H.C. Andersen’s Winter Tale (1): A Mirror and its Shards
As much as you might think that I loathe Hans Christian Andersen (especially those of you who have read my Little Mermaid lengthy piece), there’s one tale that I absolutely adore and it’s The Snow Queen. It’s his longest tale and was originally published on December, 21st 1844. The story is divided into 7 parts: […]
As much as you might think that I loathe Hans Christian Andersen (especially those of you who have read my Little Mermaid lengthy piece), there’s one tale that I absolutely adore and it’s The Snow Queen. It’s his longest tale and was originally published on December, 21st 1844.
The story is divided into 7 parts:
- About the Mirror and Its Pieces;
- A Little Boy and a Little Girl;
- The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Knew Magic;
- The Prince and the Princess
- The Little Robber Girl
- The Lapp Woman and the Finn Woman
- What Happened at the Snow Queen’s Palace and What Happened Afterwards
It’s one of the most beautiful tales or, at least, it’ one of my favourite, and it starts with the devil making a mirror…
…that could shrink the image of whatever was good and beautiful down to almost nothing, while anything worthless and ugly was magnified and would look even worse.
He basically invented television. And, as you can imagine, it was a great success.
This is an illustration of the guy himself, by Edmund Dulac.
The Devil, which Andersen calls invarianly “troll”, is running a school for devils (or other trolls) and the students are delighted with his invention, taking it from place to place and creating all sort of mischief.
This is a wonderful illustration by Harry Clarke, who depcts the troll school in the fashion of a European court.
At a certain point however the students try and take the mirror to Heaven, to make fun of God and his Angels, but they fly too high, the mirror slips and is shattered into a shitload of pieces. The shards are smaller than grains of sand and whoever comes in contact with them, particularly if the grain slips into one’ eye, is bound to see the bad in everyone. And when a splinter slips into someone’s blood, reaching their heart, their heart is turned to ice.
Above, one of the most awesome illustrations ever, by that genius who was Kay Nielsen. As you know, I have a soft spot for him.
It’s also a theme picked by Dugald Stewart Walker for his illustration of the front piece of the 1914 edition of the tales.
Sometimes bigger shards were found and were used as windowpanes, but you can imagine the effect of such a window: everything on the outside of a house would look ugly to those on the inside and people on the inside would look hideous to those on the outside. A bit of social satire from Andersen.
Tomorrow we’ll see how any of that is relevant to our story. For now, let us take a moment and breath in some of the key elements of the setting for the story: a magic mirror, a fall of hybris from the sky, the devil.