The Snow Queen

"The Snow Queen" (Danish: Snedronningen) is an original fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The tale was first published 21 December 1844 in New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Second Collection. 1845. (Danish: Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samling. 1845.)^[1] The story centres on the struggle between good and evil as experienced by Gerda and her friend, Kai.

The story is one of Andersen's longest and most highly acclaimed stories. It is regularly included in selected tales and collections of his work and is frequently reprinted in illustrated storybook editions for children.

Narrative division

"The Snow Queen" is a tale told in seven 'stories' (Danish: Historier):

1. About the Mirror and Its Pieces
2. A Little Boy and a Little Girl
3. The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Knew Magic
4. The Prince and the Princess
5. The Little Robber Girl
6. The Lapp Woman and the Finn Woman
7. What Happened at the Snow Queen's Palace and What Happened Afterwards

Story

Vilhelm Pedersen illustration.

The devil, in the form of an evil troll^[2], has made a magic mirror that distorts the appearance of everything that it reflects. The magic mirror fails to reflect the good and beautiful aspects of people and things, and magnifies their bad and ugly aspects. The devil, who is headmaster at a troll school, takes the mirror and his pupils throughout the world, delighting in using it to distort everyone and everything; the mirror makes the loveliest landscapes look like "boiled spinach." They attempt to carry the mirror into heaven in order to make fools of the angels and of God, but the higher they lift it, the more the mirror shakes with laughter, and it slips from their grasp and falls back to earth, shattering into billions of pieces, some no larger than a grain of sand.

These splinters are blown by the wind all over the Earth and get into people's hearts and eyes, freezing their hearts like blocks of ice and making their eyes like the troll-mirror itself, seeing only the bad and ugly in people and things. There was only one way to get it out.

Vilhelm Pedersen illustration

Years later, a little boy Kai and a little girl Gerda live next door to each other in the garrets of buildings with adjoining roofs in a large city. One could get from one's home to the other's just by stepping over the gutters of each building. The two families grow vegetables and roses in window boxes placed on the gutters. Gerda and Kai have a window-box garden to play in, and they become devoted to each other as playmates, and as close as if they were siblings.

Kai's grandmother tells the children about the Snow Queen, who is ruler over the "snow bees" — snowflakes that look like bees. As bees have a queen, so do the snow bees, and she is seen where the snowflakes cluster the most. Looking out of his frosted window one winter, Kai sees the Snow Queen, who beckons him to come with her. Kai draws back in fear from the window.

By the following spring, Gerda has learned a song that she sings to Kai: Roses flower in the vale; there we hear Child Jesus' tale! Because roses adorn the window box garden, the sight of roses always reminds Gerda of her love for Kai.

On a pleasant summer day, splinters of the troll-mirror get into Kai's heart and eyes while he and Gerda are looking at a picture book in their window-box garden. Kai becomes cruel and aggressive. He destroys their window-box garden, he makes fun of his grandmother, and he no longer cares about Gerda, since all of them now appear bad and ugly to him. The only beautiful and perfect things to him now are the tiny snowflakes that he sees through a magnifying glass.

The following winter, Kai goes out with his sled to play in the snowy market square and — as was the custom — hitches it to a curious white sleigh carriage, driven by the Snow Queen, who appears as a woman in a white fur-coat. Outside the city she reveals herself to Kai and kisses him twice: once to numb him from the cold, and a second time to make him forget about Gerda and his family; a third kiss would kill him. She takes Kai in her sleigh to her palace. The people of the city conclude that Kai died in the nearby river. Gerda, heartbroken, goes out to look for him and questions everyone and everything about Kai's whereabouts. She offers her new red shoes to the river in exchange for Kai; by not taking the gift at first, the river lets her know that Kai did not drown. Gerda next visits an old sorceress with a beautiful garden of eternal summer. The sorceress wants Gerda to stay with her forever, so she causes Gerda to forget all about Kai, and causes all the roses in her garden to sink beneath the earth, since she knows that the sight of them will remind Gerda of her friend. However, a while later, whilst playing in the garden, Gerda sees a rose on the sorceress's hat, then remembers Kai and begins to cry. Gerda's warm tears raise one bush above the ground, and it tells her that it could see all the dead while it was under the earth, and Kai is not among them. Gerda flees and meets a crow, who tells her that Kai is in the princess's palace. Gerda goes to the palace and meets the princess and the prince, who is not Kai, but looks like him. Gerda tells them her story, and they provide her with warm clothes and a beautiful coach. While traveling in the coach Gerda is captured by robbers and brought to their castle, where she befriends a little robber girl, whose pet doves tell her that they saw Kai when he was carried away by the Snow Queen in the direction of Lapland. The captive reindeer Bae tells her that he knows how to get to Lapland since it is his home.

Vilhelm Pedersen illustration

The robber girl frees Gerda and the reindeer to travel north to the Snow Queen's palace. They make two stops: first at the Lapp woman's home and then at the Finn woman's home. The Finn woman tells the reindeer that the secret of Gerda's unique power to save Kai is in her sweet and innocent child's heart:

Vilhelm Pedersen illustration

When Gerda reaches the Snow Queen's palace, she is halted by the snowflakes guarding it. She prays the Lord's Prayer, which causes her breath to take the shape of angels, who resist the snowflakes and allow Gerda to enter the palace. Gerda finds Kai alone and almost immobile on a frozen lake, which the Snow Queen calls the "Mirror of Reason", on which her throne sits. Kai is engaged in the task that the Snow Queen gave him: he must use pieces of ice like a Chinese puzzle to form characters and words. If he is able to form the word the Snow Queen told him to spell she will release him from her power and give him a pair of skates. Gerda runs up to Kai and kisses him, and he is saved by the power of her love: Gerda weeps warm tears on him, melting his heart and burning away the troll-mirror splinter in it. As a result, Kai bursts into tears (which dislodge the splinter from his eye) and becomes cheerful and healthy again with sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, and also recognizes Gerda. He and Gerda dance around on the lake of ice so joyously that the splinters of ice Kai had been playing with are caught up into the dance. When they tire of dancing they fall down to spell "eternity," the very word Kai was trying to spell. Even if the Snow Queen were to return (although it is never said from where), she would be obliged to free Kai. Kai and Gerda then leave the Snow Queen's domain with the help of the reindeer, the Finn woman, and the Lapp woman. They meet the robber girl, and from there they walk back to their home, "the big city."

Kai and Gerda find that everything at home is the same and that it is they who have changed; they are now grown up, and are also delighted to see that it is summertime.

At the end, the grandmother reads a passage from the Bible:

"Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

Characters

• Gerda (English: /ˈɡɜːrdə/), the protagonist of this tale, who succeeds in finding her friend Kai and saving him from the Snow Queen.
• Kai (English: /ˈkaɪ/; Kaj), a little boy who lives in a large city, in the garret of a building across the street from the home of Gerda, his playmate, whom he loves dearly. He falls victim to the splinters of the troll-mirror and the blandishments of the Snow Queen.
• The Snow Queen (Snedronningen), queen of the snowflakes or "snow bees", who travels throughout the world with the snow. Her palace and gardens are in the lands of permafrost, specifically Spitsbergen. She takes Kai back to this palace after he has fallen victim to the splinters of the troll-mirror. She promises to free Kai if he can spell "eternity" with the pieces of ice in her palace.
• The Troll (Trolden) or the Devil (Djævlen), who makes an evil mirror that distorts reality and later shatters to infect people with its splinters that distort sight and freeze hearts. Some English translations of "The Snow Queen" translate this character as the "sprite" or the "hobgoblin".
• The Grandmother (Bedstemoderen), Kai's grandmother, who tells him and Gerda the legend of the Snow Queen. Some of Grandmother's actions are essential points of the story.
• The Old Lady who Knew Magic (den gamle Kone der kunne Trolddom), who maintains a cottage on the river, with a garden that is permanently in summer. She seeks to keep Gerda with her, but Gerda's thought of roses (the flower most favored by herself and Kai) awakens her from the old woman's enchantment.
• The Crow (Kragen), who thinks that the new prince of his land is Kai.
• The Tame Crow (den tamme Krage), who is the mate of the field crow and has the run of the princess's palace. She lets Gerda into the royal bedchamber in her search for Kai.
• The Princess (Prinsessen), who desires a prince-consort as intelligent as she, and who finds Gerda in her palace. She helps Gerda in her search for Kai by giving her warm, rich clothing, servants, and a golden coach.
• The Prince (Prinsen), formerly a poor young man, who comes to the palace and passes the test set by the princess to become prince.
• The Old Robber Woman (den gamle Røverkælling), the only woman among the robbers who capture Gerda as she travels through their region in a golden coach.
• The Little Robber Girl (den lille Røverpige), daughter of the robber hag. She takes Gerda as a playmate, whereupon her captive doves and reindeer Bae tell Gerda that Kai is with the Snow Queen. The Robber Girl then helps Gerda continue her journey to find Kai.
• Bae (English: /ˈbeɪ/; Bæ), the reindeer who carries Gerda to the Snow Queen's palace.
• The Lappish Woman (Lappekonen), who provides shelter to Gerda and Bae, and writes a message on a dried cod fish to the Finnish Woman further on the way to the Snow Queen's gardens.
• The Finnish Woman (Finnekonen), who lives just two miles away from the Snow Queen's gardens and palace. She knows the secret of Gerda's power to save Kai.

Jenny Lind

Andersen met Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind in 1840, and fell in love with her, but she was not interested in him romantically (although the two became friends). According to Carole Rosen, Andersen was inspired to model the icy-hearted Snow Queen on Lind after she rejected him as a suitor.^[4]

Media adaptations

Film and television

• Snezhnaya koroleva (1957), a Soviet animated film by film studio Soyuzmultfilm and directed by Lev Atamanov, later dubbed by Universal Studios with the voices of Sandra Dee as Gerda, Tommy Kirk as Kay and introduced by Art Linkletter.^[5] In the 1990s, the film was redubbed again, this time featuring the voices of Kathleen Turner, Mickey Rooney, Kirsten Dunst and Laura San Giacomo.^[6]
• Snezhnaya koroleva (1966), a live-action adaptation from the Soviet Union, directed by Gennadi Kazansky.^[7]
• The Snow Queen (1976), a live-action/animated production released through BBC Enterprises (before restructured as BBC Worldwide), produced by Ian Keill and directed by Andrew Gosling.^[8][9]
• A 1985 episode of Faerie Tale Theatre starring Melissa Gilbert as Gerda and Lee Remick as the Snow Queen.^[10]
• Tayna snezhnoy korolevy (The Secret of the Snow Queen) (1986), another live-action adaptation from the Soviet Union, featuring Alisa Freindlich as the Snow Queen.^[11]
• Lumikuningatar (1986), a Finnish live-action adaptation.^[12]
• The Snow Queen (1992), an American animated short, narrated by Sigourney Weaver.^[13]
• The Snow Queen (1995), a British animated adaptation, directed by Martin Gates and featuring the voices of Helen Mirren (as the title character), David Jason, Hugh Laurie, Rik Mayall, and Imelda Staunton.^[14] This adaptation deviates significantly from the original fairy tale. A sequel, titled The Snow Queen's Revenge, was released the following year.^[15]
• Snedronningen (2000), a Danish live-action adaptation, directed by Jacob Jørgensen and Kristof Kuncewicz.^[16]
• Snow Queen (2002), a television movie by Hallmark, directed by David Wu and starring Bridget Fonda, Jeremy Guilbaut, Chelsea Hobbs, Robert Wisden, and Wanda Cannon.^[17]
• The Snow Queen (2005), a BBC television adaptation utilising state of the art effects, merging live-action and computer-generated art.^[18] Featuring songs by Paul K. Joyce and starring Juliet Stevenson and the voice of Patrick Stewart, the film was adapted from an 2003 operatic concert held at the Barbican Arts Centre.^[19]
• Snow Queen (2005 Animated Short Film) on the Danish Anthology series The Fairytaler.
• The Snow Queen (雪の女王) (2005–2006), a Japanese anime series, produced by NHK and animated by TMS Entertainment.
• Marko Raat's Lumekuninganna (2010) takes story to contemporary time and motivates character inspired by Kai with love towards older dying woman.
• Koscherfilm^[20] has been working on its own adaptation^[21] of The Snow Queen^[22] based on the children's book Gerda and Kai-The Snow Queen Book.^[23] Richard Koscher announced^[24] the script still looks for the right studio and it was released on Christmas 2012.
• Russian studio Wizart Animation, production studio Bazelevs Company, and film company Inlay Film have produced a CG-animated feature film adaptation, titled The Snow Queen, which was released theatrically in Russia on 31 December 2012, internationally on 3 January 2013, and was released in U.S. theaters on 11 October 2013 and U.S. DVD on 26 November 2013.^[25][26]
  • Two sequels were also released: The Snow Queen 2: The Snow King, and The Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice.

Video games

• A text adventure, The Snow Queen, was released by Mosaic Publishing for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 home computers in 1985.

Operas

• An opera The Snow Queen was written in 1913 by Slovenian composer Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, but it was lost and never performed.
• The opera La Regina dell Nevi was written in 2010 by Italian composer Pierangelo Valtinoni (Libretto by Paolo Madron) and premiered at the Komische Oper Berlin on October 24, 2010. ^[27] The opera has since been translated into English, German, Spanish and Swedish and has been performed in numerous countries.
• A family opera "Snödrottningen" in one act with prologue and 13 scenes is composed during 2013-2016 by Swedish composer Benjamin Staern (Libretto by Anelia Kadieva Jonsson) to be premiered at the Malmö Opera on December 17, 2016.

Stage plays and musicals

The story has been adapted into numerous stage plays and musicals, notably including:

• In 1969 Josef Weinberger produced "The Snow Queen", a Musical Play in Two Acts. Based on the story by Hans Andersen, Book and Lyrics by Winifred Palmer, Musical Score adapted by King Palmer from the Music of Edward Grieg. The author altered Hans Andersens' hero 'Kay' to 'Karl'.^[28]
• A rock musical adaptation entitled "The Snow Queen: A New Musical".^[29] was produced by San Jose Repertory Theatre in December 2013,^[30] with music by Haddon Kime, book by Rick Lombardo and Kirsten Brandt, and lyrics by Kime, Brandt, and Lombardo. This adaptation received positive reviews.^[31] after also being produced at the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival.^[32]
• A new adaptation written by Preston Lane that uses Appalachian culture to tell the story premiered at Triad Stage in 2013.^[33]
• Another adaptation of "The Snow Queen" made its world premiere at the Hippodrome State Theatre in Gainesville, FL in November 2015. This adaptation was written and directed by Charlie Mitchell, with original songs by Mitchell and Brian Mercer.

Dance productions

• The first full-length ballet production of The Snow Queen was choreographed and produced by Aerin Holt and California Contemporary Ballet in December 1998 with an original score by Randall Michael Tobin.^[34]
• An Off-Broadway dance theater adaptation of The Snow Queen was choreographed and produced by Angela Jones and Noel MacDuffie in 1999 with an original score by John LaSala. The soundtrack was released as an album on TownHall Records in 2000.^[35]
• On 11 October 2007, the English National Ballet premiered a three-act version of The Snow Queen, choreographed by Michael Corder with a score drawn from the music of Sergei Prokofiev's The Stone Flower, arranged by Julian Philips.^[36]
• On 23 November 2012, the Finnish National Ballet premiered a two-act version of The Snow Queen, choreographed by Kenneth Greve, music by Tuomas Kantelinen.^[37][38]
• On 22 March 2016, the Grand Theatre, Poznań premiered a two-act version of The Snow Queen, directed by Anna Niedźwiedź, music by Gabriel Kaczmarek.^[39]

Inspired works

• The Snow Queen by Evgeny Shvarts (1937): A play by the famous Soviet author loosely based on Andersen's tale, with the introduction of new characters such as the Councillor of Commerce, dealing with ice and therefore close ally of the Snow Queen.
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950): It is possible that the White Witch from C. S. Lewis's novel may be based on the Snow Queen, as she turned Narnia into a snow-covered land, is also depicted as wearing a white fur coat and first appears riding in a sleigh, and kidnapped a boy.^[40]'
• The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge (1980): A science fiction novel loosely based on Andersen's tale.
• The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey (2008): book four of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, set in a fantasy world where fairy tales happen over and over in a never-ending cycle. The Snow Queen is a harsh persona adopted by a benevolent sorceress also known as the Ice Fairy to ensure that the kingdoms under her care get their happy endings. Andersen's tale is featured as a subplot within the novel, which tells an original story.
• In the comic book Fables, the Snow Queen and Kai appear as minor characters.
• "The Cryomancer's Daughter (Murder Ballad No. 3)" by Caitlín R. Kiernan is a retelling of The Snow Queen.
• "The Player" (1992): Directed by Robert Altman, written by Michael Tolkin. Several traits of Greta Scachi's character, June Gudmundsdotir, seem to be references to The Snow Queen story.
• "The Snow Queen's Shadow", by Jim C. Hines (2011), part of his Princess Series. Snow White is transformed into the Snow Queen when a spell goes wrong and her magic mirror shatters.
• Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu is a children's book set in modern times that is heavily inspired by the plot of "The Snow Queen."
• French artist Stéphane Blanquet illustrated a version of the Snow Queen published in France in 2010 by Gallimard Jeunesse (ISBN 9782070641154)^[41]
• Frozen, an animated film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released in 2013, is inspired by The Snow Queen. A film adaptation of the original tale had been in development since the late 1930s when Walt Disney took an interest in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. The protagonists of Kai and Gerda were rewritten as Queen Elsa of Arendelle and her younger sister Princess Anna, respectively. Elsa also took some elements of the original fairy tale's Snow Queen, such as having the ability to produce ice from her bare hands, but while the character from the original fairy tale was neutral and, to some degree, villainous, Elsa is depicted as a main character.
  • Characters created for Frozen subsequently appeared in the television series Once Upon a Time, which airs on the ABC network. A related character original to that series named Ingrid (played by Elizabeth Mitchell) is referred to as "the Snow Queen" and is depicted as Elsa and Anna's aunt. Her storyline involved the use of a cursed mirror (similar to the troll mirror in the Andersen story). In the show, the name of Elsa and Anna's mother is Gerda, which is the name of the main female heroine from the original fairy tale.
• Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxleen is a children's book set in modern times featuring the Snow Queen and other elements from the fairy tale.^[42]
• The webcomic Demon's Mirror is a retelling of The Snow Queen.
• Sailor Moon S: The Movie (1994) The second movie of the popular anime series Sailor Moon has the Sailor Senshi dealing with a powerful Snow Princess who intends to freeze the entire Earth and make it her possession. The final season of the series Sailor Stars, also heavily borrows from the story for its opening arc; Queen Nehelenia breaks a mirror and the shards of it fall to the earth. One of the fragments get into Mamoru's eye making him cold and distant. When Nehelenia takes him to a palace in the arctic, Sailor Moon must travel there to rescue him.
• The Snow Queen (雪の女王) (2005–2006), a Japanese anime series, produced by NHK and animated by TMS Entertainment.
• Marko Raat's Lumekuninganna (2010) moves the story to contemporary times and gives the character inspired by Kai the motivation of love towards an older, dying woman.
• A 2000 episode of Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, featuring Eartha Kitt as the voice of the Snow Queen in an Inuit setting.^[43]
• The Ever After High animated movie, Epic Winter (2016) uses elements of the story.
• The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016), a prequel and sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman, is based on characters from the German fairy tale "Snow White" compiled by the Brothers Grimm as well as "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen.
• In December, 2011, Blue Tea Games and Big Fish Games released Rise of the Snow Queen, the 3rd instalment of their Dark Parables media franchise. The storyline features elements from the Brothers Grimm's "Snow White" and Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen".
• The video game Revelations: Persona and its PSP remake made by Atlus, one of the paths the main story can take features the protagonist's school transform into an ice castle. It is ruled by the Snow Queen's mask, who takes over the mind of the protagonist's homeroom teacher. To progress through to story, the player must collect mirror shards to repair a mirror to use against the will of the mask.

References

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Snow Queen

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Snow Queen.

• The Snow Queen at the Hans Christian Andersen website
• SurLaLune's Annotated The Snow Queen
• Free audiobook from LibriVox
• SnowQueenBallet.com
• The Snow Queen: A New Musical
• The Snow Queen public domain audiobook at LibriVox