Nettlesilk

• Hans Christian Andersen

System: LARP
Deltakere: 1 GM, 2 players

Av

Tapestries (2025), Embassy Suites by Hilton Milpitas Silicon Valley, California, USA

Suko Toyofuku (GM)

Beskrivelse

She looked at the countless pebbles on the beach, and saw how round the water had worn them. Glass, iron ore, stones, all that had been washed up, had been shaped by the water that was so much softer than even her tender hand. “It rolls on tirelessly, and that is the way it makes such hard things smooth,” she said. “I shall be just as untiring.”

–Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans

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Once, far far away where the swallows fly when we have winter, there lived a beautiful princess who loved her brothers very much.

These were harsh days, here and there and far away, and you must not let it surprise you when I say that her brothers, all five of them, were fortunate in their youth and strength, and in their younger sister’s love, but in little else. For their father’s second queen hated them, and embittered their father against them, and in time drove them from the castle and transformed them all to wild white swans, unsuited for the lands of men.

Such things are not uncommon, even in these days, and in the ordinary way of things such tales end with the victory of the wicked, and the exile of the innocent. But on this occasion the princess was brave and good, and loved her brothers, and a good fairy took pity on her and told her how she might restore them.

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“Your brothers can be set free,” she said, “but have you the courage and tenacity to do it? The sea water that changes the shape of rough stones is indeed softer than your delicate hands, but it cannot feel the pain that your fingers will feel. It has no heart, so it cannot suffer the anguish and heartache that you will have to endure. Do you see this stinging nettle in my hand? Many such nettles grow around the cave where you will sleep. Only those and the ones that grow upon graves in the churchyards may be used - remember that! Those you must gather, although they will burn your hands to blisters. Crush the nettles with your feet and you will have flax, which you must spin and weave into five shirts with long sleeves. Once you throw these over the wild swans, the spell over them is broken. But keep this well in mind! From the moment you undertake this task until it is done, even though it lasts for years, you must not speak. The first word you say will strike your brothers’ hearts like a deadly knife. Their lives are at the mercy of your tongue.”

–Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans

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And so Princess Elisa – for that was her name – closed her lips, and set to work. At first she labored alone, in her cave in the deep forest, clumsy from inexperience and hunger and the pain in her hands, but growing steadily more swift and skilled, and thus she completed one of her five garments.

But one day a great king came riding with his retinue through the forest, and found her there. And seeing her lovely and alone in the deep-dark wood, and finding that he could elicit from her not a single word, he determined that he would carry her safely to the walls of his own kingdom, and make her his queen. At first she despaired, but when he brought her to his castle he showed her a room he had prepared much like the cave in which she had dwelt, in which her weaving and her weeds had been left for her to do as she would with, and then it is said that she wedded him willingly, and for a time he rejoiced in her.

Diligently did the quiet princess work, and quickly was her work completed. But in that time the court had become suspicious of her strange silent sorcery; and when she went to gather more nettles from the churchyard, the archbishop persuaded the king to follow her, and convinced him that she must be doing some evil there among the graves, until the king’s heart broke. He gave her to the people to judge, and they convicted her of witchcraft, and sentenced her to die by fire.

Such things are not uncommon, even in these days, and most such stories end there, in flame and sorrow. But Elisa’s fingers had grown strong and swift, and she had nearly finished her work; and as they drew her out to the stake that cold gray morning her brother came swirling round, swirling round, until they were close enough for her to cast the nettle-coats over them. And at once they transformed back into men, and Elisa at last cried her innocence, and the wood of the stake grew with roses, and all who watched knew that they had done wrong, and condemned their queen falsely.

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All the church bells began to ring of their own accord, and the air was filled with birds. Back to the palace went a bridal procession such as no king had ever enjoyed before.

–Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans

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And the hour came when the king and queen were alone, and free to speak.

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Nettlesilk is a two-player one-hour LARP. It follows directly after the events of (an only slightly modified version of) the fairytale The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. Gameplay consists solely of conversation between the two PCs.

Content Warnings
This game consists of a conversation between two people who married under fairytale-style complicatedly consensual circumstances, one of whom has recently grievously wronged the other. Game backstory further contains violence, persecution for witchcraft, concern over childbearing and inheritance, war, classism, abuse of power, and the emotional effects of fairytale-style mistreatment of children. Both characters belong to, and take seriously the tenets of, a close analog of the early Lutheran church as established in Scandinavia.

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