Danish historian finds unknown Andersen fairy tale

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

 

Associated Press/POLFOTO, Martin Bubandt - A newly found manuscript of a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen which has been located in Odense, pictured in the State Archives in Copenhagen, Denmark Wednesday, …more Dec. 12, 2012. The story of ‘The Tallow Candle’ might have been written about 1823, when he was 18 year old.

 

A Danish historian believes he has discovered an unknown fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen.

A retired historian, Esben Brage found a six-page text in October in the National Archives in boxes of wealthy families from Andersen's home-town of Odense in central Denmark.

 

The handwritten tale, entitled "Tallow Candle," and dedicated to a vicar's widow named Bunkeflod who had lived opposite Andersen's home, left untouched at the bottom of one of the boxes.

The short story tells the tale of a tallow candle that sought the help of a tinder box to ignite itself.

 

A senior curator at the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense said the work is likely one of the author's earliest, written seven years before his official debut in 1830.

Askgaard said Andersen knew the Bunkeflod widow well and regularly visited her, reading to her and borrowing her books.

Born to a charwoman and a shoemaker in 1805, Andersen wrote nearly 160 fairy tales in his life including classics like "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid." He has also written dozens of novels, poems and travel journals