THE BIRD OF POPULAR SONG

                                  1872

                 FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

                        THE BIRD OF POPULAR SONG

                       by Hans Christian Andersen



IT is winter-time. The earth wears a snowy garment, and looks like

marble hewn out of the rock; the air is bright and clear; the wind

is sharp as a well-tempered sword, and the trees stand like branches

of white coral or blooming almond twigs, and here it is keen as on the

lofty Alps.

The night is splendid in the gleam of the Northern Lights, and

in the glitter of innumerable twinkling stars.

But we sit in the warm room, by the hot stove, and talk about

the old times. And we listen to this story:

By the open sea was a giant's grave; and on the grave-mound sat at

midnight the spirit of the buried hero, who had been a king. The

golden circlet gleamed on his brow, his hair fluttered in the wind,

and he was clad in steel and iron. He bent his head mournfully, and

sighed in deep sorrow, as an unquiet spirit might sigh.

And a ship came sailing by. Presently the sailors lowered the

anchor and landed. Among them was a singer, and he approached the

royal spirit, and said,

"Why mournest thou, and wherefore dost thou suffer thus?"

And the dead man answered,

"No one has sung the deeds of my life; they are dead and

forgotten. Song doth not carry them forth over the lands, nor into the

hearts of men; therefore I have no rest and no peace."

And he spoke of his works, and of his warlike deeds, which his

contemporaries had known, but which had not been sung, because there

was no singer among his companions.

Then the old bard struck the strings of his harp, and sang of

the youthful courage of the hero, of the strength of the man, and of

the greatness of his good deeds. Then the face of the dead one gleamed

like the margin of the cloud in the moonlight. Gladly and of good

courage, the form arose in splendor and in majesty, and vanished

like the glancing of the northern light. Nought was to be seen but the

green turfy mound, with the stones on which no Runic record has been

graven; but at the last sound of the harp there soared over the

hill, as though he had fluttered from the harp, a little bird, a

charming singing-bird, with ringing voice of the thrush, with the

moving voice pathos of the human heart, with a voice that told of

home, like the voice that is heard by the bird of passage. The

singing-bird soared away, over mountain and valley, over field and

wood- he was the Bird of Popular Song, who never dies.

We hear his song- we hear it now in the room while the white

bees are swarming without, and the storm clutches the windows. The

bird sings not alone the requiem of heroes; he sings also sweet gentle

songs of love, so many and so warm, of Northern fidelity and truth. He

has stories in words and in tones; he has proverbs and snatches of

proverbs; songs which, like Runes laid under a dead man's tongue,

force him to speak; and thus Popular Song tells of the land of his

birth.

In the old heathen days, in the times of the Vikings, the

popular speech was enshrined in the harp of the bard.

In the days of knightly castles, when the strongest fist held

the scales of justice, when only might was right, and a peasant and

a dog were of equal importance, where did the Bird of Song find

shelter and protection? Neither violence nor stupidity gave him a

thought.

But in the gabled window of the knightly castle, the lady of the

castle sat with the parchment roll before her, and wrote down the

old recollections in song and legend, while near her stood the old

woman from the wood, and the travelling peddler who went wandering

through the country. As these told their tales, there fluttered around

them, with twittering and song, the Bird of Popular Song, who never

dies so long as the earth has a hill upon which his foot may rest.

And now he looks in upon us and sings. Without are the night and

the snow-storm. He lays the Runes beneath our tongues, and we know the

land of our home. Heaven speaks to us in our native tongue, in the

voice of the Bird of Popular Song. The old remembrances awake, the

faded colors glow with a fresh lustre, and story and song pour us a

blessed draught which lifts up our minds and our thoughts, so that the

evening becomes as a Christmas festival.

The snow-flakes chase each other, the ice cracks, the storm

rules without, for he has the might, he is lord- but not the LORD OF

ALL.

It is winter time. The wind is sharp as a two-edged sword, the

snow-flakes chase each other; it seems as though it had been snowing

for days and weeks, and the snow lies like a great mountain over the

whole town, like a heavy dream of the winter night. Everything on

the earth is hidden away, only the golden cross of the church, the

symbol of faith, arises over the snow grave, and gleams in the blue

air and in the bright sunshine.

And over the buried town fly the birds of heaven, the small and

the great; they twitter and they sing as best they may, each bird with

his beak.

First comes the band of sparrows: they pipe at every trifle in the

streets and lanes, in the nests and the houses; they have stories to

tell about the front buildings and the back buildings.

"We know the buried town," they say; "everything living in it is

piep! piep! piep!"

The black ravens and crows flew on over the white snow.

"Grub, grub!" they cried. "There's something to be got down there;

something to swallow, and that's most important. That's the opinion of

most of them down there, and the opinion is goo-goo-good!"

The wild swans come flying on whirring pinions, and sing of the

noble and the great, that will still sprout in the hearts of men, down

in the town which is resting beneath its snowy veil.

No death is there- life reigns yonder; we hear it on the notes

that swell onward like the tones of the church organ, which seize us

like sounds from the elf-hill, like the songs of Ossian, like the

rushing swoop of the wandering spirits' wings. What harmony! That

harmony speaks to our hearts, and lifts up our souls! It is the Bird

of Popular Song whom we hear.

And at this moment the warm breath of heaven blows down from the

sky. There are gaps in the snowy mountains, the sun shines into the

clefts; spring is coming, the birds are returning, and new races are

coming with the same home sounds in their hearts.

Hear the story of the year: "The night of the snow-storm, the

heavy dream of the winter night, all shall be dissolved, all shall

rise again in the beauteous notes of the Bird of Popular Song, who

never dies!"

                        THE END

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