The Healing Warmth of Innocence and Love

Whenever I had a babysitter with me at bedtime, which wasn't nearly as often as I would've liked, I pulled my hardback collection of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales off the shelf. Then I begged her to read "The Snow Queen" to me.

It was a special treat because Mom and Dad didn't like to read it. I think it was too long for them. But it was one of my favorite stories.

I guess the babysitter thought she didn't have a choice, since she was getting paid to go through the nighttime routine with me. And I took full advantage of that fact. Every time I begged, the sitter read this story to me, and I snuggled in under the covers with a smile on my face.

The demon mirror

My very favorite part of this story was the beginning, with that crazy old hobgoblin and his magic mirror. This mirror made anything bad look worse and anything good look insignificant.

One day, some demons decided to take the mirror up to heaven to see what the angels looked like through it. The mirror fell to the earth and shattered into millions of pieces.

Some fragments struck people in the eye, some in the heart, and some fragments turned into actual windows. Imagine how horrifying everything must have looked like through those!

Mirror fragments that struck the eye caused distortion of vision, while fragments in the heart led to it being frozen. People with frozen hearts turned cold and cruel.

This fascinated my little child's mind, which was still close enough to innocence to have a hard time understanding how someone's heart could freeze.

Now, as an adult, I understand. I've experienced the demon mirror fragments in my own heart on occasion.

The happy friendship ... until it wasn't

Against this backdrop, we see the heartwarming friendship of Kay (rhymes with "rye," not "ray") and Gerda. They're so close, they're almost like brother and sister. And their love for each other is strong.

At least until the Snow Queen appears at Kay's window one day, and later fragments of the demon mirror are blown into his eye and heart when he is outside playing with Gerda. Gradually, Kay gets more and more critical of everything. When Gerda shows him a rose she picked, he points out the worm eating the rose and refuses to acknowledge the rose's beauty.

He is rude to her grandmother and mean to Gerda. And the first opportunity she gets, the Snow Queen catches Kay alone and lures him into her sleigh, where she warms him with kisses. Her kisses make him forget all about Gerda and her grandmother, and the Snow Queen takes him to her palace, where she keeps him barely alive.

The quest to save Kay

No one knows what has happened to Kay, and everyone just sort of gives up on him. They figure he must have run away and drowned in the river.

Only Gerda insists on trying to do something to bring Kay back. She throws her red shoes, her favorite thing in the world, into the river as a sacrificial offering. She hopes that the shoes will be a suitable exchange for Kay's life.

The shoes drift back to her, so Gerda thinks she hasn't thrown them in deep enough. She gets in a boat and heads farther out into the river, but she goes too far. The current carries the boat out into the water, and she is carried downstream to an old woman's house, where Gerda's journey almost ends but really begins.

The old woman is a lonely old witch who tries to keep Gerda with her by telling her Kay will soon be visiting. As time passes, with no sign of Kay, Gerda starts to forget all about him and her quest.

Until she goes out to the witch's garden one day and talks to the flowers. They can't tell her much about where Kay is, but when her tears bring up a rosebush she discovers where he isn't. He is not lying in the ground among the dead, so he must still be among the living.

Then Gerda meets a raven who tells her he thinks he has seen Kay. But she is greatly discouraged to find that it is not Kay at all, but a prince who is married to a princess. They are kind rulers who give Gerda a carriage to ride in.

Unfortunately, the carriage is attacked by robbers, but Gerda befriends the robber girl who decides to help her as well. The girl's pets, some pigeons and reindeer, tell Gerda they saw Kay with the Snow Queen. They tell her they must now be in Lapland, where the Snow Queen has her summer home.

Gerda sets off to Lapland with the reindeer, only to find that the Snow Queen is now in Finland. There, they encounter a wise woman who tells Gerda that all the strength she will need to rescue Kay and defeat the Snow Queen comes from her love and innocence. This power has led so many people and animals to help Gerda up to this point, and it will see her through to a successful conclusion to her mission.

The rescue and return

As Gerda approaches the Snow Queen's palace, she says The Lord's Prayer. Interestingly, Kay had tried to pray this prayer earlier while under the control of the Snow Queen, but he couldn't get the words out.

Gerda's words turn to angels that defeat the queen's guard, so she's safely able to enter the palace. The Snow Queen has taken off to wreak havoc in warmer climates, so Kay is all by himself.

When he ignores Gerda, she cries. Her tears fall on his chest and melt his icy heart.

He recognizes her then and cries too. Then the shard of demon glass falls from his eye.

The two escape and return home. Although they are much older, they have regained that sense of childlike innocence they once had.

Andersen ends his story with a quote from the Bible: "...unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3, NIV).

What I want my children to learn from "The Snow Queen"

There are several things I love about this story and hope to impress upon my children.

First, you won't find any damsel in distress in this story, unless you count Kay. But I don't think we can really refer to him as a "damsel." This story is full of strong women - the protagonist, antagonist, and most of the helpers.

As the mother of two girls, I love this so much. It sends the message that they can be as strong and capable as any boy. Maybe even more so.

Second, as a basically friendless child, I understood the power of Kay and Gerda's friendship, and I wanted something like that for myself. At that time, however, I didn't understand that a good friendship is something you have to cultivate.

It doesn't just happen. You have to work on it and sometimes even fight for it, but it's so worth it. I want my children to learn that.

Finally, in the words of the wise woman from Finland, there is strength in love and innocence. The Bible puts it this way, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7, ESV). And "love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8, ESV).

Love keeps you believing, hoping, and going, no matter what. Love can warm the coldest heart and heal the biggest hurt. It can help you trade your cynicism and doubt for wonder and joyful expectancy.

I never want my girls to lose sight of that.

For all its faults, the world is still a beautiful place, as long as you're not looking at it through demon glass shards stuck in your eyes.