variations of tales

Have you heard the story of the girl whose brothers were swans?
 There is a wonderful book called The Twelve Wild Swans written by Starhawk and Hilary Valentine. It's a Pagan self help book. In it the author tells a story and at each step of the story applies a life lesson.

 But the neat thing I saw was that in another version of the tale the girl has six brothers who are swans (as depicted in this drawing, I apologise I can not remember the artists name). There was once upon a time, numbers meant more that they seem to now.

 In each story the sister learns perseverance, compassion, loyalty, hard work, faith, and wisdom as she attempts to rescue her brothers.  All good values that any society would want to endorse and yet America seems to be lacking it's version of this classic tale.

 I must investigate further. Perhaps America uses a different tale to teach theses values, perhaps America no longer values hard work or perseverance.