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made it special for them. And keep this between yourself and your sons.”
    “Fair enough!” says the queen.
    Now the boys were all away hunting, shooting, fishing, doing everything. They came home. And they loved their mother very well. They were young: one nineteen, one twenty, one fifteen, one seventeen, thirteen, twelve… you know, all these young men! So, these boys were always fed by themselves, and the queengave orders to the cook and the maids that she was going to serve them herself that night in the kitchen. The king went into his chambers and he had his little daughter on his knee. Ye know, he was crooning tae her, telling her stories and singing songs tae her. The queen walked in and all the boys were gathered round this great big long wooden table. They’re all talking about what they’d been doing and hunting and fishing and other things.
    She says, “You know, my sons, Mummy has got a special treat fir you tomorrow!”
    And the boys all said, “Yes, Mother?”
    She said, “I have baked a special cake to celebrate something that you don’t know about – it’s my birthday and I am a certain age tomorrow, and I want you to come with me. Because I had my first birthday by the pond, I want you to celebrate my birthday once more by the pond.”
    “Oh, Mother, yes certainly!”
    “Now,” she says, “don’t tell yir father, or don’t tell anybody!” They swore to secrecy they wouldn’t tell their father the king, although they never spoke to him very much anyway.
    So, the next morning was a beautiful May morning. All the boys gathered at the pond in the castle garden. They waited round the pond and sure enough down comes their mother, carrying a small cake.
    “Now,” she says, “boys, I want you to all have a piece o’ this to celebrate my birthday! She gave them each a piece in turn. Now,” she says, “I want you all tae eat it together.” And lo and behold when she divided it, there was only enough for the twelve o’ them and they all ate it together.
    And they said, “Mother, that was lovely! Did ye bake it yourself?” Then a wonderful thing happened: they all fell to the ground… lo and behold… one after the other became swans, and they popped into the pond, one after the other, and they swam round and round.
    And the queen sat down. She felt happy. There they swam round this lovely pond inside the garden. She went back home to the king for her evening meal. She sat at the table.
    And he said, “Ye seem very quiet tonight, my dear. Where are the boys? Where are the young men, these sons of yours? Are they not going to have any meal tonight?”
    She said, “Your Majesty, King, you gave orders... your sons have gone.”
    “Oh well,” he said, “good riddance, good riddance! And where have they gone?”
    “They took off in all directions,” she said. “They’re off tae seek their fortune in the world.”
    “Good – good, good riddance,” he said. “Probably they’ll return wiser when my little girl has grown up.” And he took his little girl on his knee. He’s picking all the best bits for her and he’s feeding her with it in his lap.
    But to make a long story short, years passed by and the swans were still in the pond. And the queen fed them every day.
    The king got kind o’ worried and he said, “How in the world – where did the beautiful swans come from?”
    She says, “Well, they were a gift from a great friend of mine.”
    “Oh, they’re quite tame,” he said to the queen.
    “Oh, yes, they’re quite tame. And I love to feed them.”
    The king paid no attention to swans. But his daughter had grown up till she was about sixteen years old, and she used to go with her mother every day to feed the swans.
    “Mummy,” she says, “they are lovely.”
    “Yes, daughter, they are lovely swans; they’re the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen.”
    Then one particular evening, when the daughter was about seventeen years old, and the king, who was much older than