Go out into the world and get your own living, said the queen. Fly like great birds who have no voice.' But she could not make them ugly as she wished, for they were turned into eleven beautiful wild swans. Then, with a strange cry, they ?ew through the windows of the palace, over the park, to the forest beyond. It was yet early morning when they passed the peasant's cot tage, where their sister Eliza lay asleep in her room. They hovered over the roof, twisted their long necks and ?apped their wings, but no one heard them or saw them, so they were at last obliged to ?y away, high up in the clouds; and over the wide world they ?ew till they came to a thick, dark wood, which stretched far away to the seashore.