The Twelve Brotherspage 5 / 5
Their wedding was celebrated with great pomp and joy, but the bride neither spoke nor laughed.
After they had lived a few years happily together, the king's mother, who was a wicked woman, began to slander the young queen, saying to the king, "You have brought home a common beggar woman for yourself. Who knows what kind of godless things she is secretly doing. Even if she is a mute and cannot speak, she could at least laugh. Anyone who does not laugh has an evil conscience."
At first the king did not want to believe this, but the old woman kept it up so long, accusing her of so many wicked things, that the king finally let himself be convinced, and he sentenced her to death.
A great fire was lit in the courtyard, where she was to be burned to death. The king stood upstairs at his window, looking on with crying eyes, for he still loved her dearly. She had already been bound to the stake, and the fire was licking at her clothing with its red tongues, when the last moment of the seven years passed.
A whirring sound was heard in the air, and twelve ravens approached, landing together. As they touched the earth, it was her twelve brothers, whom she had redeemed. They ripped the fire apart, put out the flames, and freed their sister, kissing and embracing her.
Now that she could open her mouth and speak, she told the king why she had remained silent and had never laughed.
The king rejoiced to hear that she was innocent, and they all lived happily together until they died. The wicked stepmother was brought before the court and placed in a barrel filled with boiling oil and poisonous snakes, and she died an evil death.