Religious motifs : Overview. Search. About religious motifs

See also Funeral, Graveyard

Keywords:

Death, graveyard, cross

Description of this motif: Graves are a place for melancholy, sorrow and memories, and so it is in Andersen's tales, for example in the "The Old Tombstone". The emphasis is on memories of the dead, even when oblivion prevails, as in the mercyless story "The Wind Tells about Valdemar Daae and His Daughters":

The stork had given her shelter to the day of her death. I sang at her funeral," said the Wind, "as I had sung at her father's; I know where his grave is, and her grave, but no one else knows.

Now there are new times, changed times. The old highway is lost in the fields, old cemeteries have been made into new roads, and soon the steam engine, with its row of cars, will come to rush over the forgotten graves of unknown ancestors. Whew, whew, whew! On, on!

Example :

But even in this sleep he had a dream or something like that (...)

Now he sprang quickly out of bed and read his geography book, and at once he knew the whole lesson!

And the old washerwoman put her head in the door and nodded good morning to him.

"Many thinks (NB! = thanks) for your help yesterday, dear child," she said. "May the Lord make all your dreams come true!"

Little Tuck didn't know anything that he had dreamed, but you see-our Lord knew it!

Comment on this quote: As a reward for his good deed, helping the old washerwoman, she comes to little Tuck in his dream, helps him with his homework and predicts him a bright future.