Curse

Magpie Tale #91

Find your brothers’ chairs. Find the chairs, you find your brothers.

I’ve never even seen my brothers. Not, that is until last night. And it was too dark to see them really.

Twelve brothers, forced to flee my father’s wrath before I was even born. I am the thirteenth child, the first daughter, my brothers’ curse.

It was only a month ago I found out I had brothers and began searching for them. It was only last night I found them. This morning I plucked twelve lilies as gifts for them before they woke. And because I took those twelve lilies from the ground, my brothers are gone.

I searched for them once and now I must do so again. All these chairs are alike. Wooden, rough made for peasants; like the chairs in my brothers’ home were they lived simply. I strain my eyes for any difference, any hint. They are a king’s sons, will I find gold on their chairs? Last night my brothers had spoken of the thrones they once hoped to have and the joy they found far from them. Now the chairs are thrones, all like the one my father sits on. I reach for one, but stop. My father drove my brothers out; would they have chairs like his? Now the chairs are still thrones, but different. One is lined with red velvet, another is solid gold, one is round, another square. So they change to match my thoughts. I picture my mother’s sitting room, instantly the chairs are wicker with flowered cushions. Roses, asters, daffodils, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, dogwood, cherry, lilies, bachelor buttons, petunias, magnolias. Lilies. Only twelve chairs have lilies.


This is a very short retelling of the Grimms' fairytale The Twelve Brothers. In this fairytale a king has twelve sons, but decides that if his next child is a girl he will kill them all so that the daughter will inherit everything. When the brothers find out they flee. The daughter eventually finds them, but picks twelve lilies that turns her brothers into ravens and she has to save them. It is also similar to the Grimms' The Six Swans and Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans.

Check out Part Two.