Once, there was a Maiden. Though she grew up in humble surroundings, she was comely and clever, and dearly beloved by her friends. Best of all, she has beautiful dreams where she was robed in white, and flew over the whole of the earth, radiant and powerful. She was a great teller of tales and singer of stories, and could amuse her friends and family for hours on end during the cold of the winter when the earth was dark.
She was sad, however; her mother, and aunts, and sisters, though many of them as fair, or fairer, and as clever, or cleverer had changed. They grew mean, and quiet, and judgmental, performing the drudgery of the housework and menial chores. Once when she began a story, they would bring their work around her, and listen carefully. Now if she sat with her hands empty to tell a story, work was thrust into her hands, and she was told to hush. So, the Maiden took to the forest, where she gathered feathers of all kinds to make herself a cloak, and she sang her stories to herself to keep company.
Now awkward and quiet, the Maiden hung back, and tried to make herself small and invisible. But one day a handsome young man heard her in the woods, where she wore her feathered cloak and sang her stories. He was enamored of the Maiden, and rushed forward to proclaim his love.
Seeing her chance to leave her dreary home, the Maiden professed her own love to the young man, and the two agreed to wed. All was well for the young couple for a time, as they delighted in singing stories to each other, and talking about the magical dreams they both had.
Then the found that the Woman, no longer a Maiden, was going to bear a child, to the couple. They were very happy, and prepared their home for a child. But when the day came, it brought heartbreak with it; the Woman bore twins, lovely girls, but that they had feathers for hair.
The husband, whose dreams were not of feathers and flying, could not understand his daughters, and his wife less and less. He forbade her to wear her feathered cloak, and hid it from her. Despise her weeping, he would not tell her where it was hidden. Without her cloak, she dreamed less and less; she waned as does the moon, until there was but a mere slip of her, and she sang no stories and dreamed no dreams.
One day, her dear Daughters, the only creatures she lived for, grew ill and sad. Try as she might, she could not help them, though she used every herb she knew, and whisper the songs she barely remembered. And finally, she dreamed. She dreamed of a great Swan Queen, clothed in silver and white, and the Queen spoke to her.
"Daughter," she said, "Why do you hide away? The cloak is yours, and the dreams are yours. No man can take them from you. Claim what is rightfully yours, and save your daughters-the heirs to my line. You are all Swan Maidens, born to fly free."
And there the dream ended. As the Woman woke, she knew where her cloak was hidden. She went and fetched it, and then crept to her dear Daughters.
"Dear Girls," she whispered to them, "it is time for us to fly somewhere safe, somewhere we can be free, and sing our stories and dream our dreams. Will you fly with me, my dear cygnets?"
"Yes, Mama!" the girls cried.
And so the Woman wrapped the girls in her great cloak, and all three turned into swans, and they flew away.