A Story From the Sand-Hills Page #3

"A Story From the Sand-Hills" by Hans Christian Andersen is a classic tale of love and resilience. Taking place in the hill-y dunes of Jutland in Denmark, it follows the life of a poor fisherman's family. The main focus is on two significant characters, Kjeld and Annelise, and their life filled with hardships, togetherness, separation and transformation. The story also interweaves a range of themes such as love, faith, mortality and the indomitable human spirit, packaged in Andersen's captivating narrative style. It's a revealing exploration and personal perspective on the lifestyles and values of the Danes.

• Children

								

that was to have rested upon a magnificent couch, draped with silken
curtains, in a luxurious home; it was to have been welcomed with joy
to a life rich in all the good things of this world; and now Heaven
had ordained that it should be born in this humble retreat, that it
should not even receive a kiss from its mother, for when the
fisherman's wife laid the child upon the mother's bosom, it rested
on a heart that beat no more--she was dead.

The child that was to have been reared amid wealth and luxury
was cast into the world, washed by the sea among the sand-hills to
share the fate and hardships of the poor.

Here we are reminded again of the song about "The King of
England's Son," for in it mention is made of the custom prevalent at
the time, when knights and squires plundered those who had been
saved from shipwreck. The ship had stranded some distance south of
Nissum Bay, and the cruel, inhuman days, when, as we have just said,
the inhabitants of Jutland treated the shipwrecked people so crudely
were past, long ago. Affectionate sympathy and self-sacrifice for
the unfortunate existed then, just as it does in our own time in
many a bright example. The dying mother and the unfortunate child
would have found kindness and help wherever they had been cast by
the winds, but nowhere would it have been more sincere than in the
cottage of the poor fisherman's wife, who had stood, only the day
before, beside her child's grave, who would have been five years old
that day if God had spared it to her.

No one knew who the dead stranger was, they could not even form
a conjecture; the fragments of wreckage gave no clue to the matter.

No tidings reached Spain of the fate of the daughter and
son-in-law. They did not arrive at their destination, and violent
storms had raged during the past weeks. At last the verdict was given:
"Foundered at sea--all lost." But in the fisherman's cottage among the
sand-hills near Hunsby, there lived a little scion of the rich Spanish
family.

Where Heaven sends food for two, a third can manage to find a
meal, and in the depth of the sea there is many a dish of fish for the
hungry.

They called the boy Jurgen.

"It must certainly be a Jewish child, its skin is so dark," the
people said.

"It might be an Italian or a Spaniard," remarked the clergyman.

But to the fisherman's wife these nations seemed all the same, and
she consoled herself with the thought that the child was baptized as a
Christian.

The boy throve; the noble blood in his veins was warm, and he
became strong on his homely fare. He grew apace in the humble cottage,
and the Danish dialect spoken by the West Jutes became his language.
The pomegranate seed from Spain became a hardy plant on the coast of
West Jutland. Thus may circumstances alter the course of a man's life!
To this home he clung with deep-rooted affection; he was to experience
cold and hunger, and the misfortunes and hardships that surround the
poor; but he also tasted of their joys.

Childhood has bright days for every one, and the memory of them
shines through the whole after-life. The boy had many sources of
pleasure and enjoyment; the coast for miles and miles was full of
playthings, for it was a mosaic of pebbles, some red as coral or
yellow as amber, and others again white and rounded like birds' eggs
and smoothed and prepared by the sea. Even the bleached fishes'
skeletons, the water plants dried by the wind, and seaweed, white
and shining long linen-like bands waving between the stones--all these
seemed made to give pleasure and occupation for the boy's thoughts,
and he had an intelligent mind; many great talents lay dormant in him.
How readily he remembered stories and songs that he heard, and how
dexterous he was with his fingers! With stones and mussel-shells he
could put together pictures and ships with which one could decorate
the room; and he could make wonderful things from a stick, his
foster-mother said, although he was still so young and little. He
had a sweet voice, and every melody seemed to flow naturally from
his lips. And in his heart were hidden chords, which might have
sounded far out into the world if he had been placed anywhere else
than in the fisherman's hut by the North Sea.

One day another ship was wrecked on the coast, and among other
things a chest filled with valuable flower bulbs was washed ashore.
Some were put into saucepans and cooked, for they were thought to be
fit to eat, and others lay and shrivelled in the sand--they did not
accomplish their purpose, or unfold their magnificent colours. Would
Jurgen fare better? The flower bulbs had soon played their part, but
he had years of apprenticeship before him. Neither he nor his
friends noticed in what a monotonous, uniform way one day followed
another, for there was always plenty to do and see. The ocean itself
was a great lesson-book, and it unfolded a new leaf each day of calm
or storm--the crested wave or the smooth surface.

The visits to the church were festive occasions, but among the
fisherman's house one was especially looked forward to; this was, in
fact, the visit of the brother of Jurgen's foster-mother, the
eel-breeder from Fjaltring, near Bovbjerg. He came twice a year in a
cart, painted red with blue and white tulips upon it, and full of
eels; it was covered and locked like a box, two dun oxen drew it,
and Jurgen was allowed to guide them.

The eel-breeder was a witty fellow, a merry guest, and brought a
measure of brandy with him. They all received a small glassful or a
cupful if there were not enough glasses; even Jurgen had about a
thimbleful, that he might digest the fat eel, as the eel-breeder said;
he always told one story over and over again, and if his hearers
laughed he would immediately repeat it to them. Jurgen while still a
boy, and also when he was older, used phrases from the eel-breeder's
story on various occasions, so it will be as well for us to listen
to it. It runs thus:

"The eels went into the bay, and the young ones begged leave to go
a little farther out. 'Don't go too far,' said their mother; 'the ugly
eel-spearer might come and snap you all up.' But they went too far,
and of eight daughters only three came back to the mother, and these
wept and said, 'We only went a little way out, and the ugly
eel-spearer came immediately and stabbed five of our sisters to
death.' 'They'll come back again,' said the mother eel. 'Oh, no,'
exclaimed the daughters, 'for he skinned them, cut them in two, and
fried them.' 'Oh, they'll come back again,' the mother eel
persisted. 'No,' replied the daughters, 'for he ate them up.' 'They'll
come back again,' repeated the mother eel. 'But he drank brandy
after them,' said the daughters. 'Ah, then they'll never come back,'
said the mother, and she burst out crying, 'it's the brandy that
buries the eels.'"

"And therefore," said the eel-breeder in conclusion, "it is always
the proper thing to drink brandy after eating eels."

This story was the tinsel thread, the most humorous recollection
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