In olden days, when grandfather was just a little boy and wore red trousers, a red jacket, a sash around his waist, and a feather in his cap – for that’s the way little boys dressed in his childhood when they wore their best clothes – so many things were different from nowadays.
I adore this opening. The artist who read the tale was male, and his voice was mature, a bit husky and very kind, like a real grandpa’s voice. It so happened that I had never had a grandfather telling me fairy tales, so the record-player was my imaginary grandpa on this occasion. And so the Grandpa was telling me that he had come to a big town, and
that first night he came to the big town, the weather was worse than any we ever have read about in the papers, a storm such as there had never been within man’s memory. All the air was full of roof tiles; old wooden fences were blown over; a wheelbarrow even ran for its life by itself along the street. The wind howled in the air; it whistled and it shook everything. It was indeed a terrible storm. The water in the canal ran over the banks, not knowing where it belonged. The storm swept over the town, carrying the chimneys with it; more than one old, proud church tower bent and has never been quite straight since.
Above all, the storm shifted the signboards. My favourite ‘shift’ has always been this one:
The sign “Establishment for Higher Education” was moved to the pool hall, and the Establishment itself received a board inscribed, “Babies Brought up Here by the Bottle.”
I really like this Andersen’s tale, because he is better known for his beautiful, romantic and sometimes forlorn stories, like The Wild Swans, The Swineherd, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Little Mermaid, etc. In The Storm Shifts the Signboards Andersen reveals his talent of a satirist, which in turn makes one appreciate his literary talent differently, not simply that of a composer of all those beautiful fairy tales, but as a witty, subtle and versatile author.
Getting back to our weather changes, Andersen tells us that there had never been such a storm again in his Grandpa’s time, or much later. But, I feel, if those winds continue blowing (and we are told, they will), we might very well see another signboard reshuffle.
Links:
Hans Christian Andersen, The Storm Shifts the Signboards (English translation by Jean Hersholt)
Stormen flytter Skilt (Fascimile and text in Danish)
Der Sturm zieht mit den Shieldern um (German translation)
La tempestad cambia los rotulos (Spanish translation)
Unfortunately, it seems that the French translation (L’Orage déplace les enseignes) by Regis Boyer is only available from print: Andersen, H. C., Les Oeuvres (Paris, Gallimard, 1992). Italian translation (La tempesta sposta le insegne) by Kirsten Bech is in: Andersen, H. C., Fiabe (Roma, 1994).
