The Snow Queen
is a fairy tale story by Hans Christian Andersen. The tale was first published
in 1845, and centers on the struggle between good and evil as experienced by a
little boy and girl, Kai and Gerda. The tale has been adapted in various media
including animated film and television drama.
The story is
about an evil "troll" "actually the devil himself", makes a
magic mirror that has the power to distort the appearance of things reflected
in it. It fails to reflect all the good and beautiful aspects of people and
things while it magnifies all the bad and ugly aspects so that they look even
worse than they really are. They then want to carry the mirror into heaven with
the idea of making fools of the angels and God, but the higher they lift it,
the more the mirror grins and shakes with delight. It shakes so much that it
slips from their grasp and falls back to earth where it shatters into billions
of pieces — some no larger than a grain of sand.
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| Vilhelm Pedersen illustration. |
Years
later, a little boy, Kay, and a little girl, Gerda, live next door to each
other in the garrets of buildings with adjoining roofs in a large city. Kay and
Gerda have a window-box garden to play in, and they become devoted in love to
each other as playmates. Kay's grandmother tells the children
about the Snow Queen, who is ruler over the snowflakes, that look like bees —
that is why they are called "snow bees." As bees have a queen, so do
the snow bees, and she is seen where the snowflakes cluster the most. Looking
out of his frosted window, Kay, one winter, sees the Snow Queen, who beckons
him to come with her. Kay draws back in fear from the window. By the following
spring, Gerda has learned a song that she sings to Kay: Where the roses deck the flowery
vale, there, infant Jesus thee we hail! Because roses adorn the window box
garden, Gerda is always reminded of her love for Kay by the sight of roses. Then
one day, when Kay’s personality changes becomes cruel and aggressive. He doesn’t
care more about Gerda. The only perfect thing is tiny snowflakes sees with a
magnifying glass.
The
following winter he goes out with his sled to the market square and hitches
it—as was the custom of those playing in the snowy square—to a curious white
sleigh carriage, driven by the Snow Queen, who appears as a woman in a white
fur-coat. She kisses him only twice: once to numb him from the cold, and the
second time to cause him to forget about Gerda and his family. She does not
kiss him a third time as that would kill him. Kay is then taken to the Snow
Queen's palace on Spitsbergen , near the North
Pole where he is contented to live due to the splinters of the troll-mirror in
his heart and eyes. Gerda searched Kay everywhere, but she doesn’t find him
anywhere. Gerda meets the four seasons, and then one day she met with Bae, he
knows how to go to the Lapland . The only thing
that overcomes them is Gerda's praying the Lord's Prayer , which causes her
breath to take the shape of angels, who resist the snowflakes and allow Gerda
to enter the palace.
Gerda
finds Kay alone and almost immobile on the frozen lake, which the Snow Queen
calls the "Mirror of Reason" on which her throne sits. Gerda finds
Kay engaged in the task that the Snow Queen gave him: he must use pieces of ice
as components of a Chinese puzzle to form characters and words. If he is able
to form the word "eternity" (Danish: Evigheden) the Snow Queen will
release him from her power and give him a pair of skates. Gerda finds him, runs
up to him, and weeps warm tears on him, which melt his heart, burning away the
troll-mirror splinter in it. Kay bursts into tears, dislodging the splinter
from his eye. Gerda kisses Kay a few times, and he becomes cheerful and healthy
again, with sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks: he is saved by the power of Gerda's
love. He and Gerda dance around on the lake of ice so joyously that the
splinters of ice Kay has been playing with are caught up into the dance. When
the splinters tire of dancing they fall down to spell the very word Kay was
trying to spell, "eternity." Even if the Snow Queen were to return,
she would be obliged to free Kay. Kay and Gerda then leave the Snow Queen's
domain with the help of the reindeer, the Finn woman, and the Lapp woman. They
meet the robber girl after they have crossed the line of vegetation, and from
there they walk back to their home, "the big city." They find that
all is the same at home, but they have changed! They are now grown up, and they
are delighted to see that it is summertime.
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| Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) |
"Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3),
The Storyteller
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