Meeting Hans Christian Andersen

I spent a most enjoyable few days in Copenhagen recently.

Like every tourist I was keen to see the Little Mermaid and that wish was fulfilled when I took a boat trip from the colourful harbour area. 

And like every tourist I was surprised at how small she was – and where she was. Somehow I thought she was in the middle of the sea rather than by the shore – but I suppose that would be too difficult.

The statue of the Little Mermaid* of course is there because she is the creation of one of Denmark’s most famous sons, Hans Christian Anderson.

Before Anderson there were no authors of fairy tales – only collectors of tales from the oral tradition, passed on from generation to generation, from region to region and culture to culture.

So says the Introduction to Best Fairy Tales which I bought while I was in Copenhagen.

(It’s published by Macmillan in London and I suppose I could have waited and bought it for less when I got home but I thought it was a lovely edition and a fitting souvenir of my holiday.)

Andersen was born in rural Denmark in 1805 to a poor family, but his shoemaker father read to him from the Arabian Nights and encouraged his early interest in theatre.

Later, in a way that makes a good tale in itself, Andersen was able to travel, visiting twenty-nine countries and meeting fellow writers and folklorists.

His first volume of stories included The Princess and the Pea and The Tinderbox and astounded Denmark’s literary establishment.

I ‘met’ him in a very touristy shop devoted to him (how bemused people from long ago would be if they saw the trinkets commemorating them) but at least there was no charge for having your photo taken with him.

I saw him again in the grounds of Rosenborg Castle.

This statue wasn’t completed and unveiled until after Andersen’s death. Apparently he objected to earlier versions which had him reading to a group of children, maintaining that his stories were for adults too.

The leafy graveyard in which he is buried was about five minutes walk from where I was staying

His grave is well kept, and on that day pretty with planted pansies, but it occurred to me that it ought to be burnished with gold and studded in diamonds as grateful thanks from the various film corporations and from other authors and illustrators who have taken his stories – The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Red Shoes, The Snow Queen, to name but a few – and made them their own.

* photo courtesy of Rosemary Gemmell