The Twelve Brothers and the Silent Sister

A queen, warned that if her thirteenth child were born a girl, her twelve sons would be killed so that the daughter alone could inherit the kingdom, secretly told her sons of the danger before her time came. When a girl was indeed born, the twelve brothers fled into a deep enchanted forest rather than wait to be killed, vowing never to return.

Years later, the girl, now grown and having learned the truth of her lost brothers, set out alone to find them, eventually locating their forest home and living happily among them once she did. One day, gathering flowers, she picked exactly twelve lilies from the garden without realizing they were enchanted — and the moment she did, her twelve brothers transformed instantly into ravens and flew away, cursed by her innocent mistake.

A wise woman told her the only way to undo the curse was to remain completely silent and unlaughing for seven full years, never speaking a single word no matter what happened to her. She endured this vow even after a king fell in love with her and married her, even when his own scheming mother, furious at being unable to provoke a single word from her, falsely accused her of terrible crimes and nearly had her burned at the stake — the girl enduring every accusation in complete, unbroken silence rather than speak even one word to save herself. On the very last day of the seventh year, as the flames were being lit, twelve ravens swept down and transformed back into her brothers just in time to save her, her silent devotion finally rewarded, and her innocence and theirs restored together in the same instant.