Volume XI, Issue II
The Snow Queen
By Hans Christian Andersen
The Movie Frozen is loosely based on the classic story here presented.
Ice on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
FIRST STORY. Which Treats of a Mirror and of the Splinters
Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now: but to begin.
Once upon a time there was a wicked sprite, indeed he was the most mischievous of all sprites. One day he was in a very good humor, for he had made a mirror with the power of causing all that was good and beautiful when it was reflected therein, to look poor and mean; but that which was good-for-nothing and looked ugly was shown magnified and increased in ugliness. In this mirror the most beautiful landscapes looked like boiled spinach, and the best persons were turned into frights, or appeared to stand on their heads; their faces were so distorted that they were not to be recognized; and if anyone had a mole, you might be sure that it would be magnified and spread over both nose and mouth.
That's glorious fun!" said the sprite. If a good thought passed through a man's mind, then a grin was seen in the mirror, and the sprite laughed heartily at his clever discovery. All the little sprites who went to his school--for he kept a sprite school--told each other that a miracle had happened; and that now only, as they thought, it would be possible to see how the world really looked. They ran about with the mirror; and at last there was not a land or a person who was not represented distorted in the mirror. So then they thought they would fly up to the sky, and have a joke there. The higher they flew with the mirror, the more terribly it grinned: they could hardly hold it fast. Higher and higher still they flew, nearer and nearer to the stars, when suddenly the mirror shook so terribly with grinning, that it flew out of their hands and fell to the earth, where it was dashed in a hundred million and more pieces. And now it worked much more evil than before; for some of these pieces were hardly so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about in the wide world, and when they got into people's eyes, there they stayed; and then people saw everything perverted, or only had an eye for that which was evil. This happened because the very smallest bit had the same power which the whole mirror had possessed. Some persons even got a splinter in their heart, and then it made one shudder, for their heart became like a lump of ice. Some of the broken pieces were so large that they were used for windowpanes, through which one could not see one's friends. Other pieces were put in spectacles; and that was a sad affair when people put on their glasses to see well and rightly. Then the wicked sprite laughed till he almost choked, for all this tickled his fancy. The fine splinters still flew about in the air: and now we shall hear what happened next. [1.]
(to be continued)
Frozen Pond, Mint Springs Park, Crozet, Virginia.
Laurel in Snow, Shenandoah Mountain in Virginia.
Massanutten Mountain, Rockingham County, Virginia.
Lone Pine Tree, Raven's Roost on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
There is a moral hidden in a laugh" here, as Chaucer says. Last week an Egyptian man asked: "Why don't you Americans love your country?" The man, a Christian convert and a Pastor, leads the Community Prayer Meeting of Waynesboro area churches each month. In Egypt he was persecuted in ways that are too brutal to recount here. His wife lived as a prisoner in their home. To this man, America is a beautiful refuge from so much of the ugliness in the world.
Likewise, a gentleman from Pakistan also related a similar sentiment. I asked him what America meant to him? This man, a Sunni Muslim from birth, said to me: "My family is safe here." When I mentioned that those elements that make the Middle East so volatile are coming here, he quickly distanced himself from "those people." The problem is that "those people" find their direction in the Qur'an. But I did not argue that. Instead, I wondered at my Egyptian friend's question. Indeed it seems that the gentleman from Pakistan has a greater sense of the freedom we enjoy as Americans than many Americans. Why is this so? America's history is pretty amazing,and if you are honest in your study of it, full of Divine intervention. Yet many young people today will echo the sentiment that: "There is nothing special about America." The keepers of knowledge have, it seems, handed them splinters.
You hear it in the lecture halls of our great universities. America's sins are recounted. That would not be a bad thing in itself, for we have indeed had our shameful moments in history, but what is missing is that presentation of beautiful purpose and noble ideals that gave birth to our nation. Eschewing the notion that there ARE lofty ideals in our foundation, they rail against Colonialism and oppression, ignoring the fact that our ideals have been a great force AGAINST oppression! No wonder so many young people live in despair. They have been handed a mirror that shows them a world that is poor and mean. They have been deprived of seeing that which is truly beautiful. Is it any wonder that hearts have grown cold?
The modern thinkers are not unlike the mischievous sprite. Hans Christian Andersen's tale might just be a parable for our time. Thus we present it, in serial form for your consideration. Next week we shall see how this story was possibly an inspiration for C. S. Lewis' Narnia as first seen in The Lion. the Witch and the Wardrobe, where the Empress Jadis, the White Witch, casts Narnia into perpetual Winter.
(to be continued)
