Scandinavian literature summaries - 2023

Short summary - The Ugly Duckling
Hans Christian Andersen

The duck has hatched ducklings. One of them was late, and outwardly failed. The old duck scared her mother that it was a turkey, but it swam better than the rest of the ducklings. All the inhabitants of the poultry yard attacked the ugly duckling, even the poultry house repelled it from the feed. At first, the mother stood up, but then she also took up arms against the ugly son. Once the duckling could not stand it and ran into the swamp, where wild geese lived, the acquaintance with which ended sadly: although two young ganders offered to be friends with the wonderful duckling, they were immediately killed by hunters (a hunting dog ran past the duckling - “apparently, I’m so ugly that Even the dog hates to eat me!”). At night, he reached the hut in which the old woman, the cat and the chicken lived. The woman took him in, blindly mistaking him for a fat duck, but the cat and the chicken, who considered themselves the better half of the world, poisoned the new roommate, because he did not know how to lay eggs and purr. When the duckling wanted to swim, the chicken declared that it was all from stupidity, and the freak went to live on the lake, where everyone still laughed at him. One day he saw swans and fell in love with them as he had never loved anyone.

In winter, the duckling froze in the ice; the peasant brought it home, warmed it up, but out of fright, the chick misbehaved and ran away. All winter he sat in the reeds. In the spring I took off and saw swans swimming. The duckling decided to surrender to the will of beautiful birds - and saw his own reflection: he also became a swan! And according to the children and the swans themselves - the most beautiful and youngest. He did not even dream of this happiness when he was an ugly duckling.