The Wild Swans
A vow of silence. The sting of nettles. What a princess can teach us about pertinacity and isolation to save lives.
The Tale
When I was a kid, one of my favorite books on the shelf in our living room was an old copy of The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen, illustrated by Rene Cloke. The dustjacket was cracked and ripped in places, and some of the illustrations were already beginning to fade. Inside the cover, one of my mom’s aunts had written a note to her, an inscription from a Christmas long past.
Eleven princes are cursed by their evil stepmother and turned into swans. Their sister, Elisa, is banished from the kingdom. The only way for her to save her brothers is to take a vow of silence and weave each a shirt from stinging nettles. If she speaks one word over the course of her work, her brothers will die.
The story wove itself into my imagination, and I’d beg my friend to pretend we were swans, cursed by an evil witch. In many fables, swans are majestic, sometimes misunderstood creatures, but rarely a curse. They lift their wings and rise.
I studied the picture of the soaring brother swans, who toward the end lift Elisa in a net to carry her away, her golden hair dancing in the wind. Or the image of Elisa, skin bruised purple by twilight, crouching in a graveyard as she collects the last painful plants.
I’ve never been afraid of being alone — abandonment, maybe, but not the soothing seclusion of coming home, changing into sweatpants, and sitting on my couch. But if I was so good at being alone, you’d think I could stand solitude.
I saw Elisa in the graveyard, and despite knowing that in a few pages she’d be accused of witchcraft and sent to burn at the stake, I envied her dedication, the magic that surrounded her, the peace clear upon her face in the shade of that isolated evening.
We Are Not Okay, and That’s Okay
I’ve seen a lot of posts recently quipping that introverts need to check on their extrovert friends, because “they are not okay.” The thing is, I don’t think any of us are okay. We joke about how we once wanted to live through a historic moment, but now are just begging for it to stop. We survive on memes because sometimes the thought of examining what these “historic moments” are actually doing to us is too painful to consider.
We’re not okay. But it’s important to remember that is okay.
I never thought about how lonely Elisa must have been. I once lost my voice for a few days in high school, and to my dismay, I discovered that when you cannot answer people, they often stop talking to you. It’s just easier.
Years ago, when I was unsuccessfully job hunting in a rural town in North Yorkshire, I discovered that sometimes if you go long enough staying home, alone, you will keep doing it. It’s just easier.
We are afraid of this uncertainty. We are afraid things will be like this forever. It’s okay to be afraid.
Persistence. Perseverance. Pertinacious.
At the beginning of the year, my office chose a theme for 2020, not knowing how relevant it would turn out to be. We started at persistence (“to continue steadfastly or firmly in some state, purpose, course of action, etc., especially in spite of opposition”), bounced around a few other P words like passion or perseverance (“to persist in anything undertaken; maintain a purpose in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement; continue steadfastly”), and landed on pertinacious:
“holding tenaciously to a purpose, course of action, or opinion; resolute; extremely persistent”
Similar: determined, persevering, purposeful, relentless, tireless
The Wild Swans does not specify how long Elisa undertakes her work, but I started knitting a scarf five years ago and have yet to finish it. I always assumed it took her at least a year though — long enough, in fairy tale timelines, for a king from a neighboring region to fall in love when he sees her in the woods, persuade her to live in his castle, and propose.
As a kid, I’d never encountered nettles or felt their sting. I didn’t know that dock leaves often grow nearby and can be used to soothe the rash. But the story does not tell of Elisa seeking any remedy. Instead, it tells of how she picks the nettles by hand, breaking them under her feet; how they sting her fingers, and yet she carries on without breaking her vow.
I never thought about the months that stretched ahead of her, the words she never spoke, or the moment she realized she no longer needed to hold them back.
We don’t know how close we are to the beginning. We don’t know how far off the middle is.
There are so many things we don’t know, so many things we can’t control. But there are still things within our control — the primary being how well we follow protocols of social distancing, shelter in place, and other recommendations from reputable sources, such as the WHO and CDC.
We too can uphold our collective vow. We may not be weaving shirts of nettles, but our dedication to this cause can just as surely save a life.
Unlike Elisa, we are not doing this alone. It’s only been a few weeks, and already this has been harder for me than I would have thought it would be. So I’m trying to remind myself, in those more difficult moments, that we are in this together.
We’re posting free arts and learning resources, obsessing over a strange Netflix show (which I’ve yet to watch, so the posts boggle my brain), sharing memes so we laugh (instead of cry) together, making art and writing blog posts, all because we know someone, somewhere out there, from the isolation of their own home, will feel a little closer.
We may not feel okay right now. We may be afraid. But together, with pertinacity, we can get through this.
