Plot
A jester greets the audience and requests that they relax and enjoy the story of The Seven Ravens .
During springtime, a peasant girl is fetching water from the village well when she overhears some neighbours gossiping about her, blaming her for the loss of her brothers. The girl-who had grown up believing she is her parents' only child-runs home and asks her mother if she does have any siblings; the girl's mother reluctantly confesses to having had seven other children before her, all of them boys.
Years before the girl was born, her parents loved their seven sons, but wished to have a daughter. When the couple's eighth child turned out to be a girl, they were overjoyed, but she was born sickly. Fearing she would die unbaptised, her father sent her seven older brothers to the well to fetch a pitcher of water for her baptism. All seven brothers rushed to the well, but in their haste, the pitcher fell into it; afraid of their father punishing them, the seven boys did not go home. Thinking that his sons had forgotten their task to play, the father angrily wished they turn into seven ravens, only to regret his words when the curse came true and saw the seven brothers flying away. Even though their remaining child became healthy without the baptismal water, the couple had kept her brothers' existence a secret out of fear of losing her too.
When the girl's father comes home from work that night, he is upset she now knows the truth, but his wife tells him there is nothing to be done. The next morning, the girl secretly leaves home, vowing to search for the seven ravens. The girl asks villager after villager where her brothers are, but none of them know. When the girl arrives in the middle of the forest, a good fairy appears, telling her that the seven ravens live safely in the Glass Mountain. The fairy also informs the seven ravens' sister on how to lift the curse: for seven years, she must not speak while sewing-for her brothers-seven shirts made out of her long golden hair. The girl agrees to perform the difficult task and begins sewing the shirts silently, sheltering in a hollow tree.
For six years, the seven ravens' sister grows into a beautiful maiden as she quietly sews their shirts and only has the wild animals for company. Early into the seventh year, a prince spots the maiden while out hunting with his friends. Stunned by the silent maiden's beauty, the prince takes her home and makes her his wife in spite of some subjects' objections to the match. Despite living a luxurious lifestyle, the peasant maiden-turned-princess remains mute to finish the seventh and last shirt; during winter, she opens the castle doors to the poor and gives them food.
On the first day of spring, the princess gives birth to twin sons. But the midwives have only started bathing the princelings when the babies suddenly turn into ravens and fly out the window. Because the seventh year is not over yet, the fairy briefly appears to order the princess to remain silent. However, the prince's sister has witnessed her nephews transforming into birds and accuses her sister-in-law of being a witch. Unable to defend herself at the trial, the princess gets convicted of practicing witchcraft and sentenced to be burned at the stake.
On the day of the princess's execution, she has successfully sewn her seven brothers' shirts. When the princess is lead away to be burned, the fairy brings the shirts to the Glass Mountain, dropping them onto the seven ravens and they transform into seven adult men. With the curse lifted, the fairy informs the seven men of their sister's execution and commands them to save her; upon climbing down the Glass Mountain, the eldest brother borrows a horse and orders the others to follow him to the capital square where the execution will take place.
At the capital square, the poor believe the princess to be innocent and have gathered to oppose her execution; in the castle, the prince-who also believes his wife to be innocent-abdicates in protest. Just as the princess is about to be burned, her brothers show up, telling her that she can now speak as she has freed them. The fairy also appears to give the princess her children back.
With the truth revealed, the prince embraces his wife and children and they all live happily ever after.
"Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with 69 variants that are told throughout the world. The protagonist is a young girl living in forsaken circumstances who is suddenly blessed by remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.
"Snow White" is a German fairy tale, first written down in the early 19th century. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales, numbered as Tale 53. The original German title was Sneewittchen; the modern spelling is Schneewittchen. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which can be found in the 1857 version of Grimms' Fairy Tales.
"Sleeping Beauty", also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, is a fairy tale about a princess cursed by an evil fairy to sleep for a hundred years before being awakened by a handsome prince. A good fairy, knowing the princess would be frightened if alone when she wakes, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace and forest asleep, to awaken when the princess does.
The Frog Princess is a fairy tale that has multiple versions with various origins. It is classified as type 402, the animal bride, in the Aarne–Thompson index. Another tale of this type is the Norwegian Doll i' the Grass. Eastern European variants include the Frog Princess or Tsarevna Frog and also Vasilisa the Wise ; Alexander Afanasyev collected variants in his Narodnye russkie skazki, a collection which included folk tales from Ukraine and Belarus alongside Russian tales.
The "swan maiden" story is a name in folkloristics used to refer to three kinds of stories: those where one of the characters is a bird-maiden, in which she can appear either as a bird or as a woman; those in which one of the elements of the narrative is the theft of the feather-robe belonging to a bird-maiden, though it is not the most important theme in the story; and finally the most commonly referred to motif, and also the most archaic in origin: those stories in which the main theme, among several mixed motifs, is that of a man who finds the bird-maiden bathing and steals her feathered robe, which leads to him becoming married to the bird-maiden. Later, the maiden recovers the robe and flies away, returning to the sky, and the man may seek her again. It is one of the most widely distributed motifs in the world, most probably being many millennia old, and the best known supernatural wife figure in narratives.
"The Six Swans" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812. It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451, commonly found throughout Europe. Other tales of this type include The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, and The Twelve Brothers. Andrew Lang included a variant of the tale in The Yellow Fairy Book.
"The Wild Swans" is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a princess who rescues her 11 brothers from a spell cast by an evil queen. The tale was first published on 2 October 1838 in Andersen's Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. First Booklet by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark. It has been adapted to various media including ballet, television, and film.
"The Seven Ravens" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451, commonly found throughout Europe.
"The Black Bull of Norroway" is a fairy tale from Scotland. A version titled "The Black Bull of Norroway" in the 1870 edition of Popular Rhymes of Scotland was reprinted in an Anglicised version by Joseph Jacobs in his 1894 book More English Fairy Tales.
"The Twelve Wild Ducks" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr.
The youngest son is a stock character in fairy tales, where he features as the hero. He is usually the third son, but sometimes there are more brothers, and sometimes he has only one; usually, they have no sisters.
The Enchanted Pig is a Romanian fairy tale, collected in Rumanische Märchen and also by Petre Ispirescu in Legende sau basmele românilor. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.
The Sprig of Rosemary is a Catalan fairy tale from Spain collected by Dr. D. Francisco de S. Maspons y Labros in Cuentos Populars Catalans. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book.
"The Three Sisters" or Green Meadow is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone. It tells the story of a maiden having secret encounters with a prince with the use of magic, him almost losing his life and her having to search for a cure for him.
The Maiden with the Rose on her Forehead is a Portuguese fairy tale collected by Consiglieri Pedroso in Portuguese Folk-Tales.
The Seven Ravens is a 2015 Czech-Slovak fairy tale film directed by Alice Nellis. The Seven Ravens is the story of a young woman who takes it upon herself to save her brothers and rid them of a curse which they were put under by their mother. It's a story about courage, endurance, and about the power of words, truth, and love. It's the story of how parents' mistakes fall on their children's shoulders, and how these children may either repeat them or correct them.
The Serpent Prince or The Snake Prince is a Hungarian folk tale collected by Hungarian-American scholar Linda Dégh, featuring the marriage between a human maiden and a husband in serpent guise.
The Wild Swans is a 1977 Japanese anime fantasy film produced by Toei Animation, based on the Brothers Grimm's fairy tale The Six Swans and on Hans Christian Andersen's variation The Wild Swans. The film was first shown in Japan on 19 March 1977 in the Toei Manga Matsuri.
Again, The Snake Bridegroom is a Serbian folktale collected in the 19th century by Serbian philologist Vuk Karadžić, featuring the marriage between a human maiden and a husband in serpent guise.
