Ганс Андерсен - Fairy Tales

“The swan flew into the lonely forest, and rested there on the quiet dark lakes where the water lilies and the wild forest apples grow, and where the cuckoo and wood pigeon live.

“A poor woman was gathering firewood of broken branches, and carried them on her back. She had her little child by her breast and was walking home. She saw the golden swan, the swan of good fortune, lift off from the reed-covered shore. What was that shining there? A golden egg. She held it to her breast, and it was warm. There must have been life in the egg. Yes, there was pecking inside the shell! She felt it and thought it was her own heart beating.

“At home in her poor hovel she took the golden egg out. ‘Tick, tick!’ it said, as if it were an expensive gold watch, but it was an egg with life inside. The egg cracked, and a little swan, with feathers as of purest gold, stuck its head out. It had four rings around its neck, and since the poor woman had four sons, three at home and the fourth that she had carried with her in the forest, she immediately realized that there was a ring for each child. As she grasped that—and them—the little golden bird flew away.

“She kissed each ring and had each child kiss one of the rings, and laid them by the children’s hearts and then on their fingers.

“I saw it!” said the sunshine. “And I saw what happened afterwards.

“One boy sat in the clay pit, took a lump of clay in his hand, turned it with his fingers, and it became a statue of Jason, 1who had taken the golden fleece.

“The second boy ran out in the meadow where the flowers were blooming in every imaginable color. He picked a handful and squeezed them so tightly that the nectar sprayed into his eyes and wet the ring. His hands and thoughts were itching with it, and some years later they were talking in the big city about the great painter.

“The third boy held the ring so tightly in his mouth that it sang out, an echo from the heart. Thoughts and feelings arose in strains, arose like singing swans, and dived like swans into the deep sea, the deep sea of thought. He became a master of music, and every land can now think, ‘He belongs to me!’

“The fourth little one—well, he was an outcast. They said he was batty, had the ‘pip.’ He should be given pepper and whipped butter, like the sick chickens were. They said those words, ‘pepper and whipped butter’ with the stress on the whipped. And that’s what he got, but from me he got a sunshine’s kiss,” said the sunshine. “He got ten kisses instead of one. He had a poetic nature and was both knocked about and kissed, but he had the lucky ring from good fortune’s golden swan. His thoughts flew like golden butterflies, the symbol of immortality.”

“That was really a long story,” said the wind.

“And boring!” said the rain. “Blow on me, so I can freshen up.”

The wind blew, and the sunshine said:

“The swan of good fortune flew over the deep bay, where the fishermen had cast their nets. The poorest of them was thinking of getting married, and he did get married.

“The swan brought him a piece of amber. Amber pulls things towards it, and this pulled hearts to it. Amber is the loveliest incense. There was a fragrance as of a church, a scent from God’s nature. The two young people experienced the happiness of home life, contentment in straitened circumstances, and so their life was a whole sunshine story.”

“Can’t we break this off now?” said the wind. “Now the sunshine has talked long enough. I’ve been so bored.”

“Me too,” said the rain.

“And what do the rest of us who have heard the stories say?”

“We say: ‘That’s the end!’”

NOTE

1 In Greek mythology, the quest for the golden fleece is undertaken by Jason, who was the son of a Greek king, and the Argonauts, sailors in the ship Argo. Jason must obtain the fleece in order to reclaim his throne.

THE DROP OF WATER

I’M SURE YOU’RE FAMILIAR with a magnifying glass—one of those round lenses that makes everything look a hundred times bigger than it is? When you look through it at a drop of water from the pond, you see over a thousand strange animals that you otherwise wouldn’t see in the water, but they’re there and that’s the truth. It almost looks like a whole plate full of shrimp sprawling around each other, and they are so ravenous that they tear arms and legs, ends and pieces out of each other, and yet they seem happy and satisfied in their way.

There was once an old man whom everyone called Creepy Crawley because that was his name. He always wanted to get the best out of everything, and when something didn’t work, he used magic.

One day he was sitting and looking through his magnifying glass at a drop of water from a puddle in a ditch. My, how they were creeping and crawling in there! All of the thousands of little animals were hopping and jumping, pulling at each other and eating each other.

“Oh, but this is just disgusting!” said old Creepy Crawley. “Can’t we get them to live in peace and quiet and mind their own business?” And he thought and thought about it, but couldn’t come up with anything, so he had to use magic. “I’ll give them color so they are more visible,” he said, and he poured a little drop of what looked like red wine into the drop of water, but it was witch’s blood of the very best quality that costs two shillings. So then all the strange animals turned pink all over their bodies. It looked like an entire town of naked savages.

“What have you got there,” asked another old troll. He didn’t have a name, and that was the best thing about him.

“Well, if you can guess what it is,” said Creepy Crawley, “then I’ll give it to you, but it’s not easy to find out when you don’t know.”

And the troll who had no name looked through the magnifying glass. It really did look like an entire city, where all the people were running around without clothes! It was hideous, but even more hideous to see how they pulled and pushed against each other, how they nudged and nibbled, pinched and pounded at each other. What was on the bottom tried to get on top, and what was on top tried to get underneath. “Look, look—his leg is longer than mine! Snip! Away with it! There’s one who has a little lump behind its ear, a little innocent lump, but it bothers him, and it will bother him more!” and they hit at it, and they hacked at him, and they ate him because of that little lump. One was like a little maiden, sitting quite still, and wanted just peace and quiet, but then she came forward, and they pulled at her and tugged at her, and they ate her too!

“This is really fun,” said the troll.

“Well, but what do you think it is?” asked Creepy Crawley. “Can you figure it out?”

“That’s easy to see,” said the other, “It’s obviously Copenhagen or another big city. They’re all alike. A big city is what it is!”

“It’s ditch water!” said Creepy Crawley.

THE FLEA AND THE PROFESSOR

ONCE THERE WAS A balloonist who came to grief. The balloon burst, and the man fell and was smashed to pieces. He had sent his boy down two minutes earlier in a parachute, which was lucky for the boy. He was unhurt and had great knowledge of being a balloonist, but he had no balloon nor any means to obtain one.

He had to live, and so he learned magic tricks and how to talk with his stomach. That’s called being a ventriloquist. He was young and good looking, and when he grew a moustache and wore good clothes, he could be mistaken for a noble youth. The ladies thought he was attractive, and one maiden was even so taken with his appearance and magic arts that she followed him to foreign towns and countries. There he called himself Professor. Nothing less would do.