The Ugly Duckling and Other Fairy Tales by Andersen Hans Christian

72 Pages·2015·1.35 MB·English

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The Ugly Duckling and Other Fairy Tales
Hans Christian Andersen
THE UGLY DUCKLING
AND OTHER
FAIRY TALES
Retold by: Britt'Katrin Keson
Illustrations: Kirsten Hansvig
Hans Christian Andersen (1805' 1875) was a master of the
art of telling stories, and today his fairy tales are read by
children and idults all over the world. The son of a poor
cohMer, H7C. Andersen used his great talent to write plays,
fairy tales, novels and poems. He enjoyed travelling and
wrote several autobiographies about his life in Denmark and
travels in Europe and the Middle East. By the time he died,
his name was already famous in many countries.
H. C. Andersen is best-known for his fairy tales. These sto­
ries, written between 1835 and 1872, showed a new and
very original style for the time. Unlike other authors before
him, H. C. Andersen wrote fairy tales to be enjoyed by both
children and adults alike. H. C. Andersen’s own life had not
always been a happy one, as he was often lonely and felt like
an outsider. He was not afraid to write about the lessons that
his life had taught him, and hence many of his stories are
thoughtful and sad as well as exciting and full of imagina­
tion. Among his most famous fairy tales are The Ugly
Duckling, The Princess and the Pea, The Emperor’s New
Clothes, Thumbelina, The Little Mermaid, The Snow
Queen, The Tinderbox and The Nightingale.
The Ugly Duckling 4
The Princess and the Pea 14
The Emperor’s New Clothes 18
The Little Mermaid 29
The Tinderbox 41
The Nightingale 52
Questions 62
3
The Ugly Duckling
It was a wonderful, sunny day out in the country. It was
summer, and the corn was already turning yellow in
the fields around the old farm. Beyond the fields was a
forest, and in this forest there was a clear, blue lake.
5 Yes, it really was a beautiful day in the country!
In the farmyard of the old farm, a duck was sitting on
her nest, waiting for her eggs to hatch. She had been sit'
ting there for many days now, and she was getting a bit
ugly, not beautiful
duckling, a young duck
nest, what a bird lays its eggs in
hatch, (of a young bird) to come out of an egg
4
tired of waiting. At last the eggs began to hatch under
her. »Peep, peep,« the little yellow ducklings said as
they looked out of the shell »Oh! How big the world
is!«
»Do you think this is the whole world?« their moth- 5
er asked them. »This is only the farmyard! The world
goes on beyond those fields and those trees you see over
there. One day I will show it to you. I hope you have all
hatched now.« She started to count the ducklings and
saw that the largest egg in the nest still had not 10
hatched. She sat down on her nest again. »I think I’d
better sit on this egg a little longer. I’ve sat so long on
| shell, see picture, page 6
5
my nest now that I can sit here a few more days.«
Finally the last egg hatched as well »Peep, peep,«
said the last duckling as he looked out from the egg­
shell The mother duck looked down at the duckling.
5 He was very big and grey. »That really is a rather large
duckling,« she said to herself.
The next morning the sun shone on the old farm
again. The mother duck decided to take her ducklings
down to the lake and teach them how to swim. Splash!
10 The mother duck jumped into the water. »Quack,
quack!« she said. »Come now! I’ll show you how to
swim.« Splash, splash, splash, splash! One by one the
little ducklings jumped into the water and swam after
their mother. The ugly grey duckling followed them.
15 Afterwards, the mother duck took her children back
to the farmyard. The other ducks, the chickens and the
geese that lived in the farmyard came over to look at
her little ducklings.
6
» Those are really very nice-looking ducklings you
have there,« an old duck said to her. »All except that
big one over there. Can’t you change him somehow ?«
»That can’t be done,« said the mother duck. »I
know he is not very pretty, but he is a good duckling 5
and he swims as well as my other children. In fact, he
swims better than the other ducklings! I think he will
grow up to be prettier one day. He stayed inside his egg
too long, so he doesn’t look quite right yet.«
But the other birds in the farmyard would not leave jo
the ugly duckling alone. »You’re too big! You’re too
big!« they said and pushed him around the farmyard,
biting him in the neck. Even his brothers and sisters
started telling him he was too big and too ugly to live
in the farmyard together with them. 15
So the duckling decided to leave the farm. He ran
across the fields towards the forest. As he ran, the
noise he made frightened some little birds that flew up
over his head. »Those birds are also leaving me
because I am so ugly,« the duckling thought sadly. By 20
the time he got to the edge of the forest, he was very
tired, so he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
The next morning some wild ducks came over to
where he was sleeping. »What sort of duck are you?«
they asked him. »You really are an ugly duck! But we 25
don’t really mind as long as you don’t marry anyone in
our family!«
When the ducks had left, two wild geese flew down
to have a closer look at him. »Listen, friend,« they said
to him. »You’re so ugly that we like you. Will you come 30
and fly south together with us?«
| frighten, make afraid
7
Bang, bang! The duckling heard two shots in the air
above his head, and the geese fell down dead. Then
there were more shots, and a cloud of blue smoke rose
up behind the trees. Suddenly several big black dogs
5 came running out of the forest. One of the dogs put his
cold, wet nose against the duckling and showed him
his teeth. The frightened duckling quickly put his head
under his wing. The dog went over to pick up the dead
geese.
10 »Oh, thank God!« the duckling said. »I am so ugly
that the dog didn’t want to bite me!«
And so he sat very, very still while he heard more
shots all around him. At last, late in the afternoon, it
was quiet again, but the poor little duckling did not
15 dare to get up. When it started to get dark, he finally
got up and ran across the fields to a little house by the
edge of the forest. The door was open and he went
inside.
In this house lived an old woman and her cat and
20 chicken. The cat could stretch his back and purr, and
the chicken was very good at laying eggs. The old wom­
an loved them both as if they were her own children.
In the morning the cat and the chicken found the
duckling asleep in the corner of the room. »What’s
25 this?« they asked. The old woman could not see very
well and thought the duckling was a little fat duck.
»Oh, this is nice!« she said. »Now I can have a duck’s
egg for breakfast every morning!«
shot, the sound of a gun
wing, what birds use to fly with
dare, not be afraid to do something
stretch, make longer
purr, make the sound of a (happy) cat
8
For three weeks the old woman waited for the duck­
ling to begin laying eggs, but no eggs came.
»Can you lay eggs?« the chicken finally asked the
duckling.
»No.« 5
»Then you should just be quiet and do as I tell you.«
»Can you stretch your back and purr?« the cat asked.
»No.«
»Then you should be quiet and do as I say.«
And so the duck sat down in a corner and was quiet. 10
Outside, the sun was shining. Every time the duckling
looked out through the open door, he wanted to go
swimming on the lake.
»What would you want tq do that for?« asked the
chicken. »In this house you should either purr or lay 15
eggs!«
»But it is so nice to swim on the water!« the duck­
ling said. »And it is even nicer to dive down to the bot­
tom of the lake!«
»Oh yes, what a nice thing, indeed! I think it is very 20
clear that you have gone crazy I« the chicken said. »Ask
the cat - he is a very clever animal Ask him if he would
like to swim on the water or dive down to the bottom
of the lake! Ask the old woman - nobody in the world
is more clever than she is! Ask her if she feels like div- 25
ing down to the bottom of the lake!«
»You don't understand me,« said the duckling.
»We don’t understand you? Who could possibly
understand you? You should learn how to do something
important like stretching your back, purring or laying 30
dive, jump or swim down into the water
crazy, not right in the head
9
eggs. Those are the only things that matter in the
world!«
»Well, then I think I will leave,« said the duckling.
»Yes, you do that! Go away!« the chicken and the
5 cat said.
And so the duckling went outside. He swam on the
lake and dived down to the bottom, but none of the
other ducks wanted to talk to him, and he was always
alone.
10 Soon autumn came and then came winter. The
leaves in the forest turned yellow, red and brown and
then fell to the ground. The air was very cold now, and
snow began falling from the clouds above.
One cold winter evening, some swans flew down to
15 the lake where the ugly duckling lived. They were as
white as snow and had very long necks. They were the
most beautiful birds the duckling had ever seen! He felt
very sad as he watched them stretch their great white
wings and fly away together. He swam round and round
20 in the water and stretched his little neck out towards
them. Oh, he would never forget those beautiful birds!
How he wished he could be one of them!
The winter became colder and colder and now there
was ice on the lake. The duckling had to swim round
25 and round to keep the water from freezing. But every
night the hole he swam in became smaller and smaller.
One night the ice closed the hole completely around
the duckling.
Early the next morning a man came by and saw the
autumn, one of the four seasons of the year (before winter)
freeze, turn into ice
10