Snail Stories by H. C. Andersen

The Happy Family
-The Snail and the Rose-Tree
 

The Happy Family

By H. C. Andersen 1848

The largest green leaf in this country definitely is the butterbur; placed in front of ones little tummy, it's like a whole apron, and if one put it on the head, in the rainy weather, it’s almost as good as an umbrella, because it is so terribly large. The butterbur never grows alone, no, where one grows, there grows more, it is a great beauty, and all this beauty is snails feed.

The great white snails, which noble people in the old days, have made into fricassees, ate, and said "hum! how it tastes!" for somehow they thought now, it tasted so wonderful, they lived on the leaf of the butterbur, and that’s why the butterbur was planted.

Now there was an old manor house, where they no longer ate snails, they were completely extinct, but the butterbur was not extinct, these grew and grew all over the walks and flower beds, one could no longer overcome them, it was a whole butterbur forest,here and there stood an

 apple- and a plum tree, otherwise one could never have imagined that it was a garden. Everything was butterbur, and in there lived the last two surviving ancient snails.

They did not know how old they were, but they could still remember that they had been many more, that they were of one family from foreign countries, and that for them the whole forest was planted. They had never been outside, but they knew there was still something in the world, which was called the manor house, and up there one was boiled, and then one became black and then one was laid on a silver plate, but what happened then, they did not know.

Moreover, how it was to be boiled and placed on a silver dish, they could not imagine, but it should be nice and extremely elegant. Neither cockchafers, toad or earthworm, which they asked, whom they asked, could inform them, none of them had been boiled or laid on silver dish.

The old white snails they knew they were the most noble in the world, the forest was for their sake, and the manor house was, that they might be boiled and laid on silver plate.

They now lived very lonely and happy, and when they had no children, they had adopted a little common snail, which they brought up as their own, but the little would not grow, for he was common; but the old, especially ma, ma-snails, she might note, however, how he grew, and she asked the dad if he could not see it, he would feel the little snail shell, and so he felt, and found that ma was right.

One day it was heavy rain.

"Look where the drum-rum-rums on the butterbur ," said the snailfather.

"There are also drops," said snailmother. "It’s streaming down the stem! You will see here will be wet! I am glad we have our good house and the little one has his! There is certainly done more for us than for all other creatures, one can see that we are lords in the world! We have a house from birth and butterbur forest is planted for our sake -! I'd like to know how far it extends, and what is outside!"

"There is nothing outside," said the snailfather. "Better than with us can there be nowhere, and I have nothing to desire!"

"Yes," said mother, "I should like to go into the manor house, be boiled and laid on a silver plate, so did all our ancestors, and you may believe there is something odd about it!"

"The manor house may have collapsed!" said snailfather, "or the butterbur forest has grown over it so that people can not get out. It need not be expedited, but you always hurry so terrible and it starts with the little one; hasn’t he for three days crept up along the stem, I get headaches when I look at him!"

"Do not scold" said snailmother, "he creeps so sedate, he will probably bring us joy, and we old folk have nothing else to live for! But have you thought about it: where do we get a wife for him. Do you not believe that long away inside the butterbur forest there is some of our species? "

"Black snails, I now think, there is enough of," said the old man, "black snails without house, but it is so simple and they are conceited, but we can give the commission to ants, they run back and forth, as if they had something to do, they know of a wife for our little snail! "

"I know certainly the most beautiful," said one of the ants, "but I'm afraid she’ll not do, she is queen!"

"It does not matter," said the old ones "Has she a house?"
"She has a palace," said the ant, "the most beautiful ant palace with seven hundred tunnels."
"Thanks," said snailmother, "our son is not going into an anthill! know no better, then we give the commission to the white mosquitoes, they fly about in rain and sunshine, they know the butterbur forest inside out."

"We have a wife for him," said the mosquitoes, "hundreds of human steps away sits on a gooseberry bush a little snail with a house, it's quite lonely and old enough to marry. It is only a hundred human steps!"

"Yes, let her come to him," said the old, "he has a butterbur forest, she has only a bush!" And then they brought the little snail lady. It lasted eight days before she came, but there was just that nice about it, so you could see she was the spice.

And then they had wedding. Six glow-worms shone as well as they could, otherwise it all went quiet, the old snail people could not bear feasting and merriment; but a nice speech was held by snailmother, dad could not, he was so moved and so they gave them as inheritance the whole butterbur forest, and said what they had always said, that it was the best in the world, and when they lived honestly and decently, and they breed themself, they would

The Church at Glorups Castle
 

 someday, and their children, come to the manor house, be boiled black, and put on silver plate.

And after the speech was held, the old snails climbed into their houses, and never again came out; they slept. The young snail couple reigned in the forest and had a numerous progeny, but they were never boiled, and they never came on silver plate, so they deduced, the manor house had collapsed and that all people in the world were extinct, and since no one gainsaid them, so it was indeed true, and the rain beat on the leaf to make drum music for their sake, and the sun shone to give the butterbur forest colour for their sake, and they were very happy, and the whole family was happy, for so was it.

Translated by Vivian Hvenegaard 2010

The Snail and the Rose-Tree

By H. C. Andersen 1862

Around the garden ran a hedge of hazelnut-bushes, and beyond were fields and meadows with cows and sheep, but in the midst of the garden stood a blooming rose-hedge, under it sat a snail, it had much inside, it had itself.

"Wait till my time comes!" it said, "I shall do more than grow roses, but to bear nuts, or give milk, as cows and sheep!"

"I expect a great deal from it," said the rose-hedge. "Dare I ask, when will it come?"

"I take my time," said the snail. "You're such a hurry! That does not excite expectations!"

Next year the snail laid in almost the same spot in the sunshine under the rose tree, which was budding and bearing roses, always fresh, always new. And the snail crept half out, stretched out feelers, and draw them back again.

"Everything looks like last year! there is no progress; the rose-tree sticks to its roses and gets no farther!"

The summer passed, the autumn passed, the rose-tree still had flowers and buds till the snow fell, the weather became raw and wet, the rost-tree bent toward the ground, the snail crept into the ground.

Now began a new year, and the roses came out, and snail came out.

"Now you're an old rose-stick," it said. "You may haste and die. You have given the world everything you had in you, whether it meant anything, is a question I have not had time to think about, but it's obvious, you have not done the least for your inner development; otherwise something else would have emerged from you. Can you defend it? You will now soon be nothing but stick! Do you understand what I'm saying? "

"You frighten me!," said the rose-hedge. "I have never thought of that!"

"No, presumably you have never done much thinking! have you ever given yourself an account why you bloomed, and how your blooming comes about, and how it happened to flourish. How, and no other?"
"No," said the rose-hedge. "I bloom in joy, because I could not do otherwise. The sun was so hot, the air so refreshing, I drank the clear dew and the heavy rain; I breathed!, I lived! From the ground arose a force within me, there came a force from above, I felt a happiness, always new, always great, and therefore I always had to flourish, it was my life, I could do nothing else!"

"You have led a very easy life," said the snail.

"For certain! Everything was given to me, "said the rose-hedge," but still more was given you! You are one of those deep-thinking natures, one of the gifted, which will astonish the world!"

"I have absolutely no intention of doing that," said the snail. "The world does not concern me! what have I to do with the world? I have enough to do with myself and enough in myself!"

"But should not we all here on earth give our best part to the others! bring what we could-! yes, I have only given roses! - but you? You, who got so much, what did you give the world? What will you give it? "

"What I gave? What I give? I spit at it! it's no good! It does not concern me. Bear your roses; you can drive it no further! Let the hazel bush bear nuts! let cows and sheep give milk, they each have their audience, I have my in myself! I go into myself and there I’ll stay. The world does not concern me!"

And so the snail went into his house and puttied it.

"It's so sad," said the rose tree. "I can with the best will not creep in, I must always come out, come out in roses. The leaves fall off, they fly in the wind! However, one of the roses I saw go in the housewife’s hymn-book, one of my roses was placed by a young, beautiful girl's chest and another was kissed by a child's mouth in blessed joy. That did me good, it was a real blessing. Those are my recollection, my life!"

And the rose tree flowered in innocence, and the snail lay idling in his house, the world was nothing to him.

And years went by.

The snail was soil into the ground, rose tree was soil into the ground; also the commemorative rose in the hymn-book, ha weathered - but in garden new rose-hedges were blooming, the the garden grew new snails; they crept into their house, spat - the world did not concern them.

Should we read the story all over again? - It is no different.
Translated by Vivian Hvenegaard 2010