Thursday, December 24, 2015

The Fir Tree and the Snowman

Hans Christian Andersen has some cold weather appropriate fairy tales, but fair warning; they are among his most depressing and pessimistic.
Vintage Postcard

"The Fir Tree" (summary, full text)is a tale about a young tree who can never appreciate the stage of life he is in-he longs to be bigger, and once he is big he wants to be cut down like other trees, and once he is cut down and made into a Christmas tree, his glory lasts for only a night and he is discarded and eventually burned. On the one hand, the importance of being content with your current life situation and appreciating what you do have is something that I need to be reminded of sometimes, but in the tale it comes across as a bit preachy. Scholars say that, although Andersen had already written his share of sad tales, "The Fir Tree" is the first to express the pointlessness of life.

The story, when retold, is sometimes given a more hopeful ending-like following a pine cone from the tree that is thrown into the forest, to perhaps become another tree. It's been made into a children's book and I remember flipping through it once and thinking they made the ending a lot happier but now I don't remember how...


The tale has similarities to a later story of Andersen's, "The Snowman," (summary, full text) in which a snowman falls in love with a stove, and goes the way of all snowmen and melts. The story is thought to express Andersen's frustration in his own love life (which reads like a soap opera...someone should really consider making a tv show out of Andersen's life, you can read a little of the background for "The Snowman" on wikipedia).

This version of "The Snowman" has probably been overshadowed by Raymond Briggs' similarly tragic story, but at least Briggs gives the Snowman a sweet friendship with a little boy, and a magical night's adventure to keep it more bittersweet and less outright tragic. The problem of inevitable melting is solved by Frosty the Snowman, who is made of magical Christmas snow and able to come back every Christmas. Although Frosty began as a song in 1950, he has become a sort of modern folk tale, and he and other characters such as Rudolph have been ingrained into the idea of traditional Christmas lore.

Hopefully this post wasn't too much of a downer-Merry Christmas/happy holidays, dear readers!

Also-for more on Andersen's sadder Christmas tales, check out what Aiyanne Chan wrote about the history of Andersen's "Little Match Girl" over at Fairy Bat Tales!

13 comments:

  1. Nah, Andersen's stories do tend to be depressing. If you haven' read it already, try Terry Pratchett's Hogfather. In that, Death has to take over as the Hogfather(that universe's Santa Claus because someone has been hired to wipe out the real Hogfather and is doing it by making kids nit believe in him. There is a delightful scene in which Death decides that, as the Hogfather, he is entitled to save the Little Match Girl and his servant, Albert, who had told him the whole story, throws snowballs at the angels who have turned up to take her to heaven, to make them go away; the child has been handed over to a couple of police officers to be taken somewhere warm.

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    1. The Little Match Girl is set on New Years Eve, not Christmas (Hogfather conflates the two holidays, though)

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    2. Sounds interesting! Is Hogfather a folkloric character? I don't think I've ever heard of him

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    3. The Discworld, the fictional setting of most of Terry Pratchett'ss work has equivalents of many folkloristic characters, for example the Hogather is the Disworld's version of Santa Claus.

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  2. If you're too depressd by "The Fir Tree", I'd recommened "The Flax"An andersen that's pretty much its complete opposite with a protagonist who wholeheartedly enjoys its life and whose life does not end after beig burned. http://hca.gilead.org.il/flax.html

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    1. Thanks, I wasn't familiar with that story! I'll have to check that out. Andersen's stories can vary in tone and message, and it seems his stories tended to reflect wherever he was in life. We all go through ups and downs too, so it's nice to have a variety of stories with different messages.

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  3. BBC4 recently aired The Fir Tree, it's take on the story from the voice of the tree. Well worth watching if you can on iPlayer.

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    1. I'd no idea that was aired recently! Thanks for posting the tip. Unfortunately, I don't think Kristin will be able to watch it since she's in the US... Maybe it'll be available for download elsewhere?

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    2. Yeah, I pretty much only watch things available on Netflix Instant play or Amazon Prime...I'm not even sure what iPlayer is! Is that part of your iTunes? (Technologically challenged here)

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    3. No worries - I think you'd only know what BBC iPlayer is if you live in the UK! It's simply a website or app that people visit to watch TV shows that have recently been aired by the BBC (I don't know the American equivalent!). It's open & free if you're in the UK, but you won't have licence to play it overseas. I know this having tried playing American shows from American broadcaster websites!

      Thanks for the tip about comment-reply notifications! The Notify me box looks so glaringly obvious now!

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  4. Thanks so much for the shout-out & especially for taking the time to browse my new blog! I really appreciate it & look forward to more discussions with you about folklore in the New Year :D

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    1. You're absolutely welcome! I also look forward to learning more from you!

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