Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

First published:Eventyr, 1835-1872 (as The Complete Andersen, 1949; as Fairy Tales, 1950-1958; as The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, 1974)

Type of work: Short fiction

Type of plot: Fairy tales

Time of plot: Indeterminate

Locale: Denmark

Principal characters

• Karen, the owner of the red shoes
• The Ugly Duckling,
• The Snow Queen,
• Kay, a little boy
• Gerda, a little girl
• The Shepherdess, a china figure
• The Chimneysweep, her lover
• The Emperor,
• A Tin Soldier,
• A Poor Soldier,

The Stories:

The Red Shoes. Karen is such a poor little girl that she has to go barefoot in winter. An old mother shoemaker feels sorry for her and makes Karen a clumsy pair of shoes out of pieces of red felt. When Karen’s mother dies, the girl wears the red shoes to the funeral. An old lady, seeing Karen walking forlornly behind her mother’s coffin, pities her and takes the child home. The old lady thinks that the red shoes are ugly, and she burns them.

One day, Karen sees the queen and the little princess. The princess is dressed all in white, with beautiful red morocco shoes. When the time comes for Karen’s confirmation, she needs new shoes. The old lady, almost blind, does not know that the shoes Karen picks out are red ones just like those the princess wore. During the confirmation, Karen can think of nothing but her red shoes.

The next Sunday, as Karen goes to her First Communion, she meets an old soldier with a crutch. After admiring the red shoes, he strikes them on the soles and tells them to stick fast when Karen dances. During the service, she can think only of her shoes. After church, she starts to dance. The footman has to pick her up and take off her shoes before the old lady can take her home.

At a ball in town, Karen cannot stop dancing. She dances out through the fields and up to the church. There an angel with a broad sword stops her and tells her she will dance until she becomes a skeleton, a warning to all other vain children.

Karen dances day and night until she comes to the executioner’s house. There she taps on the window and begs him to come out and cut off her feet. After he chops off her feet, they and the little red shoes dance off into the forest. The executioner makes Karen wooden feet and crutches and teaches her a psalm, and the parson gives her a home. Karen thinks she suffers enough to go to church, but each time she tries she sees the red shoes dancing ahead of her and is afraid. One Sunday, she stays at home. As she hears the organ music, she reads her prayer book humbly and begs help from God. Then she sees the angel again, not with a sword but with a green branch covered with roses. As the angel moves the branch, Karen feels that she is being carried off to the church. There she is so thankful that her heart breaks, and her soul flies up to heaven.

The Ugly Duckling. A mother duck is sitting on a clutch of eggs. When the largest egg does not crack with the rest, an old matriarchal duck warns the setting fowl that she should leave that egg alone; it will probably turn out to be a turkey. The egg, however, finally cracks, and out of it comes the biggest, ugliest duckling ever seen in the barnyard. The other ducklings peck it and chase it and make it so unhappy that it feels comfortable only when it is paddling in the pond. The mother duck is proud only of the very fine paddling the ugly duckling does.

The scorn heaped on his head is so bitter that the ugly duckling leaves home. He spends a miserable winter in the marsh. When spring comes, he sees some beautiful white swans settle down on the water. He moves out to admire them as they come toward him with ruffled feathers. He bends down to await their attack, but as he looks in the water he sees that he is no longer a gray ugly duckling but another graceful swan. He is so glad then that he never thinks to be proud, but he smiles when he hears some children say that he is the handsomest swan they have ever seen.

The Snow Queen. A very wicked hobgoblin invents a mirror that reflects everything good as trivial and everything bad as monstrous; a good thought turns into a grin in the mirror. His cohorts carry it all over the earth and finally up to heaven to test the angels. There many good thoughts make the mirror grin so much that it falls out of their hands and splinters as it hits the earth. Each tiny piece can distort as the whole mirror did.

A tiny piece pierces Kay through the heart, and a tiny grain lodges in his eye. Kay was a happy little boy before that. He played with Gerda in their rooms high above the street, and they both admired some rosebushes their parents planted in boxes spanning the space between their houses. With the glass in his eye and heart, however, Kay sees nothing beautiful, and nothing pleases him.

One night, Kay goes sledding in the town square. When a lady all in white drives by, he thinks that she is so beautiful that he hitches his sled behind her sleigh as she drives slowly around the square. Suddenly, her horses gallop out of the town. The lady looks back at Kay and smiles each time he tries to loosen his sled. Then she stops the sleigh and tells Kay to get in with her. There she wraps him in her fur coat. She is the Snow Queen. He is nearly frozen, but he does not feel cold after she kisses him nor does he remember Gerda.

Gerda does not forget Kay; at last, she runs away from home to look for him. She goes to the garden of a woman learned in magic and asks all the flowers if they have seen Kay, but the flowers know only their own stories. She meets a crow who leads her to the prince and princess, but they have not heard of Kay. They give her boots and a muff and a golden coach to ride in when they send her on her way. Robbers stop the golden coach. At the insistence of a little robber girl, Gerda is left alive, a prisoner in the robbers’ house. Some wood pigeons in the loft tell Gerda that Kay went with the Snow Queen to Lapland. Since the reindeer tethered inside the house know the way to Lapland, the robber girl sets him free to take Gerda on her way.

The Lapp and the Finn women give Gerda directions to the Snow Queen’s palace and tell her that it is only through the goodness of her heart that Kay can be released. When Gerda finds Kay, she weeps so hard that she melts the piece of mirror out of his heart. Then he weeps the splinter from his eye and realizes what a vast and empty place he was in. With thankfulness in her heart, Gerda leads Kay out of the snow palace and home.

The Shepherdess and the Sweep. In the middle of the door of an old wooden parlor cupboard is carved a ridiculous little man with goat’s legs, horns on his head, and a beard. The children call him Major-general-field-sergeant-commander-Billy-goat’s-legs. He always looks at the china figure of a Shepherdess. Finally, he asks the china figure of a Chinese man, who claims to be her grandfather, if he can marry the Shepherdess. The Chinese man, who can nod his head when he chooses, nods his consent. The Shepherdess is engaged to the china figure of a Chimneysweep. She begs him to take her away. That night, he uses his ladder to help her get off the table. The Chinese man sees them leave and starts after them.

Through the stove and up the chimney go the Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep. When she sees how big the world is, the Shepherdess begins to cry, and the Chimneysweep has to take her back to the parlor. There they see the Chinaman broken on the floor. The Shepherdess is distressed, but the Chimneysweep says the Chinaman can be mended and riveted. Although the family has the Chinaman riveted so that he is whole again, he can no longer nod his head. When the Major-general-field-sergeant-commander-Billy-goat’s-legs asks again for the Shepherdess, the Chinaman cannot nod, and so the Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep stay together and love each other until they are broken to pieces.

The Emperor’s New Clothes. A foolish Emperor loves clothes so much that he spends all the kingdom’s money to buy new ones. Two swindlers, who know the Emperor’s weakness, come to town with big looms. They tell the people that they weave the most beautiful cloth in the world but that it has a magical property: If someone unworthy of his post looks at it, the cloth becomes invisible.

The Emperor gives the pair much gold and thread to make him a new outfit. The swindlers set up their looms and work far into the night. Becoming curious about the materials, the Emperor sends his most trusted minister to see them. When the minister looks at the looms, he sees nothing; thinking of the magical property of the cloth, he decides that he is unworthy of his post. He says nothing to the swindlers and reports to the Emperor, praising the colors and pattern of the cloth as the swindlers described it.

Others, looking at the looms, see nothing and say nothing. Even the Emperor sees nothing when the material is finished and then is made into clothes, but he also keeps silent. He wears his new clothes in a fine procession. All the people, who also know of the cloth’s supposed property, call out that his new clothes are beautiful—all the people except one little boy, who says that the Emperor does not have on any clothes at all.

Then there is a buzzing along the line of march. Soon everyone is saying that the Emperor wears no clothes. The Emperor, realizing the truth, holds himself stiffer than ever until the procession ends.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier. A little boy has a set of twenty-five tin soldiers made out of the same tin spoon. Since there is not quite enough tin, one soldier has only one leg, but he stands as solidly as those with two legs. The one-legged soldier stands on a table and looks longingly at a paper castle, at the door of which stands a paper dancer who wears a gauze dress. A ribbon over her shoulder is held in position by a spangle as big as her face.

One morning, the little boy puts the one-legged soldier on a windowsill. When the window opens, the soldier falls three stories to the ground. There he stays, head down between two stones, until some boys find him. They make a paper boat for the soldier and sail it down the gutter. After a time, the boat enters a sewer. Beginning to get limp, it settles deeper into the water. Just as the soldier thinks he will fall into the water, a fish swallows him.

When the fish is opened, the soldier finds himself in the same house out of which he fell. Soon he is back on his table looking at the dancer. For no reason, the boy throws him into a roaring fire. Suddenly, a draft in the room whisks the dancer off the table and straight to the soldier in the fire. As the fire burns down, the soldier is melted to a small tin heart. All that is left of the dancer is her spangle, burned black.

The Tinder Box. A soldier is walking along the high road one day when a witch stops him and tells him that he can have a lot of money if he will climb down a hollow tree and bring her up a tinder box. Thinking that is an easy way to get money, he ties a rope around his waist and the witch helps him to climb down inside the tree. He takes along the witch’s apron, for on it he will place the dogs that guard the chests of money. The first dog, with eyes as big as saucers, guards a chest full of coppers. The soldier places the dog on the apron, fills his pockets with coppers, and walks on.

The next dog, with eyes as big as millstones, guards silver. The soldier places the dog on the apron, empties his pockets of coppers, and fills them with silver. The third dog has eyes as big as the Round Tower. He guards gold. When the soldier places the dog on the apron, he empties his pockets of silver and fills them, his knapsack, his cap, and his boots with gold. Then he calls to the witch to pull him up.

When she refuses to tell him why she wants the tinder box, he cuts off her head and starts for town. There he lives in splendor and give alms to the poor, for he is good-hearted.

He hears of a beautiful princess who is kept locked up because of a prophecy that she would marry a common soldier. Idly he thinks of ways to see her. When his money runs out and he has no candle, he remembers that there is a piece of candle in the tinder box. As he strikes the box to light the candle, the door flies open and the dog with eyes like saucers bursts in, asking what the soldier wants. When he asks for money, the dog brings it back immediately. Then he finds that he can call the second dog by striking the box twice, and the third dog by striking it three times. When he asks the dogs to bring the princess, she is brought to his room.

The king and queen have him thrown into prison when they catch him. There he is helpless until a little boy to whom he calls brings the tinder box to him. When the soldier is about to be hanged, he asks permission to smoke a last pipe. Then he pulls out his tinder box and strikes it once, twice, three times. All three dogs come to rout the king’s men and free the soldier. The people are so impressed that they make the soldier king and the princess his queen.

Bibliography

Blegvad, Erik. Hans Christian Andersen: From an Artist’s Point of View. Washington, D.C.: Children’s Literature Center, Library of Congress, 1988. Critique of Andersen’s fairy tales from a noted Danish illustrator. Describes visual qualities of Andersen’s tales that are rarely noted. Based on a lecture, this book is casual about references; the reader needs some familiarity with Andersen’s works.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Hans Christian Andersen. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2005. Collection of essays about Andersen’s life and work. Some of the essays discuss the heroes and heroines in the fairy tales, Andersen and the European literary tradition, and “Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories: Secrets, Swans, and Shadows.”

Dahl, Svend. A Book on the Danish Writer, Hans Christian Andersen, His Life and Work. Copenhagen: Berlingske Bogtr., 1955. An introductory approach to Andersen’s life and work. Includes coverage of his story themes and relates them to events in his life.

Gronbech, Bo. Hans Christian Andersen. Boston: Twayne, 1980. Treats Andersen’s fairy tales in depth, primarily as literary compositions. Extensive bibliographical references.

Mortensen, Finn. A Tale of Tales: Hans Christian Andersen and Danish Children’s Literature. Minneapolis: Center for Nordic Studies, University of Minnesota, 1989. Considers the original quality of some of the writer’s best-known tales and their importance to the national literature.

Nojgaard, Morten, et al., eds. Telling of Stories, Approaches to a Traditional Craft: A Symposium. Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1990. Conference proceedings that include essays looking at Andersen’s fairy tales from the perspective of the storyteller. Selected tales are examined from the point of view of drama, audience, voice, and cultural notions of continuity and disruption.

Wullshläger, Jackie. Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller. New York: A. A. Knopf, 2001. An extensively researched biography, portraying Andersen as a self-pitying and desperate man whose life was far darker than his fairy tales.

Zipes, Jack David. Hans Christian Andersen: The Misunderstood Storyteller. New York: Routledge, 2005. Zipes examines the relationship of Andersen’s work to the development of literature, particularly the fairy tale. His analysis of Andersen’s work focuses on the tales, describing how they have been misunderstood and misinterpreted over time.