"The Wild Swans" (Danish: De vilde svaner) 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.

Out of spite, the queen turns her eleven stepsons into magnificent swans who are allowed to temporarily become human only at night and forced to fly by day.

There, Elisa is guided by the queen of the fairies to gather stinging nettles in graveyards to knit into shirts that will eventually help her brothers regain their human shapes.

Elisa endures painfully blistered hands from nettle stings, and she must also take a vow of silence for the duration of her task, for speaking one word will kill herself and her brothers.

One night Elisa runs out of nettles and is forced to collect more in a nearby church graveyard where the archbishop is watching.

This enrages the people, who are on the brink of snatching and ripping the shirts into pieces when the swans descend and rescue Elisa.

Danish folktale collector Mathias Winther [da] collected a similar tale named De elleve Svaner (English: "The Eleven Swans"), first published in 1823, from which Andersen probably took inspiration.