Fairy Tales

by Ганс Христиан Андерсен

“What a magnificent mass of plants! How marvelous it will taste when it rots!” said the dung beetle. “It’s a luscious larder, and I’m sure I must have relatives here. I’ll see if I can track down someone I can associate with. I’m proud and proud of it!” And he thought about his dream of the dead horse and the golden shoes he had gotten.

  Suddenly a hand grabbed the dung beetle, and he was squeezed, turned, and twisted about.

  The gardener’s little son and his friend were in the greenhouse and had seen the dung beetle and were going to have some fun with it. He was wrapped in a grapevine leaf and put into a warm pants pocket. He crawled and crept around, but was squeezed by the hand of the boy, who went straight off to the big lake at the edge of the garden. Here the dung beetle was placed in an old cracked wooden shoe with a missing instep. A stick was tied on for a mast, and the dung beetle was tethered to it with a woolen thread. Now he was the captain and was going sailing!

  It was a really big lake. It seemed like an ocean to the dung beetle, and he became so astonished that he fell over on his back and lay wriggling his legs.

  The wooden shoe sailed, and there was a current in the water, but if the boat went out too far, then one of the boys pulled up his pant legs and waded out to get it. But when it was sailing again, someone called the boys—called them sternly—and they hurried off and let the wooden shoe be. It drifted further and further from land, always further out. It was dreadful for the dung beetle. He couldn’t fly because he was tied to the mast.

  He was visited by a fly.

  “We’re having wonderful weather,” said the fly. “I can rest here and sunbathe too. You have it very comfortable here.”

  “You talk according to your lights! Don’t you see that I’m tied up?”

  “I’m not tied,” said the fly and flew away.

  “Now I know the world,” the dung beetle said. “And it’s a mean world. I’m the only honorable one in it! First they deny me gold shoes, then I have to lie on wet linen, stand in a draft, and finally they foist a wife on me! When I then take a quick step out into the world to see what it’s like and how it will treat me, then a people-puppy comes along and sets me in a tether on the wild sea. And meanwhile the emperor’s horse is walking around in gold shoes! That annoys me the most. But you can’t expect sympathy in this world! My life is very interesting, but what good is that if no one knows about it? The world doesn’t deserve to hear about it either, or it would have given me golden shoes in the emperor’s stable when the favorite horse got them, and I reached out my legs. If I had gotten golden shoes I would have brought honor to the stable. Now it’s lost me, and the world has lost me. Everything’s over!”

  But everything wasn’t over yet because a boat sailed by with some young girls in it.

  “There’s a wooden shoe!” one of them said.

  “There’s a little animal tied up to it,” said another.

  They were right beside the wooden shoe and picked it up. One of the girls took a little scissors and cut the woolen thread without hurting the dung beetle, and when they got to land, she set it in the grass.

  “Crawl, crawl! Fly, fly, if you can!” she said. “Freedom is a lovely thing.”

  And the dung beetle flew right through an open window in a big building and sank tiredly down in the fine, soft, long mane of the emperor’s favorite horse who was standing in the stable where it and the dung beetle belonged. It clung to the mane and sat collecting its thoughts for awhile. “Here I am sitting on the emperor’s favorite horse—sitting as a horseman. What’s that I said? Well, now everything is clear to me! It’s a good idea, and the right one. Why did the horse get golden shoes? He asked me about that, the blacksmith. Now I realize why! The horse got golden shoes for my sake!”

  And that put the dung beetle in a good mood.

  “You get clear-headed from travel,” he said.

  The sun shone in on him, shone very beautifully. “The world isn’t so bad after all,” said the dung beetle. “You just have to know how to take it.” The world was lovely—the emperor’s favorite horse had gotten golden shoes because the dung beetle was to be its rider.

  “Now I’ll just step down to the other beetles and tell them how much has been done for me. I’ll tell about all the pleasures I enjoyed on my travel abroad, and I’ll tell them that now I’ll stay home until the horse has worn out his golden shoes.”

  THE BUTTERFLY

  THE BUTTERFLY WANTED A sweetheart, and naturally he wanted one of the pretty little flowers. He looked at them. Each sat so quietly and steadily on her stalk, just like a maiden should sit when she’s not yet engaged. But there were so many to choose among—it was too much trouble, and the butterfly couldn’t be bothered, so he flew away to the daisy. The French call her Margrethe. They know that she can tell fortunes, which she does when people pick petal after petal, and with each one say, “She loves me—She loves me not—She loves me—She loves me not,” or something like that. Everyone asks in his own language. The butterfly came to ask too, but he didn’t pluck the petals off. Instead he kissed each one, believing that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

  “Sweet Margrethe Daisy,” he said. “You’re the wisest woman of all the flowers. You know how to tell fortunes. Tell me, will I have that one, or that one? Who will I get? When I know that, I’ll fly right over and propose.”

  But Margrethe didn’t answer at all. She didn’t like being called a woman because she was an unmarried virgin and wasn’t properly speaking a woman yet. He asked a second and then a third time. When he couldn’t get a single word out of her, he couldn’t be bothered to ask again, but flew directly away to propose.

  It was early spring, and there were lots of snowdrops and crocuses. “They are very pretty,” said the butterfly. “Sweet little things who have just come out, but somewhat tasteless.” Like all young men, he looked for older girls. So then he flew to the anemones, but they were a little too bitter for him, and the violets a bit too romantic. The tulips were too ostentatious, the narcissus too simple, and the lime blossoms were too small and had too many relations. The apple blossoms really did look like roses, but they were here today and gone tomorrow according to how the wind blew. He thought that would be too short a marriage! The sweet pea was the one who pleased him the most. She was red and white, pure and delicate. She was one of those domestic girls who look good and are also useful in the kitchen. He was just about to propose to her, but just then he saw a pea-pod with a withering flower on the end hanging close to her.

  They were here today and gone tomorrow.

  “Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s my sister,” said the sweet pea.

  “Oh, so that’s what you’ll look like later!” That scared the butterfly, and he flew off.

  The honeysuckle was hanging over the fence, full of those young ladies with long faces and sallow skin. He didn’t care for that type. But what did he like? You’ve got to ask him yourself.

  Spring passed, summer passed, and then it was autumn. But he got nowhere. And the flowers were wearing the most beautiful dresses, but that didn’t help. They didn’t have that fresh fragrance of youth. Fragrance is just what the heart needs with age, and there’s not much of that in dahlias and hollyhocks. And so the butterfly flew down to the curled mint.

  “She actually has no flower, but is a whole flower, fragrant from root to tip. She has fragrance in every leaf. I’ll take her!”

  And so he finally proposed.

  But the curled mint stood stiff and silent, and at last she said, “Friendship—but nothing more! I am old, and you are old. We could certainly live for each other, but get married? No! Let’s not make fools of ourselves in our old age.”

  So the butterfly got no one. He had searched too long, and one shouldn’t do that. The butterfly became a bachelor.

  It was late in the autumn, with rain and rough weather. The wind blew cold down the backs of the old willow trees so that they creaked. It was not the time to flit around in summer clothe
s—then you’d be in for it, as the saying goes. But the butterfly wasn’t flying outside. He’d happened to get inside, where there was a fire in the stove. It was warm like summer. Here he could live, but “living is not enough,” he said. “You must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower!”

  And he flew towards the window pane, was seen, admired, and mounted on a pin in a curio case. More couldn’t be done for him.

  “Now I’m sitting on a stalk just like the flowers,” said the butterfly. “But it’s certainly not perfectly comfortable. It must be like being married—you’re pinned down then!” And he consoled himself with this thought.

  “That’s poor consolation,” said the potted flowers in the living room.

  “But you can’t quite trust potted plants,” thought the butterfly. “They associate too much with people!”

  THE SNOWDROP 1

  IT WAS WINTERTIME. THE air was cold with a cutting wind, but inside it was cozy and warm. The flower lay inside. It lay in its bulb under earth and snow.

  One day it rained. The raindrops sank down through the snow cover into the earth, touched the flower bulb, and told it about the world of light up above. Soon a delicate sunbeam bored its way through the snow, down to the bulb, and pricked at it.

  “Come in!” said the flower.

  “I can’t!” said the sunbeam. “I’m not strong enough yet to open your door, but I will be in summer.”

  “When will summer come?” the flower asked and repeated it every time a new sun beam penetrated the earth. But it was a long time until summer. Snow was still lying on the ground, and the water froze on the ponds every single night.

  “Oh, how long it’s lasting, how long!” said the flower. “I feel crawling and creeping in me. I have to stretch, and I must stretch out. I have to open up and get out, and nod good morning to the summer! It will be a blissful time!”

  And the flower stretched and stretched within the thin water-softened skin that the snow and earth had warmed, and the sunbeams had pricked against. It shot forth under the snow, with a light green bud on its green stalk and narrow thick leaves that seemed to want to protect it. The snow was cold, but shot through with light, and therefore easy to break through, and then came the sunbeams with greater strength than before.

  “Welcome! Welcome!” each sunbeam sang and rang, and the flower rose over the snow into the world of light. The sunbeams caressed and kissed it so that it opened completely. It was white as the snow and adorned with green streaks. It bowed its head in joy and humility.

  “Lovely flower!” the sunbeams sang. “How fresh and pure you are! You’re the first, you’re the only! You’re our love! You ring in summer across the land and towns. All the snow will melt! The cold winds are chased away! We will rule! Everything will turn green. Then you’ll have company—the lilacs, laburnum, and finally, roses. But you’re the first, so delicate and pure!”

  It was a great pleasure. The flower felt as if the air sang to it, and the rays of light pierced into its leaves and stalk. It stood there so delicate and easy to break, and yet so vigorous with young beauty. With its white tunic and green ribbons it praised summer. But summer was still far away. Clouds hid the sun, and sharp winds blew the flower.

  “You’ve come a little too early,” said the wind and weather. “We still have the power! You’ll feel it and put up with it. You should have stayed inside and not run out in your finery. It’s not time yet.”

  It was biting cold. The following days didn’t bring a single sunbeam! It was the kind of weather such a little flower could freeze to death in. But it had more strength than it realized. It was strong in the joy and belief of the summer that had to come, the summer that was proclaimed with deep longing, and that was confirmed by the warm sunshine. So it stood with confidence in its white outfit in the white snow, bending its head when the snowflakes fell thick and heavily, and the icy winds blew over it.

  “You’re going to break!” they said. “Wither and freeze. Why did you come out? Why did you let yourself be lured? The sun has fooled you! It serves you right, you little snowdrop, summer fool!”

  “Summer fool!” repeated the snowdrop in the cold morning hours.

  “Summer fool!” shouted some children, who came into the garden. “There’s one—so lovely and beautiful—the first and only one!”

  These words did the flower a lot of good for they were words as warm as the sunbeams. In its joy, the flower didn’t even notice that it was being picked. It lay in a child’s hand and was kissed by a child’s mouth. It was brought into the warm living room, looked at with gentle eyes, and put in water, strengthening and reviving. The flower thought that all at once it was summer.

  There was a daughter in the house, a lovely young girl. She had just been confirmed, and she had a dear friend who was also confirmed. He was studying for his livelihood. “He shall be my summer fool,” she said. She took the delicate flower and laid it in a piece of scented paper on which there were verses written. The verses started with summer fool and ended with summer fool, then “dear friend, be a winter fool!” She had teased him with summer. It was all in the poem, and it was sent as a letter. The flower was enclosed, and it was dark all around, as dark as when it lay inside the bulb. The flower went traveling, lay in a postbag, and was pressed and squeezed. It wasn’t at all comfortable, but this too came to an end.

  The trip was over. The letter was opened and read by the dear friend. He was very pleased. He kissed the flower, and along with the verses around it, it was put into a drawer where there were other lovely letters, but none with flowers. It was the first and the only, as the sunbeams had called it, and that was delightful to think about.

  And the flower had a long time to think about it. It thought while summer passed, and the long winter, and when it was summer again, the flower was brought out. But now the young man was not at all happy. He grasped the papers roughly and threw the verses aside so that the flower fell on the floor. It had become flat and withered, but that was no reason to throw it on the floor! But still it was better than being in the fire, where the verses and letters were burning up. What had happened? What happens so often. The flower had fooled him—it was a joke. The girl had fooled him—that was no joke. She had chosen another friend in midsummer.

  In the morning the sun shone on the little flat pressed snowdrop, which looked as if it was painted on the floor. The maid was sweeping and picked it up and laid it in one of the books on the table because she thought it had fallen out as she was putting the room in order. And once again the snowdrop was lying amidst verses, but these were printed ones. They are more distinguished than written ones, or at least more is spent on them.

  Years passed, and the book stood on the shelf. Then one day it was taken out, opened and read. It was a good book—the poems and songs of the Danish poet Ambrosius Stub,2 well worth knowing. And the man who was reading the book turned the page. “Why here’s a flower!” he said. “A snowdrop, a summer fool! It surely means something that it’s placed here. Poor Ambrosius Stub. He was a summer fool too, a poet fool! He was ahead of his time too, and because of that he felt sleet and sharp winds, lived by turns in the manor homes of Funen,3 like a flower in a vase, flower in a rhymed letter! Summer fool, winter fool, jokes and pranks; and yet the first and only, still the fresh youthful Danish poet! Yes, be a bookmark in this book, little snowdrop. You were placed there for a reason.”

  And the snowdrop was placed in the book again, and felt both honored and pleased to know that it was a bookmark in that lovely songbook, and that he who first had sung and written about the snowdrop was a summer fool too and had been made a fool of in the winter. The flower understood it in his fashion, as we understand things in ours.

  And that’s the tale about the snowdrop!

  NOTES

  1 This story is often called untranslatable because its point and premise rest on the meaning in Danish of the flower name sommergjæk. The archaic verb gjekke means to hoax or tease. The sommergjcek, the
refore, teases about the hope of summer because it blooms in the winter. There is also a Danish custom of sending the first snowdrop enclosed in an unsigned letter.

  2 Danish poet (1705-1758).

  3 Funen is the third-largest island of Denmark; its major city is Odense.

  THE SUNSHINE’S STORIES

  “Now I’M GOING TO tell a story,” said the wind.

  “No, allow me, it’s my turn,” said the rain. “You’ve stood by the corner long enough and blown off everything you could.”

  “Is that the thanks I get,” said the wind, “for turning all those umbrellas inside out, in your honor? Actually breaking them, when people haven’t wanted to have anything to do with you?”

  “I will tell a story,” said the sunshine. “Be quiet!” It was said with brilliance and majesty, so the wind lay down flat, but the rain shook the wind and said, “And we have to tolerate this! She always breaks in, this Madame Sunshine. We don’t want to listen! It’s not worth the trouble to listen.”

  But the sunshine told this:

  “A swan flew over the rolling sea. Its every feather shone like gold. One feather fell down on a big merchant ship that was gliding by at full sail. The feather fell into the curly hair of a young man, the supervisor of the wares. They called him ‘Supercargo.’ The feather from the bird of luck touched his forehead and became a pen in his hand. Soon he became a rich merchant who could buy spurs of gold and change gold plates to a noble’s shield. I’ve actually reflected myself in it,” said the sunshine.

  “The swan flew further across a green meadow, where a little shepherd, a boy of seven, was lying in the shade of an old tree, the only one there. And in his flight the swan kissed one of the tree’s leaves. It fell into the boy’s hand, and the one leaf turned to three, then ten, and finally became a whole book. In it he read about the wonders of nature, about his mother tongue, and about faith and knowledge. At bedtime he lay the book under his head so that he wouldn’t forget what he had read, and the book led him to school, to the table of knowledge. I have read his name amongst the scholars,” said the sunshine.