The Story of the Wind Page #4

"The Story of the Wind" is not a standalone book by Hans Christian Andersen, but a part of various stories he wrote. As one of his lesser-known fairy tales, it presents an engaging narrative through the perspective of the Wind. It explores its existence and interactions, as it travels across different places and times, touching upon both the natural world and human affairs. Like many of Andersen's stories, it's a blend of fantasy, morality, and the bittersweet realities of life. However, further details might vary as multiple versions of storytelling exist based on the same narrative.

• Children

								


"'O-h, o-h,' she sighed; for people can sigh like the moaning of
the wind among the reeds and rushes. 'O-h, o-h,' she would say, 'no
bell sounded at thy burial, Waldemar Daa. The poor school-boys did not
even sing a psalm when the former lord of Borreby was laid in the
earth to rest. O-h, everything has an end, even misery. Sister Ida
became the wife of a peasant; that was the hardest trial which
befell our father, that the husband of his own daughter should be a
miserable serf, whom his owner could place for punishment on the
wooden horse. I suppose he is under the ground now; and Ida--alas!
alas! it is not ended yet; miserable that I am! Kind Heaven, grant
me that I may die.'

"That was Anna Dorothea's prayer in the wretched hut that was left
standing for the sake of the stork. I took pity on the proudest of the
sisters," said the Wind. "Her courage was like that of a man; and in
man's clothes she served as a sailor on board ship. She was of few
words, and of a dark countenance; but she did not know how to climb,
so I blew her overboard before any one found out that she was a woman;
and, in my opinion, that was well done," said the Wind.

On such another Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa
imagined he had discovered the art of making gold, I heard the tones
of a psalm under the stork's nest, and within the crumbling walls.
It was Anna Dorothea's last song. There was no window in the hut, only
a hole in the wall; and the sun rose like a globe of burnished gold,
and looked through. With what splendor he filled that dismal dwelling!
Her eyes were glazing, and her heart breaking; but so it would have
been, even had the sun not shone that morning on Anna Dorothea. The
stork's nest had secured her a home till her death. I sung over her
grave; I sung at her father's grave. I know where it lies, and where
her grave is too, but nobody else knows it.

"New times now; all is changed. The old high-road is lost amid
cultivated fields; the new one now winds along over covered graves;
and soon the railway will come, with its train of carriages, and
rush over graves where lie those whose very names are forgoten. All
passed away, passed away!

"This is the story of Waldemar Daa and his daughters. Tell it
better, any of you, if you know how," said the Wind; and he rushed
away, and was gone.
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