The Twelve Wild Ducks

Finally the King's advisors clamored, "We will not have a Queen who is a witch! The people demand of you that she be burned alive!"

The King was so sad that there was no end to his sadness, for now he saw that he could not save his Queen. He was obliged to order her to be burned alive on a pile of wood. When the pile was all ablaze, and the men were about to put her on it, she made signs to them to take twelve boards and lay them around the pile. On these twelve boards she placed the shirts for her brothers, all completed except the one for the youngest, which still needed its left sleeve. She had not had time to finish it. As soon as she set the shirts on the boards, the people heard a flapping and whirring in the air, and down swooped twelve wild ducks from over the forest. Each one snapped up his shirt in his bill and flew off with it.

"See now!" shrieked the old woman. "Didn't I tell you? Such goings-on can only be the result of ! Make haste and burn her immediately before the pile burns low!"

"Well, now," said the King, "we've plenty of wood, so I believe I'll wait a bit. It is true that these goings-on are strange, but I have a mind to see what the end of this will be."

As he spoke, up rode twelve young men, each one dressed as a prince and as handsome a lad as you'd wish to see -- but the youngest prince had a wild duck's wing instead of his left arm.

"What goes on here?" asked the eldest Prince.

"My Queen is to be burned," said the King, "because she is a witch, or so the people say, and I can't save her."

"Sister," said the youngest prince, turning to the Queen, "speak now. You have freed us and saved us. Now you may speak to save yourself."

Then the young Queen spoke and told the whole story. The King and all the people listened with wonder and joy. Only the wicked old woman stood trembling with fear. When the Queen had finished her story, the King ordered that the fire be quenched and he took his wife in his arms.