The Fairy Tale
About
Hans Christian Andersen
by
Per Jespersen
Once upon a time
there was a little yellow house in a town, oh, what a wonderful little town.
Everybody spoke a strange language there, but they could understand each other
in a good and proper way. The small house was dreaming in the night, because it
took good care of the people sleeping there: a shoe maker, his wife, who washed
people’s clothes to make some extra money, and a boy. He was asleep with the
school books under his pillow; this was the way to learn easier, so the
teachers had told him, and as a good boy he believed in what his teachers said.
The boy was fast
asleep, tired after a long day in school and an afternoon’s work. The boy ran
errands for people and got a few shillings for that. Sometimes he had a little
time to play near the river, and one day he came down there and thought he
heard a voice he had never heard before. The voice of a princess, oh it was so
beautiful, that he found himself weeping. Dreams of princesses flew through his
mind, and the sound of the river changed into voices of kings and queens.
“Oh, what a fairy
tale,” he thought for himself.
But the boy was
disturbed by some other boys who wanted to fish. They teased him and found him
so peculiar, that they burst from laughter. A boy could not sit at the river
bank dreaming about princesses, so he ran away to run his errands with the rest
of the beautiful dreams still in his head.
The summer days in
his country were very long, so even if he came home late, it was still
sunshine, and he sat down in the middle of a black-currant bush, so that nobody
could see him. “You wonderful bush of mine. I have a story in my mind, and I am
going to tell you.” The bush did not answer, but the boy told the bush the
story anyway, and you could hear his voice all over the garden, and it flew
into the neighbouring garden. There was a fat lady there, and she said, “Oh,
what a crazy boy. Times have changed, I must say!”
Oh, happiness in
the boys mind! What a story. It seemed to come out of nothing, and yet it was
there and took him by surprise. “Thank you, Good Lord in Paradise! I will
always remember that story!”
The boy Hans
Christian spent many summers telling the black-currant bush stories, but in the
dark winters he spent many evenings at the poor fireplace, dreaming of the heat
of the summer. One of his friends had told him, that there were countries in
the world much warmer than Denmark, but he could not believe that. Still he
kept dreaming of these countries and asked The Good Lord that he could be able
to visit them one day.
Hans Christian had
a plan: when he had money enough, he wanted to travel to the biggest city of
his country, Copenhagen. He knew that the artists he had seen on the theatre
came from there, and he wanted to see The Royal Theatre in the city. “Maybe I
can even see the king and the queen there. Oh, so handsome the king is! And so
beautiful the queen is!” And he dreamt that night, that the king greeted him.
He told his mother the next day, but she answered, “Rubbish, do your homework
and be a good shoe maker like your father.”
But the dreams kept
on every single night, so Hans Christian was close to liking the nights better
than the days with troublesome homework and the teasing from the other boys.
One day he had
money enough for the trip to the capital, and he asked his mother to take him
to a fortune teller in the town. She was shocked. His dear mother! But they
went along the river to the fortune teller’s house. On this way Hans Christian
told his mother that we was about to leave her and not come back, until —.“
“Until what, my
boy?”
“Until my dreams
have been fulfilled.”
As they were
outside the fortune teller’s door already, they silenced, and an old woman
opened the door, while Hans Christian bowed for her as if she were a queen. Oh,
what a bow! She smiled, and heard his words, “Give me a good future. This is my
only wish!”
And now he was
sitting in front of the woman with her cards. And she told her what he wanted
to hear, “You are going to be famous, my boy. You will be famous in the whole
wide world, and when you have grown old, this town will be illuminated because
of you.”
Oh, his small boy
heart hammered, and his forehead was sweating. He did not see his mother shake
her head. “And you will meat good and famous people in Copenhagen. They will
take good care of you, composers, philosophers, and writers. Oh, I see, even
the king!”
Those marvellous
words! For a little boy filled with dreams in his strange mind, that even
worried his mother.
That very same day
he went to the square to find a postman, who was on his way to Copenhagen with
his carriage. He gave him all the money he had, his mother was weeping, and the
postman took the boy to his seat and brought him to Copenhagen. Here he left
him on the street, just outside a small inn, yellow as his own home, and he
slept there the first night.
The next day he
went to a famous composer, who happened to have a dinner for all the famous
actors, scientists, and philosophers of Copenhagen. This very kind man invited
him in, and he got a glimpse of all the celebrities. Oh, how gorgeous!
This
was the beginning of a real fairy tale life, but it was not pure happiness.
Hans Christian was teased by everybody in the city, as was the famous philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard, to whom Hans Christian never spoke, although they met each
other very often. He wrote pieces for The Royal Theatre, but they were not
accepted, and funny drawings were made of him and brought in the newspapers,
and yet he grew famous for his paper cuttings.
Every night he
prayed to The Almighty, “Please let me be famous. You have the power even to
make me famous in Paradise!” That was the way he prayed. Poor boy with his
difficult mind! It is not easy to be different, but he knew that all
celebrities were different in some way, and one of them must have helped him to
get money from the king, meant for a journey to southern Europe. Six months he
spent in Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. Not knowing that he
was close to being famous after that trip. But there were still some troubles
to go through. Nobody wanted to publish his poems and tales. “Rubbish, the
printer said. You can’t spell, and your commas – oh God!”
Oh,
he felt so useless, until some of the tales were printed in Germany. The tales
from the bush in the garden! They had always been there, and now they were
printed in a foreign country in a strange language. But the fulfilment came the
day they were printed in his own country, and the king called him to read for
the small princesses. Dreams fulfilled!! What a joy! Oh, happy he, who gets his
dreams fulfilled. Happy he, who gets famous one day! Happy he, who is greeted
by Copenhageners, who look at him in deep honour. “Look,” the children screamed
– “There’s the famous Hans Christian Andersen!” Oh, how his boyish heart
hammered!
Little did he know
that he soon would be visiting Charles Dickens in London.
Little did he know
that his tales spread all over the world.
Little did he know
how right the fortune teller had been, saying that Odense would be illuminated
because of him.
But so it happened,
and all the citizens of his old town clapped their hands. Unfortunately, he
could not really enjoy it because of a heavy tooth ache. He had to leave the
celebration by train with a pain in his heart and in his teeth.
And so it happened,
that photography was invented in his later days, and he loved to be
photographed, but only from one side.
And
so it happened that after his death his old house in Odense grew into a museum,
where you still can see all his books, his bed, his manuscripts printed in all
the languages of the world. So beautiful!
And little did he
know that two hundred years after his birth a huge show with all the most famous
actors, musicians, and writers would be broadcast all over the globe, so that
even space could hear it.
Happy he who gets
his dreams fulfilled!
Happy he, who could
write tales in a strange language, and see them translated into the languages
of the whole world.
Der var engang en
bonde: Once upon a time there was a farmer.
Oh, and in German: Es
war einmal ein Bauer.
Marvellous!
Hans Christian is
sitting in his beloved arm chair in Paradise, looking down at a world, which
still loves his stories. A smile is on his face, and the whole world smiles.
Once upon a time
--- and forever and ever!
Hans Christian Andersen and
philosophy for children:
For the
first time in the world:
If you click on the fairy tales you will
get half philosophical manuals for the discussions you can have with children,
whether you are a parent or a teacher
The Gardener And The
Noble Family
