33. Star-flowers: Some translations call the plant starwort. Hans Christian Andersen requires nettles or thistles for his heroine which cause her pain as she makes the shirts.

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　　 34. To sew: Note that the sister must use a domestic art as part of her effort to save her brothers. While she is spunkier and more aggressive than many of her fairy tale counterparts, she still must excel at domestic arts and feminine virtues to complete her mission.

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　　 35. King of the country was hunting in the forest: Note the parallelism of the story. The tale began with a king hunting in the forest and marrying a bride he found there. Now we have a repetition of similar events.

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　　 36. The golden chain from her neck: The sister quickly hands over her necklace in hopes of giving up anything of value she might have upon her so they men might leave her alone.

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　　 37. Her girdle: In this instance, a girdle is "a band of material around the waist that strengthens a skirt or trousers" (WordNet). The girdle is not part of her underwear but an outer garment, often embroidered or decorated for women. The girdle would be one of her more valuable articles of clothing.

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　　 38. Her garters: A garter is "a band worn around the leg to hold up a stocking (or around the arm to hold up a sleeve)" (WordNet). The sister gradually chooses more intimate and valuable apparel in her efforts to appease the men and make them leave her alone. Garters, especially for a princess, would likely be made of fine fabrics such as silk.

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　　 39. Her dress: The sister would not be nude after giving up her dress. She is still wearing underwear which would resemble a plain cotton nightgown or similar garment in today's dressing standards. In past times, clothing included foundation clothing such as shifts or petticoats to be worn underneath the outer dress.

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　　 40. He asked her in all the languages he knew: Speaking several languages was an important skill and highly regarded in diplomats and royalty, as well as the higher classes, in times past. The importance of knowing more than one language is still important today, of course.

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　　 41. Dumb: To be dumb is to be "unable to speak" whether from physical defect, shock, choice, etc. (WordNet). The story is not describing the sister's intelligence, although mutes were often incorrectly considered less intelligent in times past, hence the multiple meanings for the word.

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　　 42. After some days he married her: The sister begins to create a family of her own through marriage and childbirth, but she will not devote herself fully to her new life until her brothers have been rescued. She cannot sacrifice one family in favor of another.

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　　 43. Not worthy of a king: The mothers in the Princess and the Pea and de Villeneuve's version of Beauty and the Beast are also concerned about the royal heritage and perceived worthiness of their sons' wives, although they do not resort to wicked ways to get rid of the prospective brides.

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　　 44. Her first child: A first born son, and perhaps a daughter, would be the crown prince. The loss of the child is not just a personal tragedy for the Queen, but a possible disaster for her kingdom which relies on progeny to avoid strife in the royal lineage.

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　　 45. Old mother took it away from her: Similar plot lines appear in other fairy tales. In Perrault's version of Sleeping Beauty, the ogress mother-in-law tries to have her grandchildren cooked for her meals.

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　　 46. Queen had killed it: In the original version instead of this softened translation, the mother-in-law goes so far as to smear the sister's mouth with blood while she is sleeping. She accuses the woman of witchcraft and cannibalism.

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　　 47. Her innocence would be proved: The sister's innocence is accepted until the third event when coincidence is no longer considered. Three witnesses are often required to prove guilt.

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　　 48. Third child: The number and/or pattern of three often appears in fairy tales to provide rhythm and suspense. The pattern adds drama and suspense while making the story easy to remember and follow. The third event often signals a change and/or ending for the listener/reader. A third time also disallows coincidence such as two repetitive events would suggest.

　　 The reasons and theories behind three's popularity are numerous and diverse. The number has been considered powerful across history in different cultures and religions, but not all of them. Christians have the Trinity, the Chinese have the Great Triad (man, heaven, earth), and the Buddhists have the Triple Jewel (Buddha, Dharma, Sanga). The Greeks had the Three Fates. Pythagoras considered three to be the perfect number because it represented everything: the beginning, middle, and end. Some cultures have different powerful numbers, often favoring seven, four and twelve.

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　　 49. She must be burnt to death: Burning occurs often in fairy tales. It is symbolic of purification (Matthews 1986). Gerhard Mueller, who has studied the criminological aspects of several tales, states that in the Middle Ages, the charge of witchcraft was punished by fire, usually burning at the stake. In other words, the heroine's punishment fits the crime of which she has been accused (Mueller 1986).

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　　 50. It was the last day of the six years: The turn of events here relies heavily on coincidence, even more so than in the fairy tale pantheon, as it does in many variants of the AT 451 tale. A. S. Byatt writes: "Everything in the tales appears to happen entirely by chance - and this has the strange effect of making it appear that nothing happens by chance, that everything is fated" (Byatt 2004).

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　　 51. There was only the left sleeve wanting to the last: The shirt's unfinished state provides suspense. Will the missing sleeve cause none of the disenchantment to work or will there be a different consequence?

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　　 52. The youngest had a swan's wing instead of his left arm: The brother with a wing for an arm has been the subject of some modern interpretative fiction, such as Nicholas Stuart Gray's The Seventh Swan and Ursula Synge's Swan's Wing.

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　　 53. The wicked mother came to no good end: In The Seven Ravens, "the wicked step-mother was taken before the judge, and put into a barrel filled with boiling oil and venomous snakes, and died an evil death."

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　　 54. But the King and the Queen with their six brothers lived many years in happiness and peace: In most variants of the tale, the brothers are integrated into the sister's new family, never returning to live with their father. Since the sister does not find a husband in The Seven Ravens, everyone returns to the original family at the end of that tale.

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