| "The Snow Queen" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Hans Christian Andersen | |
 "The Snow Queen" illustration by Rudolf Koivu | |
 Text available at Wikisource | |
| Country | Denmark |
| Language | Danish |
| Genre(s) | Fairy tale |
| Publication | |
| Published in | New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Second Collection (Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samling)[1] |
| Publication type | Fairy tale collection |
| Publication date | 21 December 1844[1] |
| External videos | |
|---|---|
| Snezhnaya Koroleva [The Snow Queen] [USSR] [1957] on You Channel - English Subtittles | |
 The Snow Queen (Russian: Снежная королева, Snezhnaya koroleva) is a 1957 Soviet animated film directed by Lev Atamanov. It was produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow and is based on the story of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. on YouTube |
"The Snow Queen" (Danish: Snedronningen) is an 1844 original fairy tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It was first published 21 December 1844 in New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Second Collection (Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samling).[1] The story centers on the struggle between good and evil as experienced by Gerda and her friend, Kai. Unlike Andersen's other stories, The Snow Queen is written in a novel-styled narrative, being divided into seven chapters.
The story is one of Andersen's longest and most highly acclaimed stories. It is regularly included in selected tales and collections of his work and is frequently reprinted in illustrated storybook editions for children.
The devil, in the form of a troll,[2] has made a magic mirror that distorts the appearance of everything that it reflects. The mirror reflects no good and beautiful aspects of people and things, and magnifies their bad and ugly aspects. The troll's minions take the mirror all over the world to distort everything, then carry it up to heaven to mock God and the angels. As they approach heaven, the mirror trembles and falls, shattering into billions of pieces. Some become windowpanes, some spectacles, and some get stuck in people's hearts and eyes, giving them a cold and bitter disposition. The troll laughs himself sore at his mischief.
Years later, a little boy Kai (often spelled "Kay" or "Kaj" in translations) and a little girl Gerda live next door to each other in the garrets of buildings with adjoining roofs in a large city. They could get from one's home to the other's just by stepping over the gutters of each building. The two families grow vegetables and roses in window boxes placed on the gutters. Gerda and Kai have a window box garden to play in, and they become devoted to each other as playmates, and as close as if they were siblings.
Gerda's grandmother tells the children about the Snow Queen, who is ruler over the "snow bees"—snowflakes that look like 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 one winter, Kai sees the Snow Queen, who beckons him to come with her. Kai draws back in fear from the window.
By the following spring, Gerda has learned a song that she sings to Kai: Roses flower in the vale; there we hear Child Jesus' tale! Because roses adorn the window box garden, the sight of roses always reminds Gerda of her love for Kai.
On a summer day, splinters of the troll's mirror get into Kai's heart and eye. Kai becomes cruel and aggressive. He destroys their window-box garden, he makes fun of Gerda's grandmother, and he no longer cares about Gerda, since everyone now appears bad and ugly to him. When winter comes again, the only things he finds no fault in are snowflakes, which he studies through a magnifying glass. Kai goes out with his sled to play in the snowy market square and hitches it to a sleigh driven by a mysterious robed figure. The sleigh drives through the town gate, going faster and faster through the countryside, then stops, and the driver reveals herself to be the Snow Queen. She kisses Kai to numb him from the cold, and again to make him forget about Gerda and his family. They then fly together in the sleigh up into the clouds.
The people of the city conclude that Kai died in the nearby river. When spring arrives, Gerda goes to the river and offers it her favorite red shoes if the river will return Kai. The shoes wash back to shore, so she climbs into a nearby boat to throw them out further. The boat is unmoored, drifts away from the shore and becomes caught in the current.
Gerda drifts until she reaches the home of an old woman, who pulls her to shore with her crooked staff. The woman is a sorceress and wants Gerda to stay with her forever, so she causes Gerda to forget Kai, and causes all the roses in her garden to sink beneath the earth, since she knows that the sight of them will remind Gerda of her friend. The woman lets Gerda play in her flower garden day after day, where all of the flowers are in bloom, until one day she notices a rose on the woman's hat. She remembers Kai and begins to cry, and her tears raise one of the rose bushes from the ground. The roses assure her that Kai is not dead, since they could see all of the dead while they were underground. Gerda questions the other flowers; each sings its own song, but none have anything to say about Kai. Gerda flees the garden and discovers that autumn has arrived while she was there.
Gerda meets a crow, who tells her that he might have seen Kai. He explains that a clever princess in the land decided that she should get married as soon as she could find a man good for conversation. For two days men met the princess in hopes of marrying her, but upon meeting her they were tongue-tied. On the third day, a small fellow with shabby clothes walked confidently into the palace and won over the princess by listening to her. Gerda sneaks into the palace with the crow but finds that the prince is not Kai after all. She is offered hospitality in the palace, but instead asks for a horse, carriage and boots so she can continue looking for Kai.
While traveling in the carriage Gerda is captured by robbers. Her life is spared when a little robber girl demands to have Gerda as a playmate. They ride together to the robbers' castle, where the girl's pet doves tell Gerda that they saw Kai when he was carried away by the Snow Queen in the direction of Lapland. The captive reindeer Bae tells her that he knows how to get to Lapland since it is his home.
The robber girl frees Gerda and the reindeer to travel north to the Snow Queen's palace. They make two stops: first at the Lapp woman's home and then at the Finn woman's home. The Finn woman tells the reindeer that the secret of Gerda's unique power to save Kai is in her sweet and innocent child's heart:
"I can give her no greater power than she has already," said the woman; "don't you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kai, we can do nothing to help her..."[3]
When Gerda reaches the Snow Queen's palace, she is halted by the snowflakes guarding it. She prays 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 Kai alone and almost immobile on a frozen lake, which the Snow Queen calls the "Mirror of Reason", on which her throne sits. Kai is engaged in the task that the Snow Queen gave him: he must use pieces of ice like a Chinese puzzle to form characters and words. If he is able to form the word the Snow Queen told him to spell she will release him from her power and give him a pair of skates.
Gerda runs up to Kai and kisses him, and he is saved by the power of her love: Gerda weeps warm tears on him, melting his heart and burning away the mirror splinter in it. As a result, Kai bursts into tears, which dislodge the splinter from his eye, and becomes cheerful and healthy again. He remembers Gerda, and the two dance around so joyously that the splinters of ice Kai had been playing with are caught up into the dance. When they tire of dancing the splinters fall down to spell "eternity," the very word Kai was trying to spell. Kai and Gerda leave the Snow Queen's domain with the help of the reindeer, the Finn woman, and the Lapp woman. They meet the robber girl, and from there they walk back to their home. Kai and Gerda find that everything at home is the same and that it is they who have changed; they are now grown up, and are also delighted to see that it is summertime.
At the end, the grandmother reads a passage from the Bible:
"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).
Andersen met Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind in 1840 and became infatuated with her, but she was not interested in him romantically (although the two became friends). According to Carole Rosen, Andersen was inspired to model the icy-hearted Snow Queen on Lind after she rejected him as a suitor.[4]
The story has been adapted into numerous stage plays and musicals, notably including:
Literature
Media
