Today is part one of two where we are talking to Ariana Hagen about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about her incredible journey of writing since she was a kid, starting to follow her dreams to show her kids it can be done, basing characters on people from life, overcoming writers block, and balancing writing, a farm, and family. 

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Ariana Hagen is the author of "Of Ghosts and Wolves", Book 1 in a series of fantasy books that takes place in a world not too different from ours. Ariana is a lover of all things fairytale, myth, lore, and legend and is currently putting together her own collection of original myths.

She loves reading, writing, playing with her goats and horses, and sleeping.

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Welcome to Freya's Fairy Tales, where we.

Believe fairy tales are both stories we.

Enjoy as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.

Each week, we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.

At the end of each episode, we will finish off with the fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author's version as possible.

I am your host, Freya Victoria.

I'm an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.

I am also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.

We have included all of the links for today's author and our show in the show notes, today is part one of two, where we are talking to Ariana Hagen about her novels.

Over the next two weeks, you will hear about her incredible journey of writing since she was a kid.

Starting to follow her dreams to show her kids it can be done.

Basing characters on people from life, overcoming rider's block and balancing writing a farm and family of ghosts and wolves.

Book one of the Wolf's Heart series by Ariana endless, possibly two souls, one choice.

Sage possesses the skill to see both human and animal specters, a lifelong trait that has thus far proven to be both a blessing and a curse.

Existing in obscurity between a forest and mountain range, she hides her nature from the world, enjoying only the company of animals, alive and dead.

Her sanctuary, however, crumbles when out of the forest emerges a force too powerful for her to ignore.

A great black wolf appears, searching for answers and on the run.

One day, a man named Corik arrives, a wanderer from distant lands.

And Sage, despite her selfimposed isolation, is drawn to him.

Conflicted by their budding friendship.

Terrified of forming a bond, she safeguards her secrets while exploring what it means to truly live.

Yet Coric is running from a past that may eventually come to haunt them both.

The fates may soon demand that they face their demons and shed light on their secrets together.

The name of the show is Freya's Fairy Tales, and that is in two parts.

So fairy tales or something, or even short stories are something that you either listened to or read or watched a movie of as a kid.

And then also the process of weeks, months, years of writing your book and then getting to hold it in your hand also will feel like a fairy tale to you.

So growing up, did you have a favorite fairy tale?

And did that fairy tale change as you got older?

Yes and no.

I have always loved fairy tales, myths, legends, lore, all of that stuff.

I've always been fascinated with it.

I grew up hearing a lot of it from my parents who were like, big into ghost stories and all that kind of fun stuff, and I don't know if I ever really had a particular favorite, but that love for these magical tales has just continued with me since I was a kid.

So is there any particular theme of fairy tales that you liked best, like the magic ones or the creature ones?

I like ones that have to do with magic and animals.

Those two subjects have always drawn me in.

All right.

And so did that change over time?

Are still the same style?

It's the same.

At what age going into your own book, at what age did you start thinking, I might want to write or started trying to write?

I've written for as long as I can remember.

I even recently found a box of, like, all my old stories from when I was a little kid that I used to write.

And I remember being in high school and just filling up my class notebooks with short stories and poems and just these ideas that would pop into my head.

And I had decided I wanted to write a book some day, but didn't really know what to do with that, how to go about that process, or how to string together all these ideas I had in my head.

And then when I became a parent, I was looking at my kids, and I was like, I keep telling them to live their dreams, so why don't I just go ahead and live mine?

And so I decided one day to just sit down and make that a reality and write a book.

And so where did the idea of ghosts and wolves come from?

That was an idea that I've had since I was a teenager, just kind of the basics of it.

I used to write a few scenes here and there of the story that I thought was interesting and that actually plays into the whole fairy tales and lore thing.

I always liked the idea of a world where these tales of myth and legend were a reality, and I decided to tie that all together in a book that I could kind of use my real life as inspiration for.

So the Animals of Ghosting Wolves draws from my own experience with my animals.

And the chickens and the ghosts.

Yeah, the chickens and the ghost.

That's all real life.

Sage is based loosely on myself and how I feel, and then Cork is baselessly on my own husband.

And so it was just a combination of things that I knew I could use to put together and then pulling the story that I've had in my head for decades and just kind of writing it all down.

How long did it take you to write the book?

I know you said you kind of wrote scenes as a kid, but once you decided to actually make it a.

Book, once I decided to actually sit down and write it, it took three months.

Okay, that's not long at all.

Yeah, no, the writing process was really fast, the editing and then deciding if I actually wanted to share it with the world a little bit.

So did you do that all this year or had you started that last year?

How long did it take you to convince yourself to publish?

That?

Took probably two months just to convince myself, as I just finished story.

Do I really want to share it?

Do I not want to?

Might as well.

Yeah, might as well.

I wrote it.

Well, you're a little bit of a unique one, so you actually stumbled across my other narrator name that I use in podcast on social media.

And then I saw, Oh, cool, she's written a book.

And I'm like, Oh, cool.

And then I clicked on the links or whatever, and it was like, Oh.

So it was actually in preorder status at that point in time.

And I'm like, Well, I don't see an audiobook on here.

So I'm like, hey, would you be cool with me doing your audiobook?

And you were my first pitch.

I've done a few now, not a lot.

You had sent me pages and I recorded it, and then we moved forward with the audiobook, which is now you've heard the whole thing.

And so your process is going to be a little bit different from most people because you didn't really get audition.

Like, you didn't have multiple people.

But it was perfect.

So I know how it felt from my side.

How did it feel for you?

Like this cold call, basically.

Well, I had been thinking about how I wanted to have an audiobook page because I want to make the book available across the board just for everyone in whatever the preferred form of reading is.

But that was like, I was looking at prices.

I was like, I can't swing that rate right now with everything that was going on, so maybe down the line.

And then when you started talking to me about what you were doing and said that was something that you offered and that we could work together, I was like, yes, this is perfect.

But I was nervous until I heard your reading of it, and I was like, Oh, yeah, done deal.

This is good.

Yeah, I feel like if it was someone a narrator coming to me, I'd be a little bit like and I mean, same for me because I saw that you had a book, but then you send me the pages and I'm like, oh, please, just let these be, like, well edited, because I would hate like, the cover looked good and the premise looks good, but I'm like, you can edit those really well, and the rest of the book be terrible.

Right?

Yeah, that is true.

But then you'd send me the pages and I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is so good.

Well, I'm glad that was also racking for me to share.

She reads all these other books and now she's going to read mine.

Well, and then I also talked to your editor who said about the same thing.

She's like, it didn't feel like work at all because it's such a good story.

And then she's such a great editor too.

Oh, my gosh.

And then like, just when I finally got to read through the whole book and everything, it's so well done.

Thank you.

That you would never think this is someone's first book.

And then it's a little bit like, man, I hope the rest like, I can't wait for the rest of the series to be like, what happened?

I know I'm almost done with book two.

There have been a few parts that have hung me up because I'm kind of battling about what path to take in her journey, like, what feels more natural versus what would be a better book.

So I've been trying to work through those couple of points, but it's almost done.

So it should be here soon.

I think you've got to consider what could I actually develop into the rest of the series?

Yes.

And that is a big consideration.

I want at least three books of solid story for Sage and her companion.

So I'm just trying to figure that out.

But I know it's there.

It's all in my head.

It's just getting it out.

Well, I love books where you're reading them and you just get that, like, things happen in the story and you're like, oh, it feels like your heart's getting squeezed because not every book is that way.

That is true.

But I have a few that are coming up as well that the author very well writes those too.

And you're just like, yeah, I love that book.

The more I can feel, the better.

I love reading books that just give you that good hurt in your heart.

And then you're like, I need to know what happens next because they usually will end on cliffhangers waiting for the next book.

So you are almost done with book two.

What else is going on?

Do you have any plans for other books or yes.

What else you got going on?

Yeah, I have an idea for a spin off of Ghost and Wolves after the completion of Sages story.

And I'm putting together a bunch of short stories that are basically just myths from the world I've introduced in my novel.

We talked about this.

Yes.

So The Blue Eyed Raven is the first one that I've released.

That's just a really short story myth from that same world as a gross and Wolves.

And I have a few others and I'm just going to release them kind of scatter throughout the year.

And once I have probably six or so of those put together, I'll create an anthology of them in print paper.

And then I also have a couple of stories that I want to get out.

One of them is Pirate Story.

Okay, so unrelated.

Yes, completely unrelated.

But I've had that idea for a while, too, so I think that'll be the next project after I finish up this world that I'm working on.

So you plan on it being three books and then the little fairytale kind of, yes.

And then also a spin off.

And I'm not sure if it's going to be a single book or if that will be its own series.

I'm going to have to get to that point and start writing and see kind of where that journey takes me.

See how many words you can say.

Yeah.

I talked to an author a couple of weeks ago, and she said she writes her books and she's like, well, I'm just intending for it to be one book, and then if she gets to a good ending, but it's like, this really needs to continue.

Yeah.

Then she makes it into a series.

So how did you end up and I don't know, because we've never talked about this, but you have goats and chickens and what other kind of critters going around there?

Horses, sheep.

We also do rescue.

So we have a bunch of rescue dogs and cats and just a bunch of animals running around.

We had a pig show up on our property that moved in.

It's a little farm that was also something I wanted to do forever.

Now, I know we talked about both of us live in Texas.

Have you always lived in Texas?

No, I am actually California born, and I moved out here to Texas in 2015 to be with my now husband.

So I've been out here seven years now.

Okay, and did you start the farm immediately when you moved out here?

Oh, yeah, it was immediate.

I kind of moved in with him, and I was like, hey, here's all these animals I'm bringing with me.

Let's go get a whole bunch more.

We did that growing up.

We lived out in the country and had a lot of cats.

It always seemed cats would always get dropped off in the area.

We had tons of cats, and then dogs occasionally would get dropped off.

And if they played well with the other ones, they got to stay.

If not, we had to re home.

Yes.

Goats.

And we had a horse and a couple donkeys and cows and all the things.

Yes.

So talking about we didn't have milk goats, but like all of that part of the story, I was like, I remember all this going out to feed and going out to water.

Yes.

Every day, multiple times a day, getting yelled at by all the animals.

I have to ask, and this will be slightly a spoiler, where on earth did you come up with the idea for the bag of body parts?

Oh, I don't know exactly.

That one just kind of popped into my head.

I was like, I need to make like, this guy seemed really sinister.

I was like, what's a good way to make him seem sister?

Like, yeah, he's just going to collect body parts.

That seems gross.

I do not remember the words that came out of my mouth, but I remember my husband and my daughter being like, what happened?

And I'm like.

Yeah, that was an interesting part.

I'm just like, man.

And then I'm trying to think as I read through a book, I'm always trying to think beyond the initial edition because that's really short and you don't really know the characters on two to five pages.

But as I read through the whole thing, I'm trying to in my head think, how am I going to voice this character and how am I going to tell certain parts of the story that are the more emotional parts or whatever?

And that part I'm just like, may I have to record a couple of times?

Because you record, like, one way and you're like, that sounded stupid.

And then we had to talk about accents and stuff because I'm not great at them.

That's anything.

I've been born and raised in Texas, so a lot of my family have Southern accents.

I don't.

But yeah, just coming up with them, they sound like the way you have it written is not like, I had to ask you, is this supposed to be like, what?

And it's so hard, too, because you think one way in your head, and then you hear it out of your own voice, and you're like, that's not exactly how it sounds in my head, but however it goes, that's fine.

So how did you do the different language stuff?

Like the words and stuff?

Just how did you figure out the phrasing?

I kind of picked here and there about different from different accents that I've heard in real life.

And I wanted to give this area an accent that made it understandable when you're reading it, where you could still understand the words, but it also stood out from the rest of everybody else talking.

So it's just kind of the balance of trying to figure out what was natural and realistic and then also still giving it its own flavor.

So I kind of just typed it up and figured out what sounded or looked good together.

And so you said it took you about three months to write the book, and it took you two months of convincing yourself to publish it.

How long and how many editing processes did you go through before you sent it to someone else?

Is that in the three months?

No, that wasn't in the three months.

I sent it through a couple of beta readers after I finished it, and they gave me some pointers on scenes that needed to be tweaked a little bit and a little bit of just really light editing in it.

So I went through I changed all that.

And then I had an appointment with my editor booked already, and I was like, I need to get this done in time to send to her, otherwise I'm going to miss my booking.

So I just tweaked a few things and sent it off to her and had my fingers crossed.

Please don't let her reject it.

Yeah.

Hoping she wouldn't send it back and be like, No, I can't fix this.

So how did you find as a new author, how did you find your beta readers?

Do you use, like, family fiverr?

My family wasn't up for me to get yet, but Fiverr, I hired a few people off of there and just sent it to them, and they did the beta reading for me, and it worked out great.

Same with did you find your editor on Fiverr?

No, she was a recommendation.

There's a group I was in, and editing came up as a post, and I was reading through it, and a couple of people had recommended her, so I figured I'd reach out to her and see what her schedule was.

She had one a lot sooner than I expected, and I jumped on it.

Cool.

I've never been through that process at this point.

What is that process?

Like you said, you sent her the manuscript and she did what?

Gently tore it apart.

She went through it and marked all of the grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, pointed out some continuity errors just in, like, ages and timeline and stuff, and then sent it back to me.

And I went through and did the revisions and added a few things and added a couple more mistakes to it after I had done my editing, added some selling mistakes and what not.

So then did you send it back to her and she.

Just did the one round?

I wanted to send it back, but starting out, I'm putting all my own money into everything I have.

Kind of set a budget for myself, thinking that I'm only writing this book for myself, really?

Anyway, it's just a dream, and I can't go and spend $10,000 getting it done.

So I set up a budget.

I've seen such a wide range of, here's how much you can plan to spend.

And it's like, I mean, technically, you don't have to send it through editing at all.

You just write it and publish it right then.

Yeah, right.

I definitely needed at least that one solid round of editing.

Did you design your own cover or did you just do the audiobook cover?

I tweaked the audiobook cover.

The design cover was also hired on fiverr.

Okay.

And I was looking through these covers that people could make.

I don't really like any of these styles.

I was just scrolling through and I saw an art style that just popped out at me.

And he does those kind of, I don't know, like, stark contrast type covers with the colors.

And I had to make up a cover for me, and it just happened to be perfect.

And so you just kind of tweaked it a little bit for the audiobook.

Yeah, I got the original files for it.

Okay, so you had a lot of faith in fiverr?

Yes, I did.

I did that for one of the podcasts.

I was in groups on Facebook and they were like, oh, we'll promote your podcast.

It's like, this much money.

And I'm like, Listen, I don't want fake listeners.

I want people that are actually going to keep back coming to listen.

I promise they won't be fake.

I'm like, Okay, I'll pay you $5.

We'll see how it goes.

Right.

They, of course, were fake.

Yeah.

And then he's, of course messaging me, still wanting me to hire him again, and I'm like, but no, I don't want fake reviews.

I want legitimate people listened to it.

Yeah, right, absolutely.

It's like fake book reviews.

Like, you can tell they never actually listened to it.

Yeah.

Oh, great storytelling pod.

I'm like, Oh, my God.

You're like, Yeah, what else?

What about it exactly?

It's the same as reviews on books or audiobooks or whatever when they just do the stars and don't say anything.

You're like, I have one that has like I got a one star review.

And I'm like, Cool.

What did you not like but why?

Yeah, I want to know why.

You can guess, but so far, do you read your reviews?

Have you?

I don't know if the audiobook has gone.

I know we've sold a couple and it's not been out for very long.

Yeah, I think at three or four now, and I don't think we have reviews for that.

I do read the reviews for the actual book version of it.

Any helpful ones so far?

Yes, there have been a few really helpful ones talking about, like, the pacing of the story, which I understand, and that's something that I'm trying to keep it in mind as I write.

Like, it they wanted it faster or slower.

They said that the pacing was kind of up and down, so there would be stretches of just really mellow story and then stretches of action and then.

Back to mellow isn't just normal, I.

Guess, but I guess I wanted it to be a little smoother.

Okay, I'm keeping that in mind.

We got done with the battle.

We calmed down and fixed our injuries, and then we walked home.

Yeah, some of it you have to take with a grain of salt.

And there's like, two reviews where I read them when I was like, what?

Did you even read?

One of the books?

It was Ya Dystopian, and it was one of the ones I narrated.

And she got a review that was like, this is great sexual education for students.

There's literally no kiss.

That is the most that happens.

And so she's, like, throwing out these lines from the book that are totally referring to innocent things.

And she's like, but this can mean and it's like but no.

Yeah.

Reviews like that are weird, but I had a review on two of my audiobooks.

It's the same person.

And they were like it was a dual point of view book.

And they were like, Oh, we don't like that.

A single female narrator did both points of view, but it was royalty share, which means I get paid royalties after the fact, which means if I hire a second narrator, either that needs to be my husband so I don't have to pay them upfront, or I have to pay them out of my own pocket up front.

Right.

I'm like, Yeah, no, but normal people don't understand that part of things.

And I think you're the one that said you were writing a kid series.

Yes, I also have a kid series, and that'll be under a different name.

Okay.

Just so that I'm not I don't have to censor my books if I don't want to.

Right.

But the kids series will be under a different name.

I do have, oh, gosh, like eight of those written now.

How many is that going to be?

Eight is a lot.

Yeah, we'll see the series go longer, though.

I've noticed that series I buy for my daughter.

She loves the how to Train Your Dragon.

And so we bought, like, that whole book series.

There's a lot of books in that.

Well, even, like, the Magic Tree House, there's, like, 100.

We don't have all of that.

We bought Amazon had the Merlin set, and then I think it's like the classic set or something, but then they have so many spin off thing.

Yeah.

I have, I think, like, the first 20 for my kids.

I don't even know.

Those books have been around for a long time.

Forever.

Yeah.

At least since I was a child.

So, yeah, they've been around for a while.

But I'll get my kids books out eventually.

What's slowing me down with those is that I'm illustrating it myself.

Do you draw well?

Are you drawing or you digitally?

I'm doing the digital, like, the canvas tablet things, so I'm using that, which is a learning process for me because I had never used one before.

But it's a lot of fun.

And I'm trying to remind myself that they're kids books, so I don't need to make, like, the Mona Lisa for every page.

Well, most kids books don't.

Most are very what you would consider a kid.

Like a kid drew.

It kind of maybe slightly better than that.

But that's something I have to remind myself all the time.

I don't need it's.

Okay.

My first podcast, I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination.

My husband is.

He draws very, very good, like, anime characters.

So I'm like my first podcast.

I'm like, Hey, would you do my logo for me?

Whatever.

Like, I'll hire out if I need to, but I think you would do really good at this.

And he's like, Sure.

And so we're like, talking about what we want or whatever.

And I'm like, I could tell he just didn't quite understand what I was wanting.

Right.

And so I draw the most ridiculous I still have it just for just to look back on how terrible I draw the stick figure.

Like, holding onto this book and what he did is so much better than what I did.

But I'm just like now I did the because he drew it on paper and then I had to digitize it so I, like, took a picture of it and did like, the layers, like, you can do in photoshop and traced and all that, but I can trace I'm not good at the drawing.

Yeah, I think drawing is definitely a skill.

I feel like you're just born with it or you aren't.

I'm trying to work on my own skills in that department, but I don't.

Know, I'll get there.

Yeah.

So you have quite a few things in the works and planning on so, pirate story.

Are you planning on waiting until all of the Wolf Hearts the name of the series?

Yeah, the Wolf Heart series.

And yes, I'd like to wrap all of that up first before I delve into something else.

Just to kind of complete that world so that there are no loose ends.

Because I was working on one book and then my brain was like, no, we want to do one with mythology, and now we're just going to be, like, stuck on this.

Can you get your brain to focus on one or the other?

Or is it kind of like, I have this idea of not writing?

Yes.

No.

My brain is all over the place when it comes to stories.

And a lot of the times I kind of like, scratch that itch by writing short stories.

So I'll have this idea that pops into my head, and I know I can't give it the time that it needs at that moment.

So I'll do a short story.

So I'll get like two or 3000 words popped out and then I'll put it aside for a little bit so that the feeling.

And the idea is still there when I'm ready to revisit it.

And I kind of am able to push it out of my mind for a little bit.

Okay, that's a good way to mine would not leave my head.

And because it's mythology, I'm like, I don't want to the first idea was like, contemporary romance or maybe a little bit futuristic, but I got like I don't know, I'm about 30,000 words in and my head was like and we're done writing that right now.

We have to go somewhere else.

But it's nowhere near done.

It's just there.

Yeah.

And then, like, this mythology, I'm like I feel like there's just certain genres that you get into.

And because it's a well known thing, you can't just jump in and totally make it up, right?

But you have to know a little bit of what's come before so you don't make everybody mad and come attack you with pitchforks or whatever.

I keep saying I'm researching and other authors keep telling me, stop researching and start writing.

And I'm like, but I don't know.

What I need to do yet.

It doesn't hurt that the research is fun too.

Yeah, that doesn't hurt at all.

Now, like, yesterday I'm doing stuff and I'm like, all right, we're going to go back we're going to go back to Basic Basic.

Because I've been going through like, Greek and Roman and north and the different mythologies.

I'm like, let's go back to Basic Basic.

I have this it's the Oxford Companion for, like, mythology, like world mythology.

So it's got like kind of like an encyclopedia for different mythologies.

I'm like, we're going to go back to what's the definition for mythology?

Go back to the very beginning where did all because as I'm reading through these different ones, I'm finding they all kind of originated from the same areas and then evolved as people moved to different areas.

So I'm like, all right, let's go.

So today I need to go back and read through, like, where did mythology what is the most basic mythology definition?

That's something super interesting too.

And it just keeps going.

Like, you go back all the way through human history and there's these tales that have just been told for thousands and thousands of years.

What I'm finding too, most of them will have there's a sun god and a moon god and a war god and fertility goddesses.

Like, most of them have the same elements.

They just have different things and maybe slightly different characteristics.

But most of them have a trickster of some sort.

And all of them will turn and not all of them, but a lot of them will, like, turn into different creatures, and there's a lot of commonalities.

So as I'm like reading through all these things, I'm trying in my head to formulate how do I want this to be in a story?

Because at first I was thinking, oh, we're going to like, combine and be like, oh, all the mythologies are real.

All these different things, whatever.

But as I'm seeing how many similarities there are, I'm like, do we need five gods that do the same thing?

Yeah, that's true.

How many war gods do you need?

I know.

Then I'm like the creation because there's all different kinds of creations.

I'm like, well, I guess I can just be like I don't know.

They just all got bored and decided to make up their own.

How many different creation stories do you need?

Lots of them start with eggs.

Not all of them start with eggs.

Yeah, there's a bunch and some are really interesting.

Ariana loves fairy tales with magic and animals.

In a Swedish fairy tale, The Swan Maiden, the king announces a great hunting contest.

A young hunter sights a swan swimming in a lake and aims at it, but the swan pleads not to shoot it.

The swan transforms into a maiden and explains she is enchanted into that form, but the hunter may help her to break the spell.

In another Swedish fairy tale collected from Bling, The Swan Maiden, a young hunter sees three swans nearing a sound and taking off their animal skins.

They reveal themselves to be three lovely maidens, and he falls in love with one of them.

He returns home and tells his mother he intends to marry one of them.

She advises him to hide the maiden's feather garment.

He does that the next day and wins a wife for himself.

Seven years later, now settled into domestic life, the hunter tells the truth to the Swan Maiden and returns her feather garment.

She changes back into a swan and flies off.

The human dies a year later.

Today we'll be reading The Swan Maiden, a Swedish fairy tale.

Don't forget we are continuing the original story of Beauty and the Beast on our patreon.

The Swan Maiden a young peasant in the parish of Melby, who often amused himself with hunting, saw one day three swans flying toward him, which settled down upon the strand of a sound nearby.

Approaching the place he was astonished at seeing, the three swans divest themselves of their feathery attire, which they threw into the grass, and three maidens of dazzling beauty stepped forth and spring into the water.

After sporting in the waves awhile, they returned to the land, where they resumed their former garb and shape and flew away in the same direction from which they came.

One of them, the youngest and fairest, had in the meantime so smitten the young hunter that neither night nor day could he tear his thoughts from the bright image.

His mother, noticing that something was wrong with her son and that the chase which had formerly been his favorite pleasure had lost its attractions, asked him finally the cause of his melancholy, whereupon he related to her what he had seen and declared that there was no longer any happiness in this life for him if he could not possess the fair Swan Maiden.

Nothing is easier, said the mother.

Go at sunset next Thursday evening to the place where you last saw her.

When the three swans come, pay attention to where your chosen one lays her feathery garb.

Take it and hasten away.

The young man listened to his mother's instructions and be taking himself the following Thursday evening to a convenient hiding place near the sound.

He waited with impatience.

The Coming Of the Swans the sun was just sinking behind the trees when the young man's ears were greeted by a whizzing in the air and the three swans settled down upon the beach as on their former visit.

As soon as they had laid off their swan attire, they were again transformed into the most beautiful maidens and springing out upon the white sand.

They were soon enjoying themselves in the water.

From his hiding place, the young hunter had taken careful note of where his enchantress had laid her swan feathers.

Stealing softly forth, he took them and returned to his place of concealment in the surrounding foliage.

Soon thereafter, two of the swans were heard to fly away, but the third, in search of her clothes, discovered the young man, before whom, believing him responsible for their disappearance, she fell upon her knees and prayed that her swan attire might be returned to her.

The hunter was, however, unwilling to yield the beautiful prize, and casting a cloak around her shoulders, carried her home.

Preparations were soon made for a magnificent wedding which took place in due form, and the young couple dug lovingly and contentedly together on Thursday evening.

Seven years later, the hunter related to her how he had sought and won his wife, he brought forth and showed her also the white swan feathers of her former days.

No sooner were they placed in her hands than she was transformed once more into a swan and instantly took flight through the open window.

In breathless astonishment, the man stared wildly after his rapidly vanishing wife, and before a year and a day had passed, he was laid with his longings and sorrows in his allotted place in the village churchyard.

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