Where the Fairy Tales Began

The Postcard #7 With love from Odense

To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.
—Hans Christian Andersen: The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography

This timber-framed house was Andersen’s childhood home. It is now a museum.

Dear friend,

I am in Odense for a few days to teach an intensive class on Alfred Hitchcock, so - even though I already sent you a Postcard this month - I thought I would send you an extra one.

It is such a pleasure to be here in Denmark’s fourth largest town. And it is a luxury to have a bit of time to slow down and breath after an incredibly busy month. I am spending time in my lovely hotel room writing this Postcard, preparing myself for the big performance, and enjoying walking through this old town in the footsteps of Hans Christian Andersen, one of the greatest story tellers of all time.

Andersen was born here in 1805 in a small, humble childhood home near the centre of town. His early life was marked by poverty, but also by imagination. Andersen later described his childhood as rich in dreams even when life itself was sparse. He left Odense for Copenhagen at the age of fourteen, and from his modest beginnings he grew into the author whose fairy tales reshaped world literature. When he died in 1875, he was celebrated all across Europe.

Up until Andersen, fairy tales belonged mostly to folk tradition. They were told and retold, typically shaped by communities rather than individuals. But Andersen transformed the fairy tale into a literary artform, and the tales themselves into works of art for all mankind.

He wrote with an individual voice, a sense of style, and an emotional depth that gave his stories literary life. They were no longer simply folk tales. They were literature.

The Ugly Duckling is often said to reflect his own experience of feeling out of place, misunderstood, ugly, and unwelcome. But the truth is that that tale speaks to all of us, to the human condition, to our deep longing to belong, and to find the courage it takes to grow into oneself. It is one of the greatest stories ever of comfort and encouragement for children and grownups alike.

My own personal Andersen favourites are three stories that reveal the depth of his imagination and the archetypal levels of his fairy tales.

The Red Shoes is a very dark tale about a young girl whose desire for a pair of red dancing shoes leads her into obsession and ruin. Andersen’s story is sharp, unsettling, and haunting in its clarity.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger based their breathtaking 1948 film The Red Shoes on Andersen’s story - again pairing the passion of longing for the beauty of art with the extreme cost it can demand - especially for a woman.

The Little Mermaid may be known to many through the Disney film, but note that the original story is far more powerful and tragic. It is about transformation, longing, and the price one has to be for becoming someone new. The cutting open of the mermaid’s tail is a vivid, and violent metaphor for the passage from girlhood into womanhood. This is above all a story about desire, sacrifice, and ache.

The Snow Queen is my favourite of them all since childhood. Two young siblings, Kai and Gerda go through a dramatic journey of innocence, betrayal, magic, and loyalty through their meeting with the mesmerizingly beautiful Snow Queen and her devilish troll-mirror.

Disney originally meant to base Frozen on this story (and in French it is even still called La Reine des neiges), but they ended up not having the heart to make Elsa as cruel and dangerous as the Snow Queen, so they transformed the story into their own work of art.

Walking around Odense today, passing the houses and streets connected to Andersen’s early years, I am reminded of how extraordinary it is that such great art grew out of these very modest beginnings. His stories continue to speak to us because they understand what it means to be human: the longing, the struggle, the agony, the loneliness, the transformation, and the quiet triumphs.

I thought of you, and thought that you might enjoy stepping into the atmosphere and astounding legacy of Hans Christian Andersen with me for a moment.

With love from Odense - wish you were here,
Annette 🕯️🍂 ☕️🖊️ 📜 🤎

This building was the poorhouse and poor school until 1847. The quote is from Andersen’s ode to Odense. It reads “I ran around in wooden clogs and went to pauper’s school.”

This is where I will be teaching my class. Seriously: how beautiful is that?

The Postcard 💌

The Postcard is a cozy, personal note from my favourite corners of the world: cafés or parks or bookshops or benches in London, Copenhagen, Paris, Nice, Dublin or Edinburgh. It will arrive in your inbox every month, even if you are on the free plan.

Over a cup of tea or coffee, I will share with you my adventures in the places I travel to, or things that matter to me at the moment: books I am reading, restaurants I love, thoughts I am having, or the simple joys of life.

I hope The Postcard will give you an insight into my life and work and a moment of inspiration and reflection.