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
2 Danish poet (1705-1758).
3 Funen is the third-largest island of Denmark; its major city is Odense.
THE SUNSHINE’S STORIES
“Now I’M GOING TO tell a story,” said the wind.
“No, allow me, it’s my turn,” said the rain. “You’ve stood by the corner long enough and blown off everything you could.”
“Is that the thanks I get,” said the wind, “for turning all those umbrellas inside out, in your honor? Actually breaking them, when people haven’t wanted to have anything to do with you?”
But the sunshine told this:
“A swan flew over the rolling sea. Its every feather shone like gold. One feather fell down on a big merchant ship that was gliding by at full sail. The feather fell into the curly hair of a young man, the supervisor of the wares. They called him ‘Supercargo.’ The feather from the bird of luck touched his forehead and became a pen in his hand. Soon he became a rich merchant who could buy spurs of gold and change gold plates to a noble’s shield. I’ve actually reflected myself in it,” said the sunshine.
“The swan flew further across a green meadow, where a little shepherd, a boy of seven, was lying in the shade of an old tree, the only one there. And in his flight the swan kissed one of the tree’s leaves. It fell into the boy’s hand, and the one leaf turned to three, then ten, and finally became a whole book. In it he read about the wonders of nature, about his mother tongue, and about faith and knowledge. At bedtime he lay the book under his head so that he wouldn’t forget what he had read, and the book led him to school, to the table of knowledge. I have read his name amongst the scholars,” said the sunshine.
“The swan flew into the lonely forest, and rested there on the quiet dark lakes where the water lilies and the wild forest apples grow, and where the cuckoo and wood pigeon live.
“A poor woman was gathering firewood of broken branches, and carried them on her back. She had her little child by her breast and was walking home. She saw the golden swan, the swan of good fortune, lift off from the reed-covered shore. What was that shining there? A golden egg. She held it to her breast, and it was warm. There must have been life in the egg. Yes, there was pecking inside the shell! She felt it and thought it was her own heart beating.
“At home in her poor hovel she took the golden egg out. ‘Tick, tick!’ it said, as if it were an expensive gold watch, but it was an egg with life inside. The egg cracked, and a little swan, with feathers as of purest gold, stuck its head out. It had four rings around its neck, and since the poor woman had four sons, three at home and the fourth that she had carried with her in the forest, she immediately realized that there was a ring for each child. As she grasped that—and them—the little golden bird flew away.
“She kissed each ring and had each child kiss one of the rings, and laid them by the children’s hearts and then on their fingers.
“I saw it!” said the sunshine. “And I saw what happened afterwards.
“One boy sat in the clay pit, took a lump of clay in his hand, turned it with his fingers, and it became a statue of
“The second boy ran out in the meadow where the flowers were blooming in every imaginable color. He picked a handful and squeezed them so tightly that the nectar sprayed into his eyes and wet the ring. His hands and thoughts were itching with it, and some years later they were talking in the big city about the great painter.
“The third boy held the ring so tightly in his mouth that it sang out, an echo from the heart. Thoughts and
