While many readers are well aware that some of Hans Christian Andersen's original stories are far more morbid than anything you'll see in a Disney movie, many are unfamiliar with the rest of his vast collection of original fairy tales, which sometimes delve into realms so strange as to make him seem more like Edgar Allan Poe than a writer of children's stories.
Here today, we have collected ten of Andersen's many peculiar, and sometimes downright disturbing, fairy tales, all of which are far more obscure than his more well-known works, which include such beloved childhood classics as "The Ugly Duckling," "Thumbelina," "The Princess and the Pea," "The Little Mermaid," and "The Emperor's New Clothes." Come for a little wander with us into the clearly troubled but undeniably creative mind of one of history's most popular fairy tale authors. But make sure your kids are tucked up safe and asleep in bed because some of these tales are the stuff of nightmares.
10. 'The Stone Of The Wise Men'
Now his thoughts were great and bold, as our thoughts generally are at home in the corner of the hearth, before we have gone forth into the world and have encountered wind and rain, and thorns and thistles.
In the tallest tree in India stands a castle made of crystal that looks out over the whole world. In this castle lives a very wise man who owns a book in which everything ever known is written. He seeks answers about what will happen after death, but the page in the book concerning the afterlife cannot be read without the light from a magical stone made from the good qualities that hold the world together.
The wise man has five children, and each of them is blessed with one particularly well-developed sense. One can see further than anyone else in the world, even deep into the Earth and into the human heart. One can hear grass growing. One can smell everything there is to smell. One has the most accurate and advanced taste. The fifth, a blind daughter, can feel more vividly than anyone else, as though she has eyes in her fingertips and ears in her heart.
One by one, the children go out into the world to find the stone. The son who can see is blinded by the Evil One. The son who can hear is driven insane by all the screaming in the world and all the heartbeats, which to him sound like a million clocks. He pushes his fingers so deep into his ears that he ruptures his own eardrums. The son who can smell is thwarted with incense smoke made by the Evil One. The son who can taste ends up stuck atop a church steeple in a weather balloon.
The blind sister now ties a magical thread to her father's house so that she won't lose her way in the world and leaves to find the stone. The Evil One makes a doppelganger of her using stagnant marsh water bubbles mixed with tears shed by envy and paints it with rouge scraped from the cheeks of a corpse.
Despite the Evil One's best efforts, the daughter acquires the stone, which illuminates the wise man's book to reveal one word: "Faith."
9. 'The Swineherd'
For a plaything you kissed the swineherd, and now you have your reward.
There was once a prince who wished to marry the emperor's daughter. In the hopes of being able to meet her, he sends her two gifts. The first is a rose that only blooms once every five years and is so beautiful that anyone who smells it forgets all sorrow and trouble. The second gift is a nightingale that can sing all the melodies in the world. The emperor is so moved by the gifts that he weeps like a child, but his daughter throws them away in disgust, for neither are artificial.
The prince then disguises himself in rags and stains his face with dirt before seeking employment at the palace. He becomes the emperor's swineherd. In his dirty little hut, he creates a magical pot that the emperor's daughter takes a shine to, but he will only sell it to her for ten kisses. Eventually, her desire for the pot becomes so strong that she gives the grubby swineherd his kisses, and then she goes away happy. Next, the swineherd makes a magical musical rattle, but this he will only sell for 100 kisses. The emperor's daughter lusts after the rattle and eventually gives the swineherd the kisses he desires. When the prince is taking his 86th kiss, the emperor discovers his daughter in the pigsty kissing the dirty swineherd. Disgusted, he beats them both over the head with his slipper and banishes them from his kingdom.
