A DAY TO CELEBRATE

Once upon a time, there was an ugly duckling, shunned by farm and woodland animals alike, and even by humans. All of them said he was ugly because he didn't look like the other ducklings: he was larger than life, gray with a black beak and black feet, and he even honked instead of quacking.
In those days, "different" was a dangerous word. So he was referred to as "ugly", which sounds even more offensive. But the duckling didn't lose confidence, and he carried on in spite of all the privations that the thorny path of life could endure.
There was once a crippled soldier who fell in love with a lovely ballerina. He was a military man, and she was a performer, star-crossed lovers as different as day and night. Yet Cupid is blindfolded. And though she was betrothed to another, and her fiancé employed all tricks he could, both young lovers were finally reunited and consumed by the flames of the same passion.
There was an unusually clever princess (in fact, she had read all the newspapers in the world), who couldn't become queen without a betrothal. She wanted her king to be young and dashing, but neither shallow nor greedy. Suitors from far and near frequented her court, but they were so impressed by her wealth and/or her beauty that they became tongue-tied in the throne room, and thus, they were sent away to where they came from. Until, on the third evening, a modest youth in knee-length boots, with a knapsack on his back, marched dauntlessly into the royal palace, saluting the guards and winking at the valets. He hadn't come for her love or for her wealth, but for her wit alone... and he was as pleased with her as she was with him.
There was also a pretty maiden born within a flower, who was wooed by a frog in spring, a beetle in summer, and a mole during the cold seasons, until she found a bridegroom and sanctuary in a southern garden, with her own fairy kin.
And there was a historian who travelled back in time to the Dark Ages, and an alchemist's daughter who boarded a ship in the guise of a boy, and a ruby-eyed artificial nightingale which could only play the same waltz again and again.
And all of them were the children of the ugly duckling, who never had children of the flesh, but sired countless of them in spirit.
Today, 2014, is World Children's Literature Day, commemorating the birthday of that Northern swan than never forgot he had been an ugly duckling: Hans Christian Andersen!