Stave 9
The nettle shirt reminded Elisa of the ten she must still knit
For her eleven brothers; and the promise to keep her lips
Sealed: the lips that smiled and kissed the hand of the king,
Who embraced her and ordered bells to ring,
Announcing a royal wedding: she was to be his queen.
The archbishop was dismayed
And, thinking he had the king’s ear,
He whispered in it evil words of fear,
But all in vain.
At the altar, on her wedding day,
He pressed the golden crown hard on Elisa’s forehead.
She felt no pain,
Only the sorrow in her heart, softened by a growing love
For the kind king,
Who did everything
To make her happy.
She longed to share with him her sad secret;
Instead, in the dead of night, she crept
Away from the royal marriage bed
To knit one shirt and then the next,
Until she started on the seventh
And there was no more flax.
Deep in the witching hours of night,
She stole into the moonlight,
On the path to the churchyard,
Followed in the shadows by the archbishop.
He watched her picking nettles,
And early the next morning
He denounced her to the king,
Who stayed awake each night
And followed his queen.
Frightened by what he’d seen,
He condemned her to die at the stake.
Elisa was led from the royal halls to a cold, damp dungeon,
With only the bundle of shirts to keep her warm
And the nettles to spin.
As evening drew in,
She heard a rushing,
The whirring
Of swans’ wings
And hope.
Elisa span and knitted through the night
Until it was an hour before dawn;
She heard her brothers calling at the palace gate,
But they were told they would have to wait.
Begging and threatening
Brought the guards and finally the king,
Just as the sun came up;
The eleven swans took wing.
The townspeople filled the streets,
Flooded out of the city gates;
They wanted to see the flames burn
And witness the witch’s fate.
She was brought to the stake
By horse and cart,
Wearing a sackcloth smock.
Despite her pale and beautiful face
The mob began to mock
The poor young queen,
Saying, ‘Behold the witch and her muttering!
She isn’t praying – she’s knitting.’
As the crowd surged forward
To tear the shirt from her hands,
Eleven swans began to land
And gather around Elisa,
Beating their wings.
The crowd drew back at heaven’s sign
And called out to the king,
‘She’s innocent and pure!’
As the executioner reached out
To take her by the arm,
Elisa threw the eleven shirts
Over the swans and broke the charm.
There stood eleven princes,
But the youngest had only one arm;
The other was a wing
Because his shirt was missing
A sleeve.
The eldest brother told their tale,
The bells began to ring,
And Elisa was happy,
Reunited with her king.
© Kim M. Russell, 2016
Image found on Pinterest
writing in north norfolk 