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023 - The Great Sea-Serpent · Fairytales and Short Stories by Hans Christian Andersen

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Speaker 1: Section twenty three of Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and
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Speaker 1: Short Stories, Volume six. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
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Speaker 1: April Walters. Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales and Short Stories,
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Speaker 1: Volume six, eighteen sixty six to eighteen seventy three by
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Speaker 1: Hans Christian Andersen, translated by H. P. Paul The Great
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Speaker 1: Sea Serpent. There was a little fish, a saltwater fish
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Speaker 1: of good family. I don't recall the name. You will
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Speaker 1: have to get that from the learned people. This little
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Speaker 1: fish had eighteen hundred brothers and sisters, all just as
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Speaker 1: old as he. They did not know their father and mother,
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Speaker 1: and were obliged to look out for themselves at the
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Speaker 1: very beginning and swim round. But that was great sport.
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Speaker 1: They had water enough to drink the entire ocean. They
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Speaker 1: thought nothing about their food. It came when, and they
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Speaker 1: wanted it. Each did as it pleased. Each was to
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Speaker 1: make out its own story. I rather, none of them
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Speaker 1: thought at all about that. The sun shone down on
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Speaker 1: the water. That was light about them. So clear was it.
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Speaker 1: It was a world with the strangest creatures, and some
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Speaker 1: very horrid and big, with eight gaping mouths that could
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Speaker 1: gulp down all the eighteen hundred brothers and sisters. But
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Speaker 1: neither did they think of that, for none of them
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Speaker 1: as yet had been swallowed. The small one swam side
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Speaker 1: by side, close together as herrings and mackerel swim. But
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Speaker 1: as they were swimming their prettiest in the water and
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Speaker 1: thinking of nothing, there sank, with a prodigious noise from above,
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Speaker 1: right down through them, a long, heavy thing that looked
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Speaker 1: as if it would never come to an end. It
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Speaker 1: stretched out farther and farther, and every one of the
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Speaker 1: little fishes that scampered off was either crushed or got
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Speaker 1: a crack that it could not stand. All the little
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Speaker 1: fishes and the great ones with them, from the level
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Speaker 1: of the sea to the bottom, were thrown into a panic.
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Speaker 1: The great horrid thing sank deeper and deeper, and grew
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Speaker 1: longer and longer, miles and miles long. The fishes and snails,
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Speaker 1: everything that swims or creeps or was driven by the current,
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Speaker 1: saw this fearful thing, this enormous incomprehensible sea eel which
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Speaker 1: had come down upon them in this fashion. What was
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Speaker 1: the thing anyway, ah, we know it was the great
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Speaker 1: interminable telegraphed cable that people were laying between Europe and America.
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Speaker 1: There was a confusion and commotion amongst all the rightful
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Speaker 1: occupants of the sea where the cable was laid. The
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Speaker 1: flying fishes shot up above the surface as high as
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Speaker 1: they could, fling themselves. The blowfish took a leap and
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Speaker 1: entire gunshot in length over the water, for it can
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Speaker 1: do that. The other fish made for the bottom of
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Speaker 1: the sea and went down with such haste that they
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Speaker 1: reached it long before the telegraph was seen or known about.
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Speaker 1: Down there, they poured in on the cod and flounders
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Speaker 1: that looked peaceably at the bottom of the sea, and
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Speaker 1: ate their neighbors. One or two of the sea and
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Speaker 1: enemies were so agitated that they threw up their stomachs,
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Speaker 1: but they lived on after just the same, for if
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Speaker 1: they can do that, a good many lobsters and crabs
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Speaker 1: got out of their excellent shells and were obliged to
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Speaker 1: wait for their bones to grow back again. In all
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Speaker 1: this frightened confusion, the eighteen hundred brethren and sisters became
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Speaker 1: separated and never again met or even knew each other.
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Speaker 1: After that, only some ten of them remained still in
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Speaker 1: the same place, And so in a few hours they
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Speaker 1: got over the first fright and began to be curious
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Speaker 1: about the affair. They looked about them. They looked up,
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Speaker 1: and they looked down, and down in the depths, they
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Speaker 1: fancied they saw the fearful thing that had scared them, Yes,
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Speaker 1: had scared all great and small, lying on the bottom
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Speaker 1: of the sea as far as their eyes could reach.
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Speaker 1: It was quite thin, but they did not know how
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Speaker 1: thick it might be able to make itself, or how
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Speaker 1: strong it was. It lay very quiet, but then that
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Speaker 1: might be part of its cunning. They thought, let it lie.
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Speaker 1: It does not come near us, said the most cautious
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Speaker 1: of the little fishes, But the smallest one of all
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Speaker 1: would not give up trying to find out what the
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Speaker 1: thing could be. It had come down from above, so
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Speaker 1: it's up above that one could best find out about it.
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Speaker 1: So they swam up to the surface. It was perfectly still.
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Speaker 1: They met a dolphin there. The dolphin is a sprightly
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Speaker 1: fellow that can turn summer salts on the water, and
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Speaker 1: at his eyes to see with So it must have
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Speaker 1: seen this and known all about it, they asked him,
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Speaker 1: But he had only been thinking about himself and his summersaults.
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Speaker 1: He'd seen nothing, had no answer for them, and only
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Speaker 1: looked high and mighty. Then they turned to the seal,
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Speaker 1: which was just plunging in. It was more civil for
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Speaker 1: all that had eat small fish, But to day it
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Speaker 1: had had enough. It knew a little more than the dolphin.
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Speaker 1: Many a night have I lain upon a wet stone
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Speaker 1: and looked far into the country, miles away from here.
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Speaker 1: That are crafty creatures, called in their speech men folk.
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Speaker 1: They plod against us, but usually we slip away from them.
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Speaker 1: That I know well. And the sea eel too, that
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Speaker 1: you're asking about. He knows it. He has been under
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Speaker 1: their sway up there on the earth time not of mind.
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Speaker 1: And it was from there that they were carrying him
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Speaker 1: off on a ship to a distant land. I saw
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Speaker 1: what a trouble they had, but they could manage him,
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Speaker 1: because he had become weak on the earth. They laid
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Speaker 1: him in coils and circles. I heard how he wringled
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Speaker 1: and wrangled when they laid him down, And when he
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Speaker 1: slipped away from them out there, they held on to
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Speaker 1: him with all their might. Ever so many hands had
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Speaker 1: hold of him, but he kept slipping away from them,
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Speaker 1: down to the bottom. There he is lying now till
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Speaker 1: further notice. I rather think he is quite thin, said
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Speaker 1: the small fishes. They have starved him, said the seal.
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Speaker 1: But he'll soon come to himself and get his old
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Speaker 1: size and corpulence again. I suppose he is the great
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Speaker 1: sea serpent that men are so afraid of and talk
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Speaker 1: so much about. I never saw him before, and never
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Speaker 1: believed in a sea serpent. Now I do. I believe
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Speaker 1: he is a sea serpent. And with that down went
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Speaker 1: the seal. How much he knew how he talked, said
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Speaker 1: the small fishes. I never was so wise before. If
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Speaker 1: it only isn't all an untruth, We can anyway swim
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Speaker 1: down and see for ourselves, said the littlest fish. On
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Speaker 1: the way, we can hear what the others think about it.
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Speaker 1: I wouldn't make a stroke with my fins to get
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Speaker 1: at something to know, said the others, and turned away.
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Speaker 1: But I would, said the littlest fellow, and put off
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Speaker 1: down into deep water. But it was a good distance
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Speaker 1: from the place where the long thing that sank lay.
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Speaker 1: The little fish looked and hunted on all sides down
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Speaker 1: in the deep water. Never before had it imagined the
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Speaker 1: world to be so big. The herrings went in great shoals,
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Speaker 1: shining like a mighty ribbon of silver. The mackerel followed after,
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Speaker 1: and looked even finer. There were fishes there of all
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Speaker 1: fashions and marked with every possible color, jellyfish like half
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Speaker 1: transparent flowers borne along by the currants. Great plants grew
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Speaker 1: up from the floor of the ocean, grass fathoms, long,
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Speaker 1: and palm like trees, every leaf tenanted by shining shellfish.
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Speaker 1: At last, the little fish spied a long, dark streak
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Speaker 1: away down, and made his way toward it. But it
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Speaker 1: was neither fish nor cable. It was the gunwale of
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Speaker 1: a sunken vessel, which above and below the deck was
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Speaker 1: broken in two by the force of the sea. The
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Speaker 1: little fish swam into the cabin, where the people who
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Speaker 1: perished when the vessel sank were all washed away except
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Speaker 1: two a young woman lying there stretched out with her
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Speaker 1: little child in her arms. They seemed to be sleeping.
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Speaker 1: The little fish was quite frightened, for it did not
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Speaker 1: know that they could never again waken. Seaweed hung like
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Speaker 1: a network of foliage over the gunwale, above the two
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Speaker 1: beautiful bodies of mother and babe. It was so quiet,
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Speaker 1: so solitary. The little fish scampered away as fast as
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Speaker 1: it could. Outward. The water was bright and clear, and
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Speaker 1: there were fishes to see. It had not gone far
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Speaker 1: before it met a whale. Fearfully big. Don't swallow me,
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Speaker 1: cried the little fish. I'm not even to be tasted.
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Speaker 1: I am so small, and it's a great comfort for
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Speaker 1: me to live. What are you doing away down here
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Speaker 1: where your kind never comb, asked the whale. So then
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Speaker 1: the little fish told about the astonishingly long eel or
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Speaker 1: whatever the thing was that had sunk down from above
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Speaker 1: and produced such a panic amongst all the other creatures
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Speaker 1: in the sea. Ho ho, said the whale, And he
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Speaker 1: drew in such a rush of water he was ready
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Speaker 1: to make a prodigious spout when he came to the
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Speaker 1: surface for a breath. Ho ho. So that was the
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Speaker 1: thing that tickled me on the back. When I was
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Speaker 1: turning round. I thought it was a ship's mast that
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Speaker 1: I could break up into clothes pins. But it was
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Speaker 1: not here that it was, nor a good deal farther
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Speaker 1: out lies a thing. I'll go with you and look
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Speaker 1: for it, for I have nothing else to do. And
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Speaker 1: so it swam off, and the little fish behind it
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Speaker 1: not too near, because there was a tearing stream. As
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Speaker 1: it were, in the wake of the whale, they met
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Speaker 1: a shark and an old sawfish. They too had heard
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Speaker 1: of the famous sea eel, so long and so thin.
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Speaker 1: They had not seen it, but now they would. I'll
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Speaker 1: go with you, said the shark. It was on the
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Speaker 1: same road. If the great sea serpent is no thicker
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Speaker 1: than a cable, then I can bite through it in
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Speaker 1: one bite. And he opened his mouth and showed his
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Speaker 1: six rows of teeth. I can bite dents in a
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Speaker 1: ship's anchor, and certainly can bite off the shank. There
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Speaker 1: it is, said the great whale. I see him, he
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Speaker 1: thought he saw better than the others. See how it rises,
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Speaker 1: how it bends and bows and curves. But it was
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Speaker 1: not a sea serpent, but an extraordinarily great eel, ever
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Speaker 1: so many ells long, that grew nearer. Why I've seen
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Speaker 1: him before, said the sawfish. He has never made a
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Speaker 1: hulla ballow in the sea or frightened any big fish
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Speaker 1: out of his wits. And so they talked to him
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Speaker 1: of the new eel, and asked if he would go
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Speaker 1: with them on their voyage of discovery. If that eel
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Speaker 1: is longer than I am, said the sea eel, there
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Speaker 1: will be something disagreeable happening. Aye, that there will, said
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Speaker 1: the others. But there are enough of us not to
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Speaker 1: tolerate him. And so they shot ahead. But then there
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Speaker 1: came right in their way a great monster, bigger than
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Speaker 1: all of them put together. It looked like a floating
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Speaker 1: island that could not stop itself. It was a venerable whale.
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Speaker 1: Its head was grown over with seaweed, its back covered
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Speaker 1: with barnacles, and such innumerable oysters and mussels that its
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Speaker 1: black skinned was altogether whitened. Come with us, old fellow,
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Speaker 1: said they. Here's a new fish, come, and we won't
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Speaker 1: stand it. I would rather lie where I am lying,
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Speaker 1: said the whale. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Oh
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Speaker 1: ha oh, I suffer from their dreadful disease. My only
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Speaker 1: relief is to get up toward the surface and get
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Speaker 1: my back up higher. Then the great sea fowl can
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Speaker 1: come and pick at me. That feels so good. Only
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Speaker 1: when they do not drive their beaks in too far.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes they go in too deep, quite into my blubber.
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Speaker 1: You can see now how a complete each skeleton of
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Speaker 1: a fowl is fixed on my back. She struck her
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Speaker 1: claws in too deep and could not get them out
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Speaker 1: when I went down to the bottom. And now the
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Speaker 1: little fishes have quicked at her. See how she looks,
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Speaker 1: and how I look. I am all diseased. That is
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Speaker 1: all imagination, said the shark. I am never sick, No
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Speaker 1: fish is ever sick. Pardon me, said the whale. The
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Speaker 1: eel suffers from headache, the carp has the smallpox, and
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Speaker 1: we all have intestinal worms. Nonsense, said the shark, and
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Speaker 1: refuse to hear any up further. And the others would
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Speaker 1: also rather not. They had something else to attend to.
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Speaker 1: At last they came to the place where the telegraph
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Speaker 1: cable lay. It has a pretty long bed on the
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Speaker 1: floor of the sea, from Europe to America, over sand
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Speaker 1: banks and sea mud, rocky ground and weedy places, entire
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Speaker 1: forests of coral. The currants down there too, change whirlpools
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Speaker 1: eddy and fishes swarm in greater masses than the countless
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Speaker 1: flocks of birds that men see when birds of passage
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Speaker 1: take their flight. There's a stir, a splashing, there, a
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Speaker 1: humming and rushing. The rushing still haunts a little the
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Speaker 1: great empty conch shells. When we hold them to our ears,
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Speaker 1: there lies the fellow, cried all the great fishes, and
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Speaker 1: the little one with them. They saw the cable, the
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Speaker 1: beginning and end of which vanished beyond the reach of
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Speaker 1: their eyes. Sponges and polyps swayed from the ground, rose
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Speaker 1: and fell over it, so that now it was hidden.
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Speaker 1: Now came to view. Sea porcupines, snails, and worms moved
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Speaker 1: over it. Gigantic crabs that had a complete fringe of
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Speaker 1: creeping things stalked about it. Dark sea, and enemies or
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Speaker 1: whatever the creature is called that eats with its entire
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Speaker 1: body lay beside it and smelt of the new creature
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Speaker 1: that had stretched itself on the bottom of the sea.
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Speaker 1: Flounders and codfish turned over in the water so as
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Speaker 1: to get an idea about it from all sides. The
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Speaker 1: starfish that always boors down into the mud and can
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Speaker 1: keep its eyes outside, lay and stared to see what
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Speaker 1: was to come of all this bustle. The telegraph cable
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Speaker 1: lay without stirring, But life and thought were in it.
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Speaker 1: Human thought went through it. The thing is crafty, said
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Speaker 1: the whale. It is able to strike me in the stomach,
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Speaker 1: and that is my weak point. Let us grope along,
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Speaker 1: said the polyps. I have long arms and limber fingers.
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Speaker 1: I have been moving by the side of it. Now
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Speaker 1: I'll go a little faster. And so it stretched its
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Speaker 1: most flexible, longest arms down the cable and around it.
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Speaker 1: It has no scales, said the polyps. It has no
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Speaker 1: skin at all. I do believe it never feeds its
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Speaker 1: own young. The sea eel laid itself by the side
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Speaker 1: of the telegraph cable and stretched out as far as
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Speaker 1: it could. The thing is longer than I am, it said,
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Speaker 1: But it is not length it does anything. One must
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Speaker 1: have skin, stomach, and flexibility. The whale moved down deeper
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Speaker 1: than it had ever been. Art thou fish, where art
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Speaker 1: thou plant? It asked? Or art thou only some piece
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Speaker 1: of work made up above that cannot thrive down here
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Speaker 1: amongst us? The telegraph cable did not answer. It has
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Speaker 1: no power for that. Yet thoughts go through it, men's
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Speaker 1: thoughts that rush in one second miles upon miles from land.
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Speaker 1: To land. Will you answer, or will you take a crack?
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Speaker 1: Asked the fierce shark, and all the other great fishes
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Speaker 1: ask the same thing. The cable did not stir, but
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Speaker 1: it had its private thought, and such a one it
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Speaker 1: had a right to have. When it was full of thoughts.
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Speaker 1: Let them only give me a crack. Then I shall
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Speaker 1: be hauled up and be myself again. That has happened
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Speaker 1: to others of my race in shallower waters. So it
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Speaker 1: gave no answer. It had something else to attend to.
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Speaker 1: It telegraphed and lay in its lawful place at the
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Speaker 1: bottom of the ocean. Up above. The sun now went down,
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Speaker 1: as men say, it became like flaming fire, and all
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Speaker 1: the clouds glowed with fiery color, each more splendid than
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Speaker 1: the other. Now we shall get the red light, said
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Speaker 1: the polyps, and can see the thing better if need
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Speaker 1: be at it. At it, shouted the shark, At it,
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Speaker 1: At it, said the swordfish, and the whale and the eel.
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Speaker 1: They rushed forward, the shark foremost. But just as it
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Speaker 1: was about to grip the wire, the swordfish, out of
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Speaker 1: pure politeness, were in his saw right into the back
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Speaker 1: of the shark. It was a great mistake, and the
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Speaker 1: shark lost all its strength for biting. There was a
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Speaker 1: hubbub down in the mud. Great fishes and small sea
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Speaker 1: and enemies and snails rushed at one another, ate each other,
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Speaker 1: mashed and squeezed in the cable, lay quietly and attended
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Speaker 1: to its affairs, and that one ought to do. The
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Speaker 1: dark knife brooded over them, But the oceans, millions upon
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Speaker 1: millions of living creatures lighted it. Crawlfish not so big
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Speaker 1: as a pinhead gave out light. Some were so small
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Speaker 1: that it took a thousand to make one pin head.
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Speaker 1: Yet they gave light. Certainly is wonderful, but that's the
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Speaker 1: way it is. These sea creatures looked at the telegraph wire.
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Speaker 1: What is that thing? They asked? And what isn't it? Ah?
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Speaker 1: That was the question. Then there came an old sea cow.
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Speaker 1: Folks on the earth call its kind a mermaid, or
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Speaker 1: also more man. This was a She had a tail
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Speaker 1: and two short arms to splash, with hanging breasts, and
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Speaker 1: seaweed and sponges on her head. And that was what
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Speaker 1: she was proud of. Will you have the society of
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Speaker 1: intelligent people? Said she, I am the only one down
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Speaker 1: here that can give it, but I ask in return
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Speaker 1: for a perfectly secure pasturage on the bottom of the
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Speaker 1: sea for me and mine. I am a fish, as
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Speaker 1: you see, and I am also an amphibious animal with practice.
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Speaker 1: I am the wisest cow in the sea. I know
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Speaker 1: about everything that goes on down here, and all that
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Speaker 1: goes on above. The thing that you were pond removers
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Speaker 1: from above, and whatever plum stown from up there. It's
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Speaker 1: either dead or comes to be dead and powerless. Let
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Speaker 1: it lie there for what it is. It's only some
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Speaker 1: invention of man. Now, I think there is something more
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Speaker 1: to it, said the little fish. Oh, dear tongue mackerel,
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Speaker 1: said the great sea cow stickle back, said the rest,
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Speaker 1: And that was even more insulting. And the sea cow
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Speaker 1: explained to them that this terrible thing, which to be sure,
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Speaker 1: had not given out a single mutter, was only some
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Speaker 1: invention from the dry land, and it delivered a little
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Speaker 1: oration on the rottenness of men. They want to get
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Speaker 1: a hold of us, said she. That's all they live for.
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Speaker 1: They stretched nets for us and come with bait on
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Speaker 1: a hook to catch us. That stupid thing. There is
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Speaker 1: some kind of big string which they think we are
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Speaker 1: going to bite at. They are such stupid we are
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Speaker 1: not only do not touch it, and it will shrivel
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Speaker 1: up and all turn to dust and mud. Everything that
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Speaker 1: comes down from up there is full of cracks and brakes,
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Speaker 1: and is good for nothing. Good for nothing, said all
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Speaker 1: the creatures in the sea, and held fast to the
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Speaker 1: sea cow's opinion. So as to have an opinion, the
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Speaker 1: little fish had its own thoughts. That exceedingly long, thin
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Speaker 1: serpent is perhaps the most wonderful fish in the ocean.
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Speaker 1: I have a feeling it is the very most wonderful,
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Speaker 1: say we human folks, and say it with knowledge and assurance.
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Speaker 1: It is the great sea serpent, long ago the theme
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Speaker 1: of song and story. It was borne and nourished and
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Speaker 1: sprang forth from men's cunning, and was laid upon the
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Speaker 1: bottom of the sea, stretching from the eastern to the
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Speaker 1: western land, bearing messages quick as light flashes to our earth.
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Speaker 1: It grows in might and in length, grows year by
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Speaker 1: year through all seas round the world, beneath the stormy
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Speaker 1: waves and the lucid waters, where the skipper looks down
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Speaker 1: as if he sailed through transparent air, and sees a
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Speaker 1: swimming fish brilliant fireworks of color. Down, far down stretches
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Speaker 1: the surf midguard snake that bites its own tail as
19:03
Speaker 1: it encircles the earth. Fish and shell beat upon it
19:06
Speaker 1: with their heads. They understand not the thing. It is
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Speaker 1: from above, men's thoughts in all language course through it noiselessly,
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Speaker 1: the serpent of science, for good and evil, Midguard's snake,
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Speaker 1: the most wonderful of all the ocean's wonders, Our great
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Speaker 1: Sea serpent, and of the great Sea Serpent. Section twenty three,
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Speaker 1: recording by April Walters,