.
Life isn’t a fairy tale,
though it may end happily―
even happily ever after.
.
Life is real,
and may end in despair―
even despair forever.
.
The Savior isn’t a fairy tale character,
But the King who rules over us―,
over happiness or despair,
.
The King is
Himself Reality―
The Way, the Truth, and the Life!
.
He draws us to
humble prayer for our good―
for our wholeness and holiness.
.
.
From THE SNOW QUEEN
Story the first, Which describes a looking-glass and the broken fragments.
By Hans Christian Andersen
“You must attend to the commencement of this story, for when we get to the end we shall know more than we do now about a very wicked hobgoblin; he was one of the very worst, for he was a real demon. One day, when he was in a merry mood, he made a looking-glass which had the power of making everything good or beautiful that was reflected in it almost shrink to nothing, while everything that was worthless and bad looked increased in size and worse than ever. The most lovely landscapes appeared like boiled spinach, and the people became hideous, and looked as if they stood on their heads and had no bodies. Their countenances were so distorted that no one could recognize them, and even one freckle on the face appeared to spread over the whole of the nose and mouth. The demon said this was very amusing. When a good or pious thought passed through the mind of any one it was misrepresented in the glass; and then how the demon laughed at his cunning invention. All who went to the demon’s school—for he kept a school—talked everywhere of the wonders they had seen, and declared that people could now, for the first time, see what the world and mankind were really like. They carried the glass about everywhere, till at last there was not a land nor a people who had not been looked at through this distorted mirror. They wanted even to fly with it up to heaven to see the angels, but the higher they flew the more slippery the glass became, and they could scarcely hold it, till at last it slipped from their hands, fell to the earth, and was broken into millions of pieces. But now the looking-glass caused more unhappiness than ever, for some of the fragments were not so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about the world into every country. When one of these tiny atoms flew into a person’s eye, it stuck there unknown to him, and from that moment he saw everything through a distorted medium, or could see only the worst side of what he looked at, for even the smallest fragment retained the same power which had belonged to the whole mirror. Some few persons even got a fragment of the looking-glass in their hearts, and this was very terrible, for their hearts became cold like a lump of ice. A few of the pieces were so large that they could be used as window-panes; it would have been a sad thing to look at our friends through them. Other pieces were made into spectacles; this was dreadful for those who wore them, for they could see nothing either rightly or justly. At all this the wicked demon laughed till his sides shook—it tickled him so to see the mischief he had done. There were still a number of these little fragments of glass floating about in the air, and now you shall hear what happened with one of them.”
**********
About Hans Christian Andersen:
This gentle, religious, moral, and at times confused soul, filled his tales and all he wrote with insight, in this case not only incredible but dreadful. To learn more about his life and works, visit:
The Hans Christian Andersen Centre
Please give one or two with the reasons for your choices. Here are some to get you thinking:
Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Snow Queen. Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel. The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Beauty and the Beast. The Ugly Duckling, Snow White, Rumplestiltskin. The Frog Prince, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Red Shoes. The Princess and the Pea, The Little Mermaid. . .
My favorite two:
Beauty and the Beast, because of her unselfishness and his transformation.
Cinderella, because of its portraits of both love and justice.
This is my recommendation, for sure. But sometimes the fun must be curtailed.
In my Cinder-girl retelling, I chuckled at the possibility of naming the Chamberlain ‘Monsieur Fanfare’. But this bit of fun would mean I couldn’t use ‘fanfare’ in any other context, and what would this fairy tale be without a royal fanfare or two?
Until I find my pace, a few posts from my previous blog will appear here. This is one, a poem that showcases things we’re looking for when we read fairy tales.
Beyond things and certain kinds of characters, we want an entertaining journey that takes us from curiosity to excitement, from suspense – and sometimes horror – to joy and relief!
In fairy tales we find
things quaint, sweet,
or unexpected.
In fairy tales we find
things profound
or horrible,
wheelbarrows filled with
toads and gems,
lions and hares,
an ogre’s castle,
fog and mist,
starlight, ships’ lanterns,
enchanted isles,
a forest not nicked by an axe,
a magical spyglass, tower,
and rope made from
Rapunzel’s yellow hair.
