A TRUE FAIRY TALE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 56, 7 March 1934, Page 18

A TRUE FAIRY TALE.

(Sent in by Joan McLaren, 37, Prospect Terrace, Mount Eden, age 10.)

Perhaps when you have finished reading a nice fairy tale you sometimes say to yourself that you wish it were true. Well, here is a story you will think is like a fairy tale, I am sure; and it is quite, quite true.

If you look at a map of Denmark you will find that part of the country consists of a group of islands. One of these islands is named Funeu. The capital town of Funen is Odense, and here, on April 2, one hundred and fifteen years ago, a little boy was born.

He was tho son of a poor cobbler, and fr rew up a shy, dreamy kind of lad, fond of listening to old tales and legends such as are told to children. To look at he was an ugly boy and curiously clumsy and awkward in his movements. He was very sensitive about his looks, and some of his playmates, being rough and ill-natured, used to tease him and make fun of him. Then, feeling very unhappy, he would go away and hide himself from them in some quiet place and wish that he, like some poor mail's son hi the fairy tales he liad heard, might find the way to do wonderful things and become rich and famous and go to the king's palace.

Then one day soon after His thirteenth birthday he, like the boys in the tales of which he was so forid, set out to seek his fortune. As Dick Wliittington made his way to London Town, so did this bov travel to Copenhagen, and wandered about its streets, trying by all sorts of means to pick up a living; and you may be sure that often he was hungry, often he was cold, and often he was almost in despair. At last he found a friend, a wise and kindly man, who saw that this strange, uncouth and ignorant lad was both clever and persevering, and deserved to have a chance. Through tho influence of this good man he was first of all sent to school, for, owing to his father's poverty, he had never had any education worth mentioning. The boy felt his ignorance very much indeed when he had to take his place in the lowest form of the school, and the I schoolmaster, an unkind and sarcastic 'man, did not spare his feelings; but in

spite of all rebuffs and discouragements tlio boy persevered and studied hard. A few years passed away and he grew into a young man and began to write books and also to travel. One day he sat down and began to write a little book of fairy tales, and among them were some of the tales which he had heard and liked so much when lie was a child. One of them was called "The Tinderbox," another "The Princess and the Pea."

"What!" you say; "I have read both those tales —they are two of Andersen's fairy tales!"

To be sure they are, and the boy about whom I have been telling you was Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote them.

Besides these first fairy tales he wrote many others; other works also were written by him —novels, poetry, plays, books of travel; but his fairy tales may be said to be his masterpieces; they have given pleasure to innumerable children in nearly all countries.

Thus, by his writings, Hans Andersen became famous throughout the world, and great and learned men were proud to gain his friendship. In one of his books ho says: "Every person's life is a fairy tale written by God's lingers."

He, the poor cobbler's son, ignorant, ungainly, morbidly sensitive, yet conscious of, and believing in, that spark of genius within him, battling against poverty and ridicule; and at last, after a hard tight, everything he wished for "came true." He was beloved, honoured, famous, and the personal friend of his king. People passing him in the street would say, "There goes the great Andersen."

A statue was erected to him during his lifetime and all Denmark, from the Royal family downwards, paid him homage. His seventieth birthday was celebrated as a public holiday throughout the whole of his country.