Snow Queen, The
This story, which Hans Christian Andersen published in
1844 and which is retold here by me, follows the lives of
a girl and a boy, Gerda and Kay, and tells how their
happiness was first disrupted by the agency of an evil
magic mirror, and then by Kay's capture by the Snow
Queen. The loyalty of Gerda in her search for Kay is an
example of love and fortitude in the face of great
difficulty and despair:
A
wicked magician constructed a mirror which distorted all
things it reflected, making good evil. This mirror was
carried from place to place, carried so high that it
fragmented into millions of shards, and these fell to
earth, each fragment, no matter how tiny, having the
power to pervert and corrupt. A splinter in the heart,
and the heart became as cold as ice.
Kay
was playing with his friend Gerda when he received in the
eye a splinter of the mirror, and also one in the heart.
His character was utterly changed by this, and he became
harsh and cruel. Then one day when he was playing in the
frozen square, he decided to tie his sledge to the sledge
of a stranger and be pulled along. But the strange sledge
took Kay far out of the town, travelling faster and
faster through the snow.
Finally
the sledge stopped and the driver stood up to reveal
herself as the Snow Queen, wearing a cap and coat
entirely made from snow, and she was tall and slender and
dazzlingly white. She sat him next to her under her
bearskin, and he felt as if he were sinking into a drift
of snow. She kissed him, and her kiss was as cold as ice
and went straight to his heart. He thought he would die,
but soon he lost all feeling of the cold and saw that the
Snow Queen was the most beautiful woman he could ever
imagine.
They
flew into the sky, into a black stormcloud, over woods
and lakes and sea and land; and beneath them the cold
wind whistled, the wolves howled, the snow glittered, and
the black crow flew cawing over the plain, while up above
the moon shone, clear and tranquil.
Gerda
set out in search of Kay, putting on her new red shoes
and going down to the river.
'Is
it true,' she said to the waves of the river, 'that you
have taken Kay away from me? If you will only restore him
to me, I will give you my new red shoes.' She stepped
into a boat and tossed the shoes out into the water, and
the waves received them, and Gerda floated away in the
boat, the shoes floating behind her on the water. But the
boat moved faster than the shoes, and soon the shoes were
left far behind.
Gerda
asked the flowers, the birds, the trees and the winds if
they had seen Kay, and some thought they had, and some
led her in false directions. She came to the palace of a
prince and princess, who were kind to her, and fed her
and dressed her in fine clothes of silk and velvet and
sent her out on her search in a golden carriage. But
robbers saw the gleaming carriage and they seized the
horses, stabbed the coachman and the footmen to death,
and dragged Gerda from the carriage.
The
robber-woman was about to stab Gerda also, when her
daughter jumped on her mother's back and bit her on the
ear, saying she wished to have Gerda as a playmate. The
robber-maiden drove Gerda in the golden carriage to the
robbers' half-ruined castle where they had supper of soup
from a cauldron and hare from a spit. They slept in the
maiden's bed, surrounded by a hundred woodpigeons and a
reindeer. The robber-maiden kept a dagger by her side.
Gerda talked to the woodpigeons, asking them for news of
Kay, but the robber-maiden said if she would not be quiet
she would feel the dagger in her heart.
Kay,
said the woodpigeons, could be found in Lapland, and so
the robber-maiden, who could be kind as well as cruel,
gave Gerda her reindeer for transport, gave her some
food, and sent her on her way to follow the red and blue
of the Northern Lights. The Wise-woman at Finmark
whispered to the reindeer that Kay was with the Snow
Queen, and that the only power that could save him from
her spell was the power of Gerda's innocent love.
Gerda
lost her boots and her gloves, and the reindeer brought
her finally to the gate of the Snow Queen's palace, where
she would find Kay, and the reindeer returned to the bush
of red berries where he would wait for Gerda.
The
walls of the palace were formed of the driven snow; there
were over a hundred halls, the largest of them many miles
wide, all illuminated by the Northern Lights; all vast,
empty, icily cold and dazzlingly white. No sounds of
mirth ever resounded through these dreary spaces. In the
midst of the empty, interminable snow-saloon lay a frozen
lake, and when the Snow Queen was at home she sat in the
centre of this lake. Kay played among the sharp fragments
of ice, putting together a puzzle, trying to form the
word Eternity from pieces of ice. For the Snow Queen had
promised him that if he could form the word Eternity from
slivers of ice, she would give him the whole world, and a
new pair of skates as well. But he could not do it.
The
Snow Queen had left her palace to visit other countries,
and Kay was alone playing with his Eternity puzzle. Gerda
entered the hall, saw Kay and ran to him and flung her
arms around him. He sat cold and motionless, while Gerda
wept hot tears which fell on his face and then upon his
heart. He wept, and the splinter of evil glass floated
from his eye and fell with his tears. And they laughed,
and suddenly they were able to form the letters of
Eternity with the sharp fragments of ice.
And
they ran through the ice palace and out into the snow,
and ran until they found the reindeer who took them back
to the Wise-woman. Then, travelling now with Kay, Gerda
retraced her journey and came finally to the town where
they had lived, and where they would live in joy and
happiness forever after.
(Something
that has always worried me about this story is whatever
happened when the Snow Queen came back home to her palace
and found that Kay had not only solved the puzzle of
Eternity, but had cleared out with Gerda? She stands
there in the cold, staring at the word Eternity written
in ice, and then what? Weird.)
Copyright © Carmel Bird 1998. All rights reserved.