Religious motifs : Overview. Search. About religious motifs
See also Hymn book, hymnal
Keywords:
Song, church
Psalms are religious songs. A remarkable example of the motif in the fairy tales and stories of Hans Christian Andersen is At the Uttermost Parts of the Sea. The title is a quote from psalm 139 of the bible's book of Psalms, a psalm by David.
Example :
Now the melodies of his first ball were playing, for the minuet and molinasky – soft melancholy tunes that brought tears to the old man's eyes. A roaring war-march, then a psalm, then happy tunes. The years whirled past as if they were those bubbles he blew when he was a little boy.
His eyes were turned towards the window. A cloud billowed across the sky, and as it passed he saw the comet with its shining nucleus and its shining, misty veil. It seemed to him as though it were only yesterday evening when he had last seen that comet, yet a whole busy lifetime lay between that evening and this. Then he was a child, looking through bubbles into the future; now those bright bubbles were all behind him. Once more he had a child's outlook and a child's faith. His eyes sparkled, and his hands struck the keys. There was the sound of a breaking string.
"Come out and see," cried his neighbors. "The comet is here, and the sky is clear. Come out and look!"
The old schoolmaster did not answer. He had gone where he could see more clearly. His soul was on a journey far greater than the comet's, and the realm to which it went was far more spacious than that in which the comet moved.
Again the comet was seen from the high castle and from the lowly hut. The crowd in the street gazed up at it, and so did the man who went his solitary way across the pathless heath. But the schoolmaster's soul was seen by God, and by those dear ones who had gone before him, and whom he longed to see.