Pigen, som traadte paa brødet
“The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf” is without doubt the least child-friendly of Andersen’s narratives, with a chilling display of punishment beyond the disciplinary excesses found in nineteenth-century Anglo-American and European children’s literature. Even the notorious Struwwelpeter of 1845 by the Frankfurt physician Heinrich Hoffmann, with its images of children going up in flames after lighting matches or losing their thumbs after sucking them, looks tame by comparison.
Andersen’s title refers to the folksong “The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf,” which inspired his retelling of the girl’s story. Kathryn Davis, in her novel named after the folksong, gives an account of the plot’s origins:
Originally a folksong, “Pigen, der trådte på brødet,” it chronicles the horrible fate of a vain young woman from the town of Sibbo, in Pomerania, whose punishment for loving a pair of shoes more than a loaf of bread is to be “frozen like a boulder” before she’s swallowed up in a mud puddle. Toward the end of the eighteenth century the song was published as a broadside and despite its heavyhanded morality and plodding rhymes (“O human soul keep this in mind, / Abandon pride’s temptations, / And leave all other sins behind, / They were her ruination . . .”) it’s remembered for having inspired Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the same name.
(The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf, 14)
The name “Inger” was Andersen’s invention, and he may have been inspired by Inger Meisling, the wife of the detested schoolmaster in Slagelse. Andersen freely admitted the role of revenge in his construction of narratives: “Many times when people have behaved in an irritating way and I have been unable to hit back, I have written a story and put them into it” (Travels, 91).
You have probably heard about the tribulations of the girl who trod on a loaf of bread to keep from soiling her shoes. The story has been written down and put into print as well.1
She was a poor child, but proud and vain. And people said that she had a bad streak. As a very small child, she enjoyed catching flies, pulling off their wings,2 and turning them into creeping things. She would take a May bug and a beetle, stick each of them on a pin, then place a green leaf or bit of paper up against their feet. The poor creatures would cling to it, twisting and turning, trying to get off the pin.
“Now the May bug is reading,” little Inger would say. “Look how it’s turning over the leaves!”
As she grew older, she became worse rather than better. But she was very pretty, and that was probably her misfortune, for otherwise she would have been punished more often than she was.
“It’ll take some desperate remedies to cure your stubborn ways,”3 her mother told her. “When you were little, you used to stomp all over my aprons. Now that you’re older, I’m worried that you will stomp all over my heart.”
And, sure enough, that’s what she did.
JENNIE HARBOUR
Dressed in beautiful clothes, Inger looks completely carefree, unaware of the grave consequences that will attend stepping on a loaf of bread to keep her shoes from getting dirty.
One day she went out to work for gentry living in the countryside. They treated her as kindly as if she were their own child and dressed her in the same way. She looked very beautiful now and became more vain than ever.
After she had been with the family for about a year, her mistress said to her: “Isn’t it time to go back and visit your parents, Inger dear?”
So she did, but she only went because she wanted to show off and let them see how refined she had become. When she reached the village, she caught sight of a group of girls gossiping with some young fellows near a pond. Her mother was there too, pausing to rest on a rock, with a bundle of firewood she had gathered in the forest. Inger was ashamed4 that she, who was dressed so smartly, should have a mother who went about in rags collecting sticks. She wasn’t in the least sorry to turn back. But she was annoyed.
Another six months went by.
“You really should go home sometime soon to visit your old parents, Inger dear,” her mistress said. “Here, you can take this big loaf of white bread to them. They’ll be happy to see you again.”
Inger put on her best clothes and wore a pair of fine new shoes. She picked up the hem of her skirt and walked very carefully so that her shoes would stay nice and clean. No one can blame her for that! But when she reached the place where her path crossed over marshy ground, with a stretch of puddles and mud before her, she flung the loaf down on the ground as a stepping-stone so that she could make her way across with dry shoes. Just as she put one foot down on the bread and lifted the other, the loaf began to sink, carrying her down deeper and deeper until she disappeared altogether and there was nothing to see but a black, bubbling swamp!5
LORENZ FRØLICH
That’s the story.
What became of her?6 She went down to the Marsh Woman, who brews underground. The Marsh Woman is aunt to the elf maidens,7 who are known everywhere, for people sing songs about them and paint pictures of them. But nobody knows much about the Marsh Woman, except that when the meadows begin steaming in the summer, it means that the old woman is brewing things below. Inger sank down into her brewery, and that’s not a place you can stay for very long. A cesspool is a place of luxury compared with the Marsh Woman’s brewery. Every vat reeks so horribly that you would faint,8 and they are all packed closely together. Even if you could find a space wide enough to squeeze through, you wouldn’t be able to get by because of all the slimy toads and the fat snakes tangled up in there. That’s where Inger landed. The whole nasty, creepy mess was so icy cold that her every limb began to shiver, and she grew stiffer and stiffer. The loaf was still sticking to her feet, dragging her down, just as amber attracts bits of straw.9
LORENZ FRØLICH
The Marsh Woman was at home, for the brewery was being visited that day by the devil and his great-grandmother,10 an extremely venomous old creature whose hands are never idle. She always has some needlework with her, and she had it with her this time too. Her pincushion was with her that day so that she could give people pins and needles in their legs and make them get up and run around. And she was busy embroidering lies and crocheting rash words that might have fallen harmlessly to the ground had she not woven them into mischief and slander. How cleverly that old great-granny could sew, embroider, and weave!11
When the devil’s great-grandmother saw Inger, she put on her spectacles and took a good look at her. “That girl has talent,” she declared. “I’d like to take her back with me as a souvenir. She’d make a perfect statue for my great-grandson’s entrance hall.” And she got her!
That’s how little Inger ended up in hell. People can’t always go straight down there, but if they have a little talent, they can get there in a roundabout way.
The antechamber there seemed endless. It made you dizzy to look straight ahead and dizzy to look back. A crowd of anxious, miserable souls were waiting for the gates of mercy to be flung open. They would have to wait for a long time! Huge, hideous, fat spiders were spinning webs that would last a thousand years around the feet of those waiting, and the webs were like foot screws or manacles that clamped down as strongly as copper chains on the feet. On top of all that, there was a deep sense of despair in every soul, a feeling of anxiety that was itself a torment. Among the crowd was a miser who had lost the key to his money box and now remembered that he had left it in the lock. But wait—it would take far too long to describe all the pain and torment suffered in that place. Inger began to feel the torture of standing still, just like a statue. It was as if she were riveted to the ground by the loaf of bread.
LORENZ FRØLICH
“This is what comes from trying to keep your shoes clean,” she said to herself. “Look at how they’re all staring at me.” Yes, it’s true, they were all staring at her, with evil passions gleaming in their eyes. They spoke without a sound coming from their mouths, and it was horrifying to look at them!
“It must be a pleasure to look at me,” Inger thought. “I have a pretty face and nice clothes.” And then she turned her eyes, for her neck was too stiff to move. Goodness, how dirty she had become in the Marsh Woman’s brewery! She hadn’t thought of that. Her dress was covered with one great streak of slime; a snake had wound itself into her hair and was dangling down her neck12; and from each fold in her dress an ugly toad was peeping out, making a croaking noise that sounded like the bark of a wheezy lapdog. It was most disagreeable. “Still,” she consoled herself, “the others down here look no less dreadful.”
Worst of all was the terrible hunger Inger felt. If she could just stoop down and break off a bit of the loaf on which she was standing! Impossible—for her back had stiffened, her arms and hands had stiffened, and her entire body was like a statue made of stone. All she could do was roll her eyes, roll them right around so that she could see what was behind her, and that was truly a ghastly sight. Flies began to land on her, and they crawled back and forth across her eyes. She blinked, but the flies wouldn’t go away. They couldn’t fly away because their wings had been pulled off, and they had become creeping insects. That made Inger’s torment even worse, and, as for the pangs of hunger, it began to feel to her as if her innards were eating themselves up. She began to feel so empty inside, so terribly empty.13
“If this goes on much longer, I won’t be able to bear it,” she said, but she had to bear it, and everything just became worse than ever.
Suddenly a hot tear fell on her forehead.14 It trickled down her face and chest, right down to the loaf of bread. Then another tear fell, and many more followed. Who could be weeping for little Inger? Didn’t she have a mother up there on earth? The tears of grief shed by a mother for her wayward child can always reach her, but they only burn and make the torture all the greater. And now this unbearable hunger—and the impossibility of getting even a mouthful from the loaf she had trod underfoot! She was beginning to have the feeling that everything inside her must have eaten itself up. She was like a thin, hollow reed that absorbs every sound it hears. She could hear everything said about her on earth above, and what she heard was harsh and spiteful. Her mother may have been weeping and feeling deep sorrow, but still she said: “Pride goes before a fall.15 That’s what led to your ruin, Inger. You have created so much sorrow for your mother!”
Inger’s mother and everyone else up above were all aware of her sin and how she had trod upon the loaf, sunk down, and disappeared. They had learned about it from the cowherd, who had seen it for himself from the crest of a hill.
“You have brought me so much grief, Inger,” her mother said. “Yes, I always knew it would happen.”
“I wish I had never been born!”16 Inger thought. “I would have been so much better off. Mother’s tears can do me no good now.”
Inger heard her master and mistress speaking, those good people who had been like parents to her. “She was always a sinful child,” they said. “She had no respect for the gifts of our Lord, but trampled them underfoot. It will be hard for her to squeeze through the gates of mercy.”
“They should have done a better job raising me,” Inger thought. “They should have cured me of my bad ways, if I had any.”
Inger heard that a ballad had been written about her17—“The proud young girl who stepped on a loaf to keep her shoes clean.” It was being sung from one end of the country to the other.
“Why should I have to suffer and be punished so severely for such a little thing?”18 Inger thought. “Why aren’t others punished for their sins as well? There would be so many people to punish. Oh, I am in such pain!”
Inger’s heart became even harder than her shell-like form.19 “Nothing will ever improve while I’m in this company! And I don’t want to get better. Look at them all glaring at me!”
Her heart grew even harder and was filled with hatred for all humans.
“I dare say that they will have something to talk about now. Oh, I am in such pain!”
And she could hear people telling her story to children as a warning, and the little ones called her Wicked Inger. “She was so horrid,” they said, “so nasty that she deserved to be punished.”
The children had nothing but harsh words for her.
One day, when hunger and resentment were gnawing deeply away in her hollow body, she heard her name spoken. Her story was being told to an innocent child,20 a small girl who burst into tears when she heard about proud Inger and her love of finery.
“Won’t she ever come back up again?” the girl asked. And she was told: “She will never return.”
“What if she asks for forgiveness and promises never to do it again?”
“But she won’t ask to be forgiven,” they replied.
“Oh, how I wish that she would!” the little girl said in great distress. “I’ll give up my doll’s house if they let her return. It’s so horrible for poor Inger!”
These words went straight to Inger’s heart and seemed to do her good. It was the first time anyone had said “Poor Inger” without adding anything about her faults. An innocent little child had wept and prayed for her. She was so moved that she would have liked to weep as well, but the tears would not flow, and that too was torture.
The years passed by up there, but down below nothing changed. Inger heard fewer words from above and there was less talk about her. Then one day she heard a deep sigh: “Inger, Inger, what sorrow you have brought me! I always said you would!” Those were her mother’s dying words.
Sometimes she heard her name mentioned by her former mistress, who always spoke in the mildest way: “I wonder if I shall ever see you again, Inger. There’s no knowing where I’ll end up.” But Inger knew well enough that her honest mistress would never end up in the place where she was.
A long time passed, slowly and bitterly. Then Inger heard her name spoken once again, and she saw above her what looked like two bright stars shining down on her. They were two gentle eyes that were about to close on earth. So many years had passed since the time when a small girl had cried inconsolably for “Poor Inger” that the child was by now an old woman, and the good Lord was about to call her to himself. In that final hour, when all the thoughts and deeds of a lifetime pass before you, the woman recalled clearly how, as a small child, she had wept bitter tears when hearing the sad story of Inger. That moment and the sense of sorrow following it were so vivid in the old woman’s mind at the hour of her death that she cried out these heartfelt words: “Dear Lord, have I not too, like poor Inger, sometimes thoughtlessly trampled underfoot your blessings and counted them without value? Have I not also been guilty of pride and vanity in my inmost heart? And yet you, in your mercy, did not let me sink but held me up. Do not forsake me in this final hour!”21
The old woman’s eyes closed, and the eyes of her soul were opened to what had been hidden. And because Inger had been so profoundly present in her final thoughts, the old woman was actually able to see her and to understand how deeply she had sunk. At the dreadful sight of her, the saintly soul burst into tears. She stood like a child in the kingdom of heaven and wept for poor Inger. Her tears and prayers rang like an echo down into the hollow, empty shell that held an imprisoned, tormented soul. Inger was overwhelmed by all the unexpected love from above. To think that one of God’s angels would be weeping for her! How did she deserve this act of kindness? The tormented soul thought back on every deed she had performed during her life on earth and was convulsed with sobs, weeping in ways that the old Inger could never have wept. Inger was filled with sorrow for herself, and she felt certain the gates of mercy would never open for her. She was beginning to realize this with the deepest humility, when, suddenly, a brilliant ray flashed down into the bottomless pit, one more powerful than the sunbeams that melt the snowmen that boys build outdoors.22 And at the touch of this ray—faster than a snowflake turns into water when it lands on a child’s warm lips—Inger’s stiffened, stony figure vanished. A tiny bird soared like forked lightning up toward the world of humans.23
The bird seemed timid and afraid of everything around it, as if ashamed and wanting to avoid the sight of all living creatures. It hastened to find shelter and discovered it in the dark hole of a crumbling wall. It cowered there, and trembled all over, without uttering a sound, for it had no voice.24 It stayed there for a long time before it dared to peer out and take in the beauty all around. And, yes indeed, it was beautiful. The air was so fresh, the breeze gentle, and the moon was shining brightly. Among the fragrant trees and flowers, the bird was perched in a cozy spot, its feathers clean and dainty. How much love and splendor there was in all created things!25 The bird was eager to express in song the thoughts bursting from its heart, but it could not. It wanted to sing like the nightingale or the cuckoo in the springtime. Our Lord, who can hear even the voiceless hymn of the worm, understood the hymn of praise that swelled up in chords of thought, like the psalms that resonated in David’s heart before they took shape in words and music.26
For days and weeks, these mute songs grew stronger. Someday they would surely find a voice, perhaps with the first stroke of a wing performing a good deed. Was the time not ripe?
The holy feast of Christmas was nigh.27 A farmer had put a pole up near the wall and had tied an unthreshed bundle of oats to it, so that creatures of the air might also have a merry Christmas and a cheerful meal in this season of the Savior.
The sun rose that Christmas morning and shone down brightly upon the sheaf of oats and all the twittering birds gathered around it. A faint “tweet, tweet” sounded from the wall. The swelling thoughts had finally turned into sound, and the feeble chirp turned into a hymn of joy. The idea of a good deed had awakened,28 and the bird flew out from its hiding place. In heaven they knew exactly what kind of bird it was.
Winter began in earnest; the ponds were frozen over with thick ice; and the birds and wild creatures were short of food. The tiny bird flew along country roads, and, there, in the tracks of sledges, it managed to find a grain of corn here and there, or in the best places, a few crumbs of bread. It would eat but a single grain of corn and then alert the other famished birds so that they too could find food. It also flew into the towns, inspecting the ground, and wherever a kindly hand had scattered breadcrumbs from the window for birds, it would take just a single crumb and give the rest away.
By the end of the winter the bird had collected and given away so many crumbs that they equaled in weight the loaf29 upon which little Inger had trod to keep her fine shoes from being soiled. And when it had found and given away the last crumb, the bird’s gray wings turned white and spread out.30
“Look, there’s a tern flying across the lake,” the children cried out when they saw the white bird.31 First it dipped down into the water, then it rose into the bright sunshine. The bird’s wings glittered so brightly in the air that it was impossible to see where it was flying. They say that it flew straight into the sun.32
1. The story has been written down and put into print as well. While many versions of the ballad exist, Andersen seems to be the only writer to turn Inger’s misfortunes into a prose narrative. “The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf” is one of a small number of stories based, like the Grimms’ fairy tales, on oral sources. Andersen briefly summarizes the events in the ballad, then turns to what really interests him: the story of Inger’s salvation.
2. she enjoyed catching flies, pulling off their wings. Inger is one of many nineteenth-century brats in British and European children’s literature who manifest their “evil” by torturing animals. Inger’s sadistic streak has been seen by some readers as an appealing trait. One reader reminisces about reading the story as a child: “I was immediately smitten by Inger’s macabre sense of humor. Her wicked mirth cast a spell on me and I wished she would go even further. In her portrait, I recognized myself. Hadn’t I stranded tadpoles on sunny boulders just to watch them struggle to hop back in the water on their half-formed haunches?” (Flook, 120).
3. “some desperate remedies to cure your stubborn ways.” The mother’s lament rephrases a well-known Danish proverb that small children tread on a mother’s apron, while grown ones tread on her heart. Note that stubbornness is added to pride, vanity, and cruelty. In nineteenth-century Anglo-American and European cultures, it was the duty of parents to tame the strong will of the child. The Grimms began one of their fairy tales (“Mother Trude”) in a fashion typical for children’s stories of the time: “Once upon a time there was a girl who was stubborn and curious, and whenever her parents told her to do something, she would not obey them. Well, how could things possibly go well for her?”
4. Inger was ashamed. Although Andersen wrote fondly about both his parents—his father had a “truly poetical mind” and his mother had “a heart full of love”—he was haunted all his life by skeletons in the family closet: an aunt who ran a brothel in Copenhagen, a half-sister named Karen-Marie (whose name the protagonist of “The Red Shoes” shares), and a grandfather who wandered the streets singing wild tunes and being chased by schoolboys.
5. there was nothing to see but a black, bubbling swamp. In the Inferno, Dante travels to the fifth circle of hell, descending “grayish slopes” into “the marsh whose name is Styx.” There he sees unfortunate souls “within that bog, all naked and muddy—with looks / Of fury.” They are “lodged in slime” and remain sullen in “black mire” (The Inferno of Dante, pp. 71–73). In Andersen’s The Improvisatore, the main character, Antonio, is passionately interested in the works of the Italian poet. It is not surprising that Andersen, who hoped to become Denmark’s most celebrated writer, dedicated himself to the study of Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, and the other great figures who became the representative writers of their culture.
6. What became of her? In his commentary on the story, Andersen explained that he had set himself the goal of showing how Inger converts from a life of sin and moves to a state of atonement, creating the opportunity for her salvation. Picking up where the ballad leaves off, Andersen’s narrative remains deeply committed to the story of Inger’s salvation but also lavishes attention on the details of her punishment, perhaps to intensify the cathartic effects of Inger’s release and transformation.
7. aunt to the elf maidens. Elf maidens, or Ellefruwen, make frequent appearances in Scandinavian folklore. They are related to Skogsnuva, creatures who look appealing from the front but turn out to be rotting when seen from behind. In Andersen’s late novel Lykke Peer (1870), the eponymous protagonist dreams of being tempted by the elf maidens to abandon his mortal existence but staunchly resists their lure. In that same work, Andersen refers to the Swedish ballad of Sir Olaf, who rode out to greet his wedding guests and became entranced by elf maidens who forced him to perform a dance of death.
8. Every vat reeks so horribly that you would faint. An overwhelming stench has been seen to symbolize moral and sexual corruption. Oddly, Inger’s effort to keep her shoes clean results in her immersion into a polluted and contaminated space.
9. just as amber attracts bits of straw. Kahroba, a word for amber derived from Persian, means “that which attracts straw,” in reference to the power of amber to acquire an electric charge by friction.
10. the brewery was being visited that day by the devil and his great-grandmother. The underground space seems dominated by women (the Marsh Woman and the devil’s great-grandmother) rather than by the devil himself. Andersen viewed the role of the devil in much the same way that Goethe presented Mephistopheles in Faust, as a necessary and, in his own way, admirable opponent to mankind. “Everyone speaks badly of Satan,” Andersen wrote. “They never recognize that he is merely fulfilling his duty. It is his job, after all, to seduce the children of humanity. He is the touchstone in this world; it is through him that we will be purified for the better; he is this struggle and flame, this aspera moving ad astram, and so he has here an important, meritorious role in the great drama of life” (Jens Andersen, 541). The devil’s grandmother makes an appearance in a Grimm tale (“The Devil and His Grandmother”) and functions as a benefactor to the hero, much like the giant’s wife who protects and assists the protagonist in “Jack and the Beanstalk.”
11. How cleverly that old great-granny could sew, embroider, and weave! The devil’s grandmother seems to serve as a folkloric version of the Norns from Norse mythology, creatures who live beneath the roots of Yggdrasil at the center of the world. There they weave the fate of humans, with each string in their loom representing a life. The Norns are related to the Greek Moirae, whose spinning activities determine fates: Clotho spins the thread at birth, Lachesis weaves it, and Atropos cuts it at the end of life. Three in number as well, the Norns (Urth or Wyrd, Verthandi, and Skuld—representing the past, present, and future, respectively) appear in Shakespeare’s Macbeth as the three weird sisters.
12. a snake had wound itself into her hair and was dangling down her neck. The snake in Inger’s hair links her with the figure of Medusa, one of the three Gorgons. Like her monstrous sisters Stheno and Euryale, Medusa has brass hands, sharp fangs, and poisonous snakes in place of locks of hair. Athena turned Medusa’s hair into snakes that coiled around her head when Medusa tried to vie in beauty with her. Anyone who dared behold Medusa was turned into stone. Inger may share Medusa’s vanity and pride, along with her serpentine tresses, but it is she who is turned into stone by the gaze of others (“they were all staring at her”).
During Andersen’s trips to Italy and Greece, he immersed himself in Roman and Greek mythology, educating himself in sculpture and in painting and spending time with Danish artists who were living in Italy. Andersen characterized himself as a traveler who was driven by curiosity—“always in motion, trying to use every minute to see everything.”
13. She began to feel so empty inside, so terribly empty. Inger’s emphasis on appearances leads to a kind of spiritual hollowness and emptiness that is literalized when her insides begin to consume themselves down in hell. Like the mythical Tantalus who is doomed to eternal hunger even when fruit and water seem within reach, Inger stands on the loaf yet cannot use it for sustenance.
14. Suddenly a hot tear fell on her forehead. The heat of the tear contrasts with the chilling cold of hell. A symbol of warmth, kindness, and empathy, the tear contrasts with the cold rigidity of the netherworld where Inger is held captive and immobilized.
15. “Pride goes before a fall.” The phrase derives from Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
16. “I wish I had never been born!” Inger’s words echo Mark 14:21, which alludes to a far more momentous sin, the betrayal of Christ: “But woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
17. Inger heard that a ballad had been written about her. The production of the ballad during Inger’s lifetime solidifies the chain of communication between earth and the nether regions. Despite the fact that the two realms are segregated, those above are aware of the misery of those in hell, and those below are aware of the judgments being passed on earth.
18. “such a little thing?” The one small step that leads to seemingly eternal punishment is of course not an isolated instance. Inger’s pride and vanity are to blame, yet it becomes clear that the misstep is what counts when it comes to her damnation.
19. Inger’s heart became even harder than her shell-like form. Impermeable, hard, rigid, stony, icy surfaces embody for Andersen the quintessence of sin. The hollowness of her body and the hardness of her heart turn Inger into an emblem of human degradation. Much like Kai in “The Snow Queen,” Inger becomes completely isolated in a region that is affiliated with petrifaction and loss of feeling.
20. Her story was being told to an innocent child. This child, unlike the others, manages to feel empathy. She becomes a model for Inger in her humility and embodies the wisdom of Matthew 18:3–4: “Truly I say unto you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (The ending of “The Snow Queen” also takes up the theme of becoming like children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.)
21. “Do not forsake me in this final hour!” Note the allusion to Psalms 71:9: “Do not cast me away when I am old; / Do not forsake me when my strength is gone”; and to Psalms 38:21: “Do not forsake me, oh Lord / Oh my God, be not far from me”; and finally to Psalms 27:10, which is relevant to Inger’s plight: “When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.”
22. more powerful than the sunbeams that melt the snowmen that boys build outdoors. Sunbeams, rays of light, and flashes of lightning are all contrasted to stone, ice, and snow. In this story, as in “The Snow Queen,” light, warmth, and fluidity are associated with salvation while gloom, cold, and petrifaction become the attributes of damnation.
23. A tiny bird soared like forked lightning up toward the world of humans. The mute bird, like the ugly duckling, must wait patiently for its transfiguration. But for salvation it must also perform good deeds—it cannot simply suffer silently as the ugly duckling does.
24. it had no voice. The bird’s voice returns with the performance of good deeds and adds to the beauty of nature. Like the little mermaid and Elisa in “The Wild Swans,” the bird is unable to express its true feelings and must suffer in silence.
25. How much love and splendor there was in all created things! Andersen’s description of sights, sounds, and aromas is a reminder of the degree to which he valued natural beauty and the splendors of earthly life.
26. like the psalms that resonated in David’s heart before they took shape in words and music. Inger’s story contains many allusions to the Psalms, and it is not surprising that David is invoked at last to emphasize language’s capacity to capture the richness of emotional life.
27. The holy feast of Christmas was nigh. It is in the season of Christ’s birth that Inger finds salvation. Note that the farmer’s good deed plays a role in lifting the burden of muteness from the bird, and that Inger in her avian form is enabled to perform good deeds by the farmer’s generosity.
28. The idea of a good deed had awakened. For Lutherans, it is by faith alone (sola fide) and by grace alone (sola gratia) that salvation is possible. In Luther’s doctrine of redemption, good works and merit are important, but they are no guarantee for redemption and are undertaken simply for their moral value.
29. so many crumbs that they equaled in weight the loaf. The requirement to reconstitute the loaf seems almost perverse in its fetishizing of “our daily bread.” Inger’s failure to value her daily bread, along with her obligation to recreate it by assembling crumbs, suggests that the loaf is charged with deep symbolic significance as God’s gift to man.
30. the bird’s gray wings turned white and spread out. The transformation from gray to white repeats what happened to the ugly duckling, who turns from a blackgray hue to white.
31. the children cried out when they saw the white bird. As in “The Ugly Duckling,” children are the first to take note of an avian creature that is striking because of its whiteness. “The Emperor’s New Clothes” also ends with a child calling the attention of adults to another shock effect, this time of nakedness rather than of beauty.
32. They say that it flew straight into the sun. The sun, invariably associated with warmth and with salvation, signals Inger’s redemption.
