Traditional
The Twelve Brothers
A story from Germany
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Story
There was once a king and queen with twelve sons, but when the queen became pregnant, the king rashly claimed that he would kill each and every one of them if the baby was a girl, and give everything they had to her instead. When the girl was born, the boys fled to the woods, where they hid for many years, until one day their sister, the princess, came to look for them…
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Why we chose it
This is not one of the better known Grimm stories but it is full of fairy tale themes – brothers transformed to birds, a sister who must show remarkable courage, a magical old woman, a king who falls in love with a stranger and his mother who does what she can to thwart him….