1 Once upon a time there was a poor boy who lived in Denmark. His father, a shoemaker,
had died, and his mother had married again.
2 One day the boy went to ask a favor of the Prince of Denmark. When the Prince asked
him what he wanted, the boy said,"I want to write plays in poetry and to act at the Royal
Theater." The Prince looked the boy, at his big hands and feet, at his big nose and large
serious eyes, and gave a sensible answer. It is one thing to act in plays, another to
write them. I tell you this for your own good; learn a useful trade like shoemaking."
3 So the boy, who was not sensible at all, went home. There he took what little money
he had, said goodbye to his mother and his stepfather and stared out to seek his fortune.
He was sure that some day the name Hans Christian Andersen would be known all over
Denmark.
4 To believe such a story one would have to believe in fairy tales! Hans Christian
knew many such tales. He had heard some of them from his father, who had worked hard
at his trade, but liked to read better than to make shoes. In the evenings, he had read
aloud from The Arabian Nights. His wife understood very little of the book, but the boy,
pretending to sleep. understood every word.
5 By day, Hans Christian went to a house where old women worked as weavers. There
he listened to the tales that the women told as they worked at their weaving. In those
days, there were almost as many tales in Denmark as there were people to tell them.
6 Among the tales told in the town of Odense, where Andersen was born in 1805,
was one about a fairy who brought death to those who danced with her. To this tale, Hans
Christian later added a story from his own life.
7 Once, when his father was still alive, a young lady ordered a pair of red shoes.
When she refused to pay for them, unhappiness filled the poor shoemaker's house. From
that small traged and the story of the dancing fairy, the shoemaker's son years later
wrote the story that millions of people now know as The Red Shoes. The genius of Andersen
is that he put so much of everyday life into the wonder of his fairy tales.