This is my story and this is the way I choose to tell it today…

A long, long time ago, in a land far from this land, a boy was born in a pretty, peaceful, prosperous village. The villagers were not as pretty as their village and they laughed at the boy, whose shyness made him clumsy, and as the boy grew into a man named him a fool because he was a dreamer who wrote poetry and loved music. The shy boy grew into a lonely, lonely man, who preferred the company of animals and the beasts of the forest to his fellow humans.

One moonlight night the lonely man was restless, and went down to the lake to watch the moon over the water. He was in time to see the wild swans coming in for the night, and he sat quiet as a little mouse watching the eerie beauty of the wild swans circling to settle on the moonlit water, some even gliding to the reed-edged shore and waddling up onto land, taking off their feathered cloaks on the edge of the reeds where the watcher lay hidden…..

The man could not believe his eyes as the swans who came to shore changed into beautiful women who danced so close to him in the moonlight. He reached out and touched a feathered cloak to see if it was real or just another dream – and one of the swans who stayed on the water reared up and cried a warning. All the swan women stopped dancing and ran back, back to claim their cloaks, back, back to the safety of the water, all except one, who stood watching the man who was clutching her cloak.
‘Stay with me’ begged the lonely man. ‘Stay with me and be my wife and I will make a good life for us, here in this village’.

‘I can not,’ replied the swan, ‘for I will wither away from my fellow swans. I need to fly and be free’ --- but when she looked into his lonely, lonely eyes she saw her own loneliness reflected there, and was sorry for the lonely man.

‘Stay with me’ begged the man. ‘Stay. I am so lonely. Please stay.’ And the wild swan temporised, saying ‘I can stay, but not forever. I must leave before seven years, or I will surely die.’

‘That is enough’ agreed the man, and the swan stayed and remained a beautiful human with a long, long neck, graceful as a swan. Together they set up home in a cottage but every 28 days when the moon was full the swan and her man would return to the lake to dance with the wild swans in the moonlight.

All in all they lived a good life, there in the pretty village, and in time, the man and his wife created three beautiful daughters, one who danced like her mother, one who sang like the fairies, and one who dreamed dreams like her father. But before the oldest daughter was even seven years old the swan mother grew old before their eyes. She became grey and her skin withered and wrinkled, and her joints would not support her easily so she hobbled like an old woman. ‘Give me back my feathered cloak’ she begged the man, ‘or I will surely die’.

‘No’ said the man. ‘No. For if I do, you will leave me.’ But the man knew, deep in his heart, that his wife was truly ill, and could not bear to see her so grey and withered, so he made excuses to leave the cottage so he could not see what was happening. He wandered the forests, lonely again even though he would not let his swan mate leave him.

The man’s daughters, young though they were, knew that their mother was very ill, but were too young to know how to help her. Except one day the youngest, the dreamer, found a crumpled mass of dirty white feathers hidden deep in a closet. And she held it close, for it smelled of her mother, and showed her sisters. ‘It is our mother’ said the daughter who sang like the fairies. ‘Yes, it is our mother’ agreed the daughter who danced like sunlight on water. So the daughters took the feathered cloak to their mother, sick to death on her bed. The old woman cried with joy and as she clutched the dirty, bedraggled cloak around her it shimmered once again into pure white feathers and she became once again the beautiful wild swan.

Her daughters, young though they were, knew that they could not cage her so they ran to open the door and away, away, away flew the wild swan, honking a riotous song of freedom. In the forest the lonely man heard the song and knew, deep in his heart, that the swan was free and could not feel sorry, even though deep in his heart he was lonely again. He returned home to his daughters, and together over the years they built a happy life safe in the village. In time the daughters grew into beautiful women with long, long necks like their graceful mother, and in time all three daughters married well and raised their own daughters with long, long necks.

But the daughters knew, every moonlit night, that their father with his sad, lonely, eyes could not stay safe indoors like the rest of the people in the pretty village, but would return always to the lake, hoping, always hoping, to once again meet his wild swan lover. But he never did, for the wild swans did not ever again trust the lonely human enough even to dance for him in the moonlight.

Bright blessings