But before the third swan could leave the lake, the eagle king sneaked out from behind the pine tree and snatched the white dress. Terrified, the swan paddled back over the water and spoke to him in the gentle voice of a girl: ‘Please give me my dress back.’
‘All right, come up onto the shore and take it. I’ll hang it on this pine branch and go round behind the tree.’
The swan-girl thought to herself: I’ll grab my dress and start running.
But the eagle king thought: As soon as she comes nearer she’s mine!
The swan-girl ran up onto the shore, making for the branch where her white dress was hanging. She moved fast, but the eagle king was faster. He leapt in front of her and seized her in his eagle’s embrace. At that instant, her body began to change and shed its feathers, first revealing her long, white, fragrant neck, and soon a shock of blonde curls danced in front of him and tickled his nose. He was no longer touching the body of a swan but that of a young woman, whose skin breathed and shone much more suggestively than the feathers. He took half a step backwards, less in shyness than from the desire to feast his eyes on her. As her body was gradually exposed to him, disclosing its beauty inch by inch, his excitement grew and redoubled; he relished the sight but was aware that there were enticing secret chambers and shady gardens yet to be discovered. He was still holding her in a half-embrace. Was it just his imagination that her velvety eyes, darker than her hair, grew large and moist when his old right wing brushed against the hard nipple of her now fully human, orange-shaped breast? As he hugged her nymphean body, his wing feathers reacted with unseen sensitivity and puffed up like the plumage of a strutting rooster.
He so revelled in the view that he scarcely heard her softly spoken words: ‘Would you mind passing me my dress?’
Only then did he realize that she was wet and shivering with cold. He handed her the dress, and as she raised her arms to pull it over her head she revealed all her feminine beauty: her slender waist, wide white hips and bushy mound. It took him a few moments to come to his senses and understand what she was saying, because as soon as she had put on her dress she began telling her story. It seemed strangely familiar (had he heard it from his mother or someone even older?).
Eliza, for that was the name of this gentle yet voluptuous creature, and her sisters, all of them of noble birth, had become entangled in the dark magic of their stepmother. She was in fact a witch, who had enchanted their frivolous father, and then one afternoon when he was away she cast a bewitched shirt over each of the girls and turned them into swans. So no one would see their misery, they flew far away to a lake at the peak of a mountain. And so they had been living here as swans for seven years. They could only return to human form at noon, and never for more than one hour, after which they turned back into swans.
‘And I so yearned for a second wing,’ our hero let slip, but Eliza was carried away in relating her own sad story and didn’t quite catch his comment.
‘Yes, I also yearn to be what I was... there is a way we can be saved, but it would be such a long, hard road for our redeemer,’ she sighed.
‘Tell me how! Tell me right away!’
‘I don’t know if it’s proper...’
‘Proper or not, I want only to make you happy, you and myself.’
‘All right: you must not smile or speak a word to anyone for a whole year.’
‘That will be far from easy, to be sure, but if needs be I will neither smile nor speak a single word. My eagles might not understand at first, but I’ll find a way. There’s mime, after all.’
‘You’re making a big sacrifice for me. But that’s not all. There’s another very difficult task.’
‘I will face the challenge, I can’t give up now. But why are you being so self-conscious? There’s no need, although it makes me even fonder of you.’
‘Then I’ll tell you: in the year ahead, as well as not speaking or smiling, you must knit three shirts. For me and my sisters.’
‘Three shirts? Now that really amazes me. I’ve never done any women’s work in my life. Men don’t knit, you know.’
‘There’s something more I have to tell you. The shirts must be made of stinging nettles. Now you see all the trials and tribulations you have to undergo to save me from the spell. Me and my sisters.’
‘Eliza, your solidarity is moving. I must admit I don’t understand these sacrifices, maybe because I’ve been such a loner till now.’
‘It’s a tradition of my people. According to our legends, the world was knitted into creation. Divine knitting needles patiently created all these mountains with their holy tarns and lakes and snow-capped peaks, all these dark-green forests, as well as all the cabbages, blueberries and potatoes, the cows, wolves and eagles.’
‘Eagles?’
‘Yes, all the beasts and birds are made of divine yarn.’
‘And people too?’
‘All of us are connected by the threads of the divine knitting-women. The whole universe is made of those strong, invisible threads whose task is to preserve its equilibrium: the balance between the external and the internal, between the skies and the deep, between male and female. The women of our people therefore keep our clothes white by washing them in the clean, cold mountain lakes and streams. But –,’ Eliza sighed, ‘there are also witches, like my stepmother, who attack and unpick the fabric of the universe. That’s why she tangled the threads of the divine yarn and turned us into swans.’
‘Then it looks as if some wicked witch has been at work on me, too.’
Eliza’s cheeks, already aglow from the excitement of storytelling, now turned crimson: ‘But your appearance... how can I put it...the way you look really suits you. It makes you strong and manly. Oh, my dear, will you be able to make this sacrifice for my sake? For our future happiness and all the pleasures that await us? From the moment you say “yes” you’ll have to hold your silence for a whole year, you won’t be allowed to smile, and you’ll have to knit those nettle shirts.’ She straightened her grapefruit-shaped breasts, which seemed to burgeon even more under her wet dress. ‘I so much want to believe you’ll succeed. After all... sorry for having to mention it... but you do only have one arm.’
At that, his weak left arm clasped her to him: ‘At the risk of sounding blunt, Liza, why can’t we... while we’re mulling over all this... why can’t you and I get to know each other a bit better now, you know.
‘There will be time for everything, my love. If our plan works, there will be joys you have never dreamed of. But now you must say “yes” and refrain from words and smiles for a whole year – a year of knitting, knitting and more knitting until you see us flying back to you and the finished shirts.’
A ‘yes’ slipped from his mouth, and then there was no going back.
And so the eagle king, with a heavy heart, parted with Eliza and flew to see his mother in silence. She noticed straight away that something was wrong.
‘You’ve gone very quiet, my son. Much has happened to you of late. Here, show me what troubles you – draw it in the air with your wings, or with your hand, or with your eyes. I’m your mother, I’ll understand.’
So he started to wave, wheel around, hop up and down, and open his eyes wide and squeeze them shut again. It would have seemed most peculiar to anyone