Fairy Tales

by Ганс Христиан Андерсен

  NOTE

  1 Satirical reference to the literary tea parties of the time, where literature that was new or as yet unpublished was read aloud.

  THE THORNY PATH TO GLORY

  THERE’S AN OLD FAIRY tale: “The thorny path to glory about a hunter named Bryde, who earned great honor and worth, but only after long and numerous tribulations and dangers in life.” Many a one of us have probably heard this as a child, maybe read it later as an adult and thought about his own obscure thorny path and “numerous tribulations.” The fairy tale and reality are not far apart, but the fairy tale has its harmonious conclusion here on earth, while reality often postpones it past earthly life into time and eternity.

  The history of the world is a magic lantern that shows us in slides on the black background of their time how humanity’s benefactors, the martyrs of science and art, wander the thorny path to glory.

  From all times and from all countries these slides appear, each only for a moment, but encompassing a whole life—a lifetime with its struggles and triumphs. Let’s look at, here and there, a few in this band of martyrs, one that won’t end until the earth fades away.

  We see a crowded amphitheater. Aristophanes’ The Clouds sends streams of ridicule and merriment over the crowd. Athens’ most remarkable man is being ridiculed in spirit and person from the stage. He who was the people’s shield against the Thirty Tyrants: Socrates. He who saved Alcibiades and Xenophon in the din of battle.1 He whose spirit rose above antiquity’s Gods. He is present here himself. He has risen from the audience and displays himself so that the laughing Athenians can see if he and the caricature on the stage are similar. He’s standing up there in front of them, lifted high over them all. The succulent, green, poisonous hemlock, not the olive tree, should be Athens’ symbol.

  Seven cities claim to be the birthplace of Homer. That is to say, after he was dead! Look at him while he lived—He walks through these places, reciting his verses to support himself. Thoughts about tomorrow have turned his hair grey. He, the greatest seer, is blind and lonely. The sharp thorn rips the poet-king’s coat to pieces. His songs still live, and only through them live antiquity’s gods and heroes.

  Picture after picture billow out from the Orient and the Occident, so far from each other in time and place, and yet all on glory’s thorny path, where the thistle doesn’t set bloom until the grave is to be decorated.

  Under the palm trees walk camels, richly laden with indigo and other precious treasures. They’re being sent from the country’s ruler to the one whose song is the joy of the people, and who is the glory of his country—He who fled his country because of envy and lies. They have found him. The caravan is approaching the little town where he found refuge. A poor corpse is brought out of the gates and stops the caravan. The dead man is just the one they seek: Firdusi2—his thorny path to glory is ended!

  The African with his coarse features, the thick lips and black wooly hair, sits on the marble steps of the palace in Portugal’s capital and begs—It’s Camões’3 faithful slave. Without him and the copper shillings that are thrown to him, his master, the singer of The Lusiads would starve to death. Now an expensive monument covers Camões’ grave.

  Yet another picture!

  A deathly pale, straggly bearded man is seen behind the iron bars. “I have made a discovery, the greatest in centuries!” he shouts, “and they have imprisoned me here for more than twenty years!” “Who is he?” “A madman,” says the guard. “What people can’t think of! He believes that you can propel yourself with steam!” It’s Salomon de Caus,4 the discoverer of steam power, whose suspicious unclear words were misunderstood by Richelieu, and who dies, imprisoned in a madhouse.

  Here stands Columbus! He who once was followed by street urchins and mocked because he wanted to discover a new world. He has discovered it. Enthusiasm’s bells ring out at his triumphal return, but the bells of envy soon ring louder. The world explorer, he who lifted his golden America up from the ocean and gave it to his king, is rewarded with iron chains, the ones he wishes placed in his coffin. They bear witness to the world and to the values of his time.

  Picture after picture—the thorny path to glory is rich with examples!

  He is sitting here in pitch darkness—He who measured the mountains of the moon. He who pushed into space to the planets and stars. He, the great man who heard and saw the spirit in nature, and felt the world turn under him: Galileo. Blind and deaf he sits here in his old age, impaled on the thorn of suffering in the agony of repudiation, undoubtedly not strong enough to lift his foot, the one that once in the pain of his soul—when the word of truth was erased—stamped on the earth when he said “And yet it does move.”

  Here stands a woman with a child’s mind, enthusiasm and faith—she carries the banner in front of the battling army, and she brings victory and salvation to her fatherland. Exultation rings—and the fire is lit: Joan of Arc, the witch, is burned. The following century spits on the white lily. Voltaire, the satyr of wit, sings of La Pucelle.

  At the assembly in Viborg the Danish aristocracy burns the King’s laws. They flame up and illuminate the times and the lawgiver, and throw the ray of a halo into the dark tower prison where he sits, grey-haired and bent, honing a furrow in the stone table with his finger—He who once was the ruler of three kingdoms. The prince of the people, friend of the citizens and farmers: Christian II. He had a harsh temperament for harsh times. Enemies wrote his story. We should remember the twenty-seven years of prison when we think about his guilt in bloodletting.

  A ship is sailing from Denmark. Next to the tall mast stands a man who looks towards Hven5 for the last time: Tycho Brahe, who lifted Denmark’s name to the stars and was rewarded for it with insults and injury. He’s traveling to a foreign country. “The sky is everywhere—what more do I need!” are his words as he sails away, our most famous man, honored and free in a foreign land!

  “Oh, free! If only from the body’s unbearable pains!” come the sighs down the ages to us. Whose picture? Griffenfeldt,6 a Danish Prometheus, chained to the rocky island of Munkholm.

  We’re in America by one of the big rivers. A crowd has gathered. A ship is said to be able to sail against wind and weather, to be a power against the elements. Robert Fulton is the man who thinks he can do this. The ship begins its journey—suddenly it stops—the crowd laughs, hoots and whistles. His own father whines along: “Arrogance! Madness! It serves him right! The crazy guy should be locked up!” Then a little nail breaks that had stopped the machine for a moment, the wheels turn, the shovels scoop away the water’s resistance. The ship is moving! The steam shuttle is changing the distance from hours to minutes between the countries of the world.

  Humanity! Do you comprehend the bliss in such a minute of consciousness, the spirit’s understanding of its mission? The moment in which all the scratches from glory’s thorny path—even self inflicted—dissolve in knowledge, health, power, and clarity? The moment when disharmony becomes harmony, and people see the revelation of God’s grace, revealed to one man and given by him to all?

  The thorny path to glory is then revealed as a halo around the earth. Fortunate he who’s chosen to wander here and, without his own merit, is placed among the bridge builders between humanity and God.

  The spirit of history flies on powerful wings through time and shows—accompanying courage, confidence, and thought provoking gentleness—the thorny path to glory in shining pictures on a black background. A path that doesn’t end as in the fairy tale with splendor and joy here on earth, but points past this world into time and eternity.

  NOTES

  1 Athenian statesman Alcibiades (c.450-404 B.C.) and Greek historian Xenophon (c.430-c.350 B.C.) were both influenced by Socrates.

  2 Pseudonym of Persian poet Abu Ol-qasem Mansur (c.935-c.1020), author of the Persian national epic.

  3 Luis de Camões (1524-1580), Portuguese poet and author of the epic poem The Lusiads (1572), which describes the opening of the sea route to India by
Vasco da Gama.

  4 French engineer and physicist (1576-1626) credited with the discovery of steam power. The statement that Richelieu had de Caus imprisoned is not true.

  5 Small island in the sound between Denmark and Sweden, site of the observatory of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe ( 1546-1601 ) .

  6 Danish statesman Peder Schumacher, count Griffenfeldt (1635-1699), was imprisoned in Copenhagen and at Munkholm in the Trondheim fjord.

  THE JEWISH MAID

  IN THE PAUPER’S SCHOOL there sat among the other little children a little Jewish girl, so attentive and good, the cleverest of them all. She couldn’t participate in one of the subjects though—religion. She was in a Christian school, after all.

  She was allowed to read in the geography book to herself, or she could finish her math assignment, but that was soon finished and the lesson done. There was a book lying open in front of her, but she didn’t read it. She sat and listened, and soon the teacher noticed that she kept up with the lesson like few of the others.

  “Read your book,” he said gently and gravely, but she looked at him with her radiant black eyes, and when he asked her a question, she knew more than any of the others. She had listened, understood, and remembered.

  Her father was a poor, honest man. He had stipulated when the child started school that she shouldn’t be taught the Christian faith. To have her leave the room during the religion class would perhaps confuse the other little ones, raise suggestions and sentiments, so she remained there. But this couldn’t continue any longer.

  The teacher went to her father and told him that either he would have to remove his daughter from the school, or let her become a Christian. “I can’t endure to see those burning eyes, the fervor and her soul thirsting after the word of the gospel,” said the teacher.

  And the father burst into tears. “I don’t know much about our own religion myself, but her mother was a daughter of Israel, firm and strong in her faith. I promised her on her deathbed that the child would never become a baptized Christian. I must keep my promise because it’s like a pact with God for me.”

  And the little Jewish girl was removed from the Christian school, and years passed.

  In a humble, middle-class house in one of Jutland’s smallest towns there was a poor maid of the Jewish community. It was Sara. Her hair was as black as ebony, her eyes as dark and yet full of brilliance and light as a daughter of the Orient. The expression of the fully grown girl was still the same as in the child when she sat on the school bench and listened with her thoughtful gaze.

  Every Sunday the organ music and songs of the congregation could be heard through the street and into the house opposite where the Jewish maid was doing her work, diligent and dutiful in her vocation. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy ” was her law, but the Sabbath for her was a Christian workday, and she could only keep it holy in her heart, which she didn’t believe was enough. But what are the days and hours to God? That thought had awakened in her soul, and on the Christian Sunday the hour of devotion was less disturbed. When the sound of the organ and the hymns reached her in the kitchen by the sink, then even this place became holy and still. She read the Old Testament then, her people’s treasure and property, but only this because what her father had told her and the teacher when she was taken out of the school was ingrained in her mind—the promise that was given her dying mother that Sara should not become Christian, not abandon the faith of her fathers. The New Testament was and would remain a closed book for her, and yet she knew so much about it. It shone in her childhood memories.

  One evening she sat in a corner of the living room, listening to her master reading aloud, and she felt she could listen to that since it was not the gospels. He was reading from an old history book. She could surely listen to that. It was about a Hungarian knight who was captured by a Turkish Pasha, who had him tied with the oxen to the plow. He was whipped and suffered from unending mockery and thirst.

  The knight’s wife sold all her jewelry and mortgaged the castle and land. His friends gathered together the large sums, unbelievably large amounts, that were demanded for ransom, but they did it, and he was released from slavery and disgrace. Sick and suffering he arrived home. But soon there was a general call-to-arms against the enemies of Christianity. The sick man heard about it and could not rest until he was lifted onto his war horse again. The color came back to his cheeks, and he rode away to victory. The very Pasha who had hitched him to the plow, mocked and tormented him, became his captive and was brought home to his castle dungeon. But in the very first hour the knight came and asked his captive:

  “What do you think will happen to you?”

  “I know what will happen!” said the Turk. “Reprisal!”

  “Yes, Christian reprisal,” said the knight. “Christianity commands us to forgive our enemies and love our neighbors. God is love! Go in peace to your home and loved ones. Become gentle and good towards those who are suffering.”

  Then the prisoner burst into tears. “How could I have imagined that this would be possible? Since I was certain of pain and torture, I took a poison that will kill me within a few hours. I must die; there’s no antidote. But before I die, preach to me the teachings that hold such love and mercy, for it is great and divine! Let me die in that faith, die as a Christian!” and his prayer was answered.

  That was the legend; the story that was read. Everyone listened to it and followed along attentively, but none more intensely than she who was sitting in the corner, the servant girl Sara, the Jewish maid. It came alive for her. Large, heavy tears filled the shining, coal-black eyes. She sat there in her childhood innocence, as she had once sat on the school bench and felt the greatness of the Gospels. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Don’t let my child become a Christian!” were her mother’s last words on her deathbed. They rang through her soul and heart along with the words of the commandment: “Honor thy Father and thy Mother.”

  “I am not a Christian! They call me the Jewish maid. The neighborhood boys called me that with derision last Sunday when I was standing outside the open church door looking at the altar candles that were burning, and the congregation was singing. From my school days I have felt a power in Christianity that is like sunshine, and even if I shut my eyes against its light, it still shines right into my heart. But, mother, I will not grieve you in your grave! I will not betray the promise that father gave you! I will not read the Christian Bible. I have the God of my fathers to lean on!”

  —And years passed.

  The master died, and the mistress was in poor circumstances. She would have to do without the maid, but Sara didn’t leave. She was a friend in need and held everything together. She worked until late at night and supported them with the work of her hands. There were no close relatives to take care of the family, and every day the mistress became weaker and was sick in bed for months. Sara watched over her, nursed her, and worked, gentle and good, a blessing in the poverty-stricken house.

  “The Bible is lying over there!” said the sick woman. “Read a little for me. It’s a long evening, and I so deeply need to hear the word of God.”

  And Sara bowed her head. Her hands folded around the Bible, which she opened and read for the sick woman. She was often in tears, but her eyes became clearer, and clarity filled her soul: “Mother, your child will not take a Christian Baptism, not be counted within their society. You have demanded that, and I will keep that promise. We are united in that here on this earth, but beyond this world—there is a greater unity in God. ‘He will be our guide forever!’ ‘Thou visitest the earth and waterest it.’ I understand it! I don’t know myself where it comes from—It is from Him, in Him: Christ!”

  She trembled when she spoke His holy name and a baptism of fire shot through her body that was stronger than it could bear. She fell forward, weaker than the sick woman she kept watch over.

  “Poor Sara!” they said. “She overexerted herself with work and care-giving.”

  She
was taken to the infirmary for the poor, where she died. From there she was buried but not in the Christian cemetery. That was not the place for the Jewish maid. No, she was buried outside, up against the churchyard wall.

  And God’s sunshine, that shone over all the Christian graves, also shone over the Jewish maid’s grave outside the wall, and the sound of hymns that were heard in the Christian cemetery reached her grave as well. The preaching reached there too: “There is resurrection in Christ!” He who said to his disciples, “John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit!”

  THE STORY OLD JOHANNA TOLD

  THE WIND’S SIGHING THROUGH the old willow branches.

  It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poor house. She knows it. She was born here in the district.

  Years ago, when the King’s highway still passed by here, the tree was already big and conspicuous. It stood where it still stands, out from the tailor’s white-washed half-timbered house right near the pond, which at that time was so big that the cattle were watered there, and where in the warm summer time, the farmers’ small children ran around naked and splashed in the water. Right up under the tree a milestone of carved stone had been raised, but now it has fallen over, and brambles grow over it.

  The new King’s highway was laid right beside the rich farmer’s land, and the old road became a track. The pond became a puddle, overgrown with duckweed. If a frog jumped in, the green separated, and you saw the black water. Cattails, bog beans, and yellow iris grew round about, and grow there still.