Of all the fairytales, the one that intrigued me most growing up was The Wild Swans (also known as The Swan Princes). There are many variants of the story, but basically it is about a girl (Hans Christian Andersen, in his version, calls her Elise) whose brothers are enchanted and turned into swans. In order to free them from their spell, our heroine must make each of them a shirt of stinging nettles: and while she spins and sews (or knits, depending on the version), she cannot speak. Some of the local villagers are suspicious of the silent girl who gathers prickly weeds, and of the garments she is creating. When, desperate for a new source of nettles, she gathers them from the churchyard, the villagers turn against her completely, and try her as a witch.  She desperately sews even as they tie her to a stake and pile the wood around her. As they light the fire, her swan brothers fly overhead and circle around her, and she throws the shirts over them.  Unfortunately …