A Story From the Sand-Hills Page #8

"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

								


Weeks, months, a whole year had gone by, when Niels the thief,
called also a horse-dealer, was arrested; and now better times came,
and it was seen that Jurgen had been wrongly accused.

On the afternoon before Jurgen's departure from home, and before
the murder, Niels the thief, had met Martin at a beer-house in the
neighbourhood of Ringkjobing. A few glasses were drank, not enough
to cloud the brain, but enough to loosen Martin's tongue. He began
to boast and to say that he had obtained a house and intended to
marry, and when Niels asked him where he was going to get the money,
he slapped his pocket proudly and said:

"The money is here, where it ought to be."

This boast cost him his life; for when he went home Niels followed
him, and cut his throat, intending to rob the murdered man of the
gold, which did not exist.

All this was circumstantially explained; but it is enough for us
to know that Jurgen was set free. But what compensation did he get for
having been imprisoned a whole year, and shut out from all
communication with his fellow creatures? They told him he was
fortunate in being proved innocent, and that he might go. The
burgomaster gave him two dollars for travelling expenses, and many
citizens offered him provisions and beer--there were still good
people; they were not all hard and pitiless. But the best thing of all
was that the merchant Bronne, of Skjagen, into whose service Jurgen
had proposed entering the year before, was just at that time on
business in the town of Ringkjobing. Bronne heard the whole story;
he was kind-hearted, and understood what Jurgen must have felt and
suffered. Therefore he made up his mind to make it up to the poor lad,
and convince him that there were still kind folks in the world.

So Jurgen went forth from prison as if to paradise, to find
freedom, affection, and trust. He was to travel this path now, for
no goblet of life is all bitterness; no good man would pour out such a
draught for his fellow-man, and how should He do it, Who is love
personified?

"Let everything be buried and forgotten," said Bronne, the
merchant. "Let us draw a thick line through last year: we will even
burn the almanack. In two days we will start for dear, friendly,
peaceful Skjagen. People call it an out-of-the-way corner; but it is a
good warm chimney-corner, and its windows open toward every part of
the world."

What a journey that was: It was like taking fresh breath out of
the cold dungeon air into the warm sunshine. The heather bloomed in
pride and beauty, and the shepherd-boy sat on a barrow and blew his
pipe, which he had carved for himself out of a sheep bone. Fata
Morgana, the beautiful aerial phenomenon of the wilderness, appeared
with hanging gardens and waving forests, and the wonderful cloud
called "Lokeman driving his sheep" also was seen.

Up towards Skjagen they went, through the land of the Wendels,
whence the men with long beards (the Longobardi or Lombards) had
emigrated in the reign of King Snio, when all the children and old
people were to have been killed, till the noble Dame Gambaruk proposed
that the young people should emigrate. Jurgen knew all this, he had
some little knowledge; and although he did not know the land of the
Lombards beyond the lofty Alps, he had an idea that it must be
there, for in his boyhood he had been in the south, in Spain. He
thought of the plenteousness of the southern fruit, of the red
pomegranate flowers, of the humming, buzzing, and toiling in the great
beehive of a city he had seen; but home is the best place after all,
and Jurgen's home was Denmark.

At last they arrived at "Vendilskaga," as Skjagen is called in old
Norwegian and Icelandic writings. At that time Old Skjagen, with the
eastern and western town, extended for miles, with sand hills and
arable land as far as the lighthouse near "Grenen." Then, as now,
the houses were strewn among the wind-raised sand-hills--a
wilderness in which the wind sports with the sand, and where the voice
of the sea-gull and wild swan strikes harshly on the ear.

In the south-west, a mile from "Grenen," lies Old Skjagen;
merchant Bronne dwelt here, and this was also to be Jurgen's home
for the future. The dwelling-house was tarred, and all the small
out-buildings had been put together from pieces of wreck. There was no
fence, for indeed there was nothing to fence in except the long rows
of fishes which were hung upon lines, one above the other, to dry in
the wind. The entire coast was strewn with spoiled herrings, for there
were so many of these fish that a net was scarcely thrown into the sea
before it was filled. They were caught by carloads, and many of them
were either thrown back into the sea or left to lie on the beach.

The old man's wife and daughter and his servants also came to meet
him with great rejoicing. There was a great squeezing of hands, and
talking and questioning. And the daughter, what a sweet face and
bright eyes she had!

The inside of the house was comfortable and roomy. Fritters,
that a king would have looked upon as a dainty dish, were placed on
the table, and there was wine from the Skjagen vineyard--that is,
the sea; for there the grapes come ashore ready pressed and prepared
in barrels and in bottles.

When the mother and daughter heard who Jurgen was, and how
innocently he had suffered, they looked at him in a still more
friendly way; and pretty Clara's eyes had a look of especial
interest as she listened to his story. Jurgen found a happy home in
Old Skjagen. It did his heart good, for it had been sorely tried. He
had drunk the bitter goblet of love which softens or hardens the
heart, according to circumstances. Jurgen's heart was still soft--it
was young, and therefore it was a good thing that Miss Clara was going
in three weeks' time to Christiansand in Norway, in her father's ship,
to visit an aunt and to stay there the whole winter.

On the Sunday before she went away they all went to church, to the
Holy Communion. The church was large and handsome, and had been
built centuries before by Scotchmen and Dutchmen; it stood some little
way out of the town. It was rather ruinous certainly, and the road
to it was heavy, through deep sand, but the people gladly surmounted
these difficulties to get to the house of God, to sing psalms and to
hear the sermon. The sand had heaped itself up round the walls of
the church, but the graves were kept free from it.

It was the largest church north of the Limfjorden. The Virgin
Mary, with a golden crown on her head and the child Jesus in her arms,
stood lifelike on the altar; the holy Apostles had been carved in
the choir, and on the walls there were portraits of the old
burgomasters and councillors of Skjagen; the pulpit was of carved
work. The sun shone brightly into the church, and its radiance fell on
the polished brass chandelier and on the little ship that hung from
the vaulted roof.

Jurgen felt overcome by a holy, childlike feeling, like that which
possessed him, when, as a boy, he stood in the splendid Spanish
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