude, who puts the well-being of her brothers above her own. And, I think reading the original made me aware of how old the story is (it was first published in 1838), and how it’s a product of its time.Īpart from that, the story-telling and imagination of the author really shone through, allowing me to enjoy the rest of the fairy tale. There was a lot of praying, piety and self-sacrifice going on – heavy stuff for a children’s story. This most of all, I found hardest to read as in places it was laid on fairly thick. Modern retellings tend to ignore religion / religious themes in these stories as they aren’t necessarily what a modern audience wants to read. One thing that really struck me as I read The Wild Swans was the strong religious aspect to it.

(On a side note, the story was accepted and will be released as part of an anthology later this year – yay!)

To boost my chances of acceptance, I thought it best to try and find one of the less popular stories. The purpose: to write a short fairy tale re-telling about an evil queen / step-mother character from a fairy tale for a call for submissions I had seen. Everyone’s heard of The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen, but I was looking for something a little different. I came across this Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale while researching some of the less well-known fairy tales that he had written. You have the powers to set your brothers free, but have you the courage and determination? In fact, she takes it upon herself to save them, no matter the personal cost to herself, which turns out to be quite high… However, Elisa doesn’t forget her brothers.

And she succeeds in the case of the eleven princes, but her efforts are hampered when it comes to the princess Elisa. So she schemes to get rid of them by casting a spell to turn them into swans. A widowed king remarries, but his new queen turns out to be a witch who doesn’t like her twelve step-children.

The wild swans hans christian andersen