Fairy Tales (Selection)

Summary

This selection gathers fourteen of Hans Christian Andersen's most loved fairy tales, written between 1835 and 1845, in the English versions revised and partly newly translated by the Scottish scholar W. A. Craigie for Oxford University Press in 1914. In The Tinder-Box a returning soldier fetches a magic tinder-box from a hollow tree for a witch, keeps it, and with the help of three dogs with enormous eyes wins a princess and a kingdom. The Princess on the Pea proves her royal birth by feeling a single pea through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down quilts. Thumbelina, a girl no bigger than a thumb, is carried off by a toad and a cockchafer, nearly married to a mole, and flies south on the swallow she nursed through the winter to become queen of the flower-spirits. In The Little Sea Maid the youngest daughter of the sea king saves a prince from a shipwreck, gives her voice to the sea witch for human legs that feel like walking on knives, and, when the prince marries another, refuses to kill him to save herself; she rises with the daughters of the air, who may win an immortal soul by good deeds. Two swindlers in The Emperor's New Clothes weave invisible cloth that fools cannot see, until a little child says the emperor has nothing on. The one-legged tin soldier stands firm through a paper-boat voyage and a fish's belly, and melts in the stove into a little tin heart beside his beloved dancer. In The Wild Swans Eliza silently knits shirts of stinging nettles to free her eleven brothers, finishing them as she is led to the stake. The Nightingale shows a Chinese emperor preferring a jeweled mechanical bird to a real one, until the living bird's song drives Death from his bedside. The Ugly Duckling, mocked in the duck-yard and frozen in the marsh, discovers in spring that it is a swan. The Fir Tree longs always for the next thing and only appreciates its life once it lies chopped in the yard. In The Snow Queen, told in seven stories, a splinter from a devil's mirror enters Kay's heart and eye; his friend Gerda searches through a witch's garden, a palace, a robbers' castle and Lapland until her tears and a hymn about the Christ-child free him. The Little Match Girl dies of cold on New Year's Eve with visions of her grandmother. The prince in The Swineherd rejects a princess who scorns a rose and a nightingale but sells kisses for toys. In The Red Shoes Karen's vanity in church leaves her dancing helplessly until she repents and dies at peace.

Top Lessons

• The courage to say what is true

  In The Emperor's New Clothes everyone pretends to see the cloth so as not to seem foolish or unfit for office, and only a little child says that the emperor has nothing on. Andersen shows how fear of others' opinions can make a whole town lie, and how simple honesty can break the spell.

• Real beauty and false glitter

  The emperor of China prefers a jeweled clockwork bird to the plain nightingale, and the princess in The Swineherd prefers a toy rattle to a real rose. Both learn, too late or nearly too late, that the living thing is worth more than the showy imitation.

• Faithful love that suffers

  Gerda walks barefoot across the world for Kay, Eliza keeps silent while her hands blister from nettles, and the little sea maid bears pain with every step. Andersen honors love that gives itself away, even when it is not repaid.

• Humility after hardship

  The ugly duckling is mocked, chased and nearly frozen, yet when he becomes a swan he is happy and not at all proud. The tale teaches that suffering patiently borne can make a person gentle rather than bitter.

• Contentment and the present moment

  The Fir Tree is always longing for the next thing, to be cut down, to be decorated, to be brought out again, and only appreciates the forest and the Christmas evening once they are gone. The story invites children to enjoy the good gifts they have now.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Andersen grew up in poverty in Odense and knew cold, hunger and early death at first hand; several tales give these realities a gentle but unflinching place. The little match girl dies of cold on New Year's Eve, and the ugly duckling and Thumbelina nearly freeze. The little sea maid's new legs cause pain like treading on knives at every step, a vivid image of suffering borne for love. Disability appears with dignity in the one-legged tin soldier, who stands as firmly as his brothers, and in Karen of The Red Shoes, who after her feet are taken lives on crutches in humble service. The Nightingale stages a deathbed: the emperor lies cold and pale, Death sits on his chest wearing his crown, the court physician can do nothing, and the bird's song restores him. These are imaginative treatments, not medical observations, but they record nineteenth-century attitudes to suffering, illness and the consolations of faith.

• The Little Sea Maid

  The sea witch warns that every step on human feet will feel like treading on sharp knives; the sea maid bears it gladly at the prince's side.

• The Nightingale

  When the mechanical bird breaks, the body physician is called in vain; later the sick emperor sees Death on his chest and is revived by the real nightingale's song.

• The Hardy Tin Soldier

  A soldier cast with one leg for lack of tin stands as firmly as the others and endures every danger.

• The Red Shoes

  At Karen's own plea the executioner removes her dancing feet and makes her wooden feet and crutches; she lives on in service and repentance.

• The Little Match Girl

  A barefoot, hungry child dies of cold in a corner on New Year's Eve, seeing visions of a warm stove, a roast goose, a Christmas tree and her dead grandmother.