Fairy Tales

THE SNOWDROP1

IT WAS WINTERTIME. THE air was cold with a cutting wind, but inside it was cozy and warm. The flower lay inside. It lay in its bulb under earth and snow.

One day it rained. The raindrops sank down through the snow cover into the earth, touched the flower bulb, and told it about the world of light up above. Soon a delicate sunbeam bored its way through the snow, down to the bulb, and pricked at it.

“Come in!” said the flower.

“I can’t!” said the sunbeam. “I’m not strong enough yet to open your door, but I will be in summer.”

“When will summer come?” the flower asked and repeated it every time a new sun beam penetrated the earth. But it was a long time until summer. Snow was still lying on the ground, and the water froze on the ponds every single night.

“Oh, how long it’s lasting, how long!” said the flower. “I feel crawling and creeping in me. I have to stretch, and I must stretch out. I have to open up and get out, and nod good morning to the summer! It will be a blissful time!”

And the flower stretched and stretched within the thin water-softened skin that the snow and earth had warmed, and the sunbeams had pricked against. It shot forth under the snow, with a light green bud on its green stalk and narrow thick leaves that seemed to want to protect it. The snow was cold, but shot through with light, and therefore easy to break through, and then came the sunbeams with greater strength than before.

“Welcome! Welcome!” each sunbeam sang and rang, and the flower rose over the snow into the world of light. The sunbeams caressed and kissed it so that it opened completely. It was white as the snow and adorned with green streaks. It bowed its head in joy and humility.

“Lovely flower!” the sunbeams sang. “How fresh and pure you are! You’re the first, you’re the only! You’re our love! You ring in summer across the land and towns. All the snow will melt! The cold winds are chased away! We will rule! Everything will turn green. Then you’ll have company—the lilacs, laburnum, and finally, roses. But you’re the first, so delicate and pure!”

It was a great pleasure. The flower felt as if the air sang to it, and the rays of light pierced into its leaves and stalk. It stood there so delicate and easy to break, and yet so vigorous with young beauty. With its white tunic and green ribbons it praised summer. But summer was still far away. Clouds hid the sun, and sharp winds blew the flower.

“You’ve come a little too early,” said the wind and weather. “We still have the power! You’ll feel it and put up with it. You should have stayed inside and not run out in your finery. It’s not time yet.”

It was biting cold. The following days didn’t bring a single sunbeam! It was the kind of weather such a little flower could freeze to death in. But it had more strength than it realized. It was strong in the joy and belief of the summer that had to come, the summer that was proclaimed with deep longing, and that was confirmed by the warm sunshine. So it stood with confidence in its white outfit in the white snow, bending its head when the snowflakes fell thick and heavily, and the icy winds blew over it.

“You’re going to break!” they said. “Wither and freeze. Why did you come out? Why did you let yourself be lured? The sun has fooled you! It serves you right, you little snowdrop, summer fool!”

“Summer fool!” repeated the snowdrop in the cold morning hours.

“Summer fool!” shouted some children, who came into the garden. “There’s one—so lovely and beautiful—the first and only one!”

These words did the flower a lot of good for they were words as warm as the sunbeams. In its joy, the flower didn’t even notice that it was being picked. It lay in a child’s hand and was kissed by a child’s mouth. It was brought into the warm living room, looked at with gentle eyes, and put in water, strengthening and reviving. The flower thought that all at once it was summer.

There was a daughter in the house, a lovely young girl. She had just been confirmed, and she had a dear friend who was also confirmed. He was studying for his livelihood. “He shall be my summer fool,” she said. She took the delicate flower and laid it in a piece of scented paper on which there were verses written. The verses started with summer fool and ended with summer fool, then “dear friend, be a winter fool!” She had teased him with summer. It was all in the poem, and it was sent as a letter. The flower was enclosed, and it was dark all around, as dark as when it lay inside the bulb. The flower went traveling, lay in a postbag, and was pressed and squeezed. It wasn’t at all comfortable, but this too came to an end.

The trip was over. The letter was opened and read by the dear friend. He was very pleased. He kissed the flower, and along with the verses around it, it was put into a drawer where there were other lovely letters, but none with flowers. It was the first and the only, as the sunbeams had called it, and that was delightful to think about.

And the flower had a long time to think about it. It thought while summer passed, and the long winter, and when it was summer again, the flower was brought out. But now the young man was not at all happy. He grasped the papers roughly and threw the verses aside so that the flower fell on the floor. It had become flat and withered, but that was no reason to throw it on the floor! But still it was better than being in the fire, where the verses and letters were burning up. What had happened? What happens so often. The flower had fooled him—it was a joke. The girl had fooled him—that was no joke. She had chosen another friend in midsummer.

In the morning the sun shone on the little flat pressed snowdrop, which looked as if it was painted on the floor. The maid was sweeping and picked it up and laid it in one of the books on the table because she thought it had fallen out as she was putting the room in order. And once again the snowdrop was lying amidst verses, but these were printed ones. They are more distinguished than written ones, or at least more is spent on them.

Years passed, and the book stood on the shelf. Then one day it was taken out, opened and read. It was a good book—the poems and songs of the Danish poet Ambrosius Stub,² well worth knowing. And the man who was reading the book turned the page. “Why here’s a flower!” he said. “A snowdrop, a summer fool! It surely means something that it’s placed here. Poor Ambrosius Stub. He was a summer fool too, a poet fool! He was ahead of his time too, and because of that he felt sleet and sharp winds, lived by turns in the manor homes of Funen,³ like a flower in a vase, flower in a rhymed letter! Summer fool, winter fool, jokes and pranks; and yet the first and only, still the fresh youthful Danish poet! Yes, be a bookmark in this book, little snowdrop. You were placed there for a reason.”

And the snowdrop was placed in the book again, and felt both honored and pleased to know that it was a bookmark in that lovely songbook, and that he who first had sung and written about the snowdrop was a summer fool too and had been made a fool of in the winter. The flower understood it in his fashion, as we understand things in ours.

And that’s the tale about the snowdrop!

NOTES

1 This story is often called untranslatable because its point and premise rest on the meaning in Danish of the flower name sommergjæk. The archaic verb gjekke means to hoax or tease. The sommergjcek, therefore, teases about the hope of summer because it blooms in the winter. There is also a Danish custom of sending the first snowdrop enclosed in an unsigned letter.

2 Danish poet (1705-1758).

3 Funen is the third-largest island of Denmark; its major city is Odense.