NO CAMINAS EN SOLEDAD

 Du går inte ensam

Carl Johan Love Almqvist, 1849

Om bland tusen stjärnor

någon enda ser på dig,

tro på den stjärnans mening,

tro hennes ögas glans. Du går icke ensam.

Stjärnan har tusen vänner;

alla på dig de skåda,

skåda för hennes skull.

Lycklig du är och säll.

Himlen dig har i kväll.

———————————————————————-

YOU DON’T WALK ALONE

Translated directly from the Swedish by Sandra Dermark

Gothenburg, 21st of August 2015

Exordio signi Virginis

If, among a thousand stars,

only one looks at you,

believe in the meaning of that star,

believe in the gleam in her eyes. You don’t walk alone.

The star has got a thousand friends;

all of them are watching you,

watch for her sake.

You’re happy in the star-light.

The sky has got you tonight.

**********************************************************

NO CAMINAS EN SOLEDAD

Traducción directa del sueco de Sandra Dermark

Castellón de la Plana, 26 de mayo de 2022

Si, de entre mil estrellas,

una única te mira,

cree en el sentido de esa estrella,

cree en el brillo de su ojo. NO CAMINAS EN SOLEDAD.

La estrella tiene mil amigas,

todas te están observando:

observa por ella.

Eres feliz y sin reproche.

El cielo te tiene esta noche.

THUS SAUNTER WE SO GRADUALLY: BELLMAN'S DANSE MACABRE

 THUS SAUNTER WE SO GRADUALLY: BELLMAN'S DANSE MACABRE

The following essay is a translation by Yours Truly of both the song and its analysis by Carl Fehrman. -

In 1787, the year the author's second-born Elias Bellman died, the latest edition released of Fredman's Songs added the lyrics where once more the symbolic worlds of hourglass and drinking glass collide; ie the grand Fredman's Song number 21. In an afterthought on hourglasses and drinking glasses, these lyrics must of course be the core text.

The psychological complexity of the Bellman characters, that often and rightfully has been questioned, is at least in this case consequent. Here he is the usual philosopher of wines and vanities:

Thus saunter we so gradually

from revels loud and bountiful,

when Death comes calling: "Come to me, 
thy hourglass is full!"

You, elder, lower your bâton, 
and you, young man, my law partake:
The fairest nymph who smiles at you on
in your arms you shall take!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire,

why not take a draught of liquid fire?

Then another, a third, make it four, make it five...

and you'll feel more alive!

The original title itself is "Mealtime Song." Sondén has added a subtitle like those of the Bellman Epistles: "During the feast, in which the author places Death before the eyes of the guests." In image after image, the lyrics present the stark contrast between the revels loud and bountiful of life and the deep darkness of the grave. Death comes calling: "Come to me, thy hourglass is full!" In older vanitas literature it has often been said that one's "hourglass has run out," and Bellman had used this crystallized fixed expression both before and after Song 21, both as narrator and having his characters utter it. In Song 21, "Thus Saunter We So Gradually," the words are not said, however, by any mortal person, but by Death. The Reaper himself, gaze fixed on the lower half of the hourglass, is the one to give the verdict, maybe with an ironic innuendo-thought that the narrator himself had generally preferred full glasses to empty ones.

"Thus Saunter We So Gradually" holds a unique place not only in Bellman's production, but also in literary genre history. It is Bellman's Dionysian take on the ancient death-dance or danse macabre motif. The medieval visual and literary convention of Death meeting people of diverse ages and ranks was still alive in the printed penny dreadfuls of the eighteenth century, during whose second half two different danses macabres were released in penny dreadful format in Swedish. The first one is a translation from the Danish (intermediate translation) of the originally German Natanael Schlott's modernised version of the traditional lyrics to the classic Lübecker Totentanz. It was released in Swedish, with a title that translates to Conversations Between Death and People of Diverse Ranks, in between 1760 and 1850. The second, released in between 1777 and 1858, was translated directly from the Danish; known from its publisher and illustrator as the Borup Death-Dance, its much longer official title being The Vanity of Human Life, or Conversations Between Death and People of All Ranks. In the last of these two penny dreadfuls, a whole little booklet with 38 woodcuts, the old parade of ranks has been expanded and diversified, adapted to eighteenth-century Scandinavian society. But the Reaper is still skeletal in black hood, and has not changed his ways the least since the days of the Black Death. He bows low before the queen and kisses her hand, he plays the cello for the music teacher, he defeats the fencing teacher in a swordfight with rapiers, he takes all the money from the innkeeper, and so forth, until he snatches the crutches from the old beggar.

The hourglass is a commonplace emblem in this danse macabre: the Reaper holds it often in his right hand to his victim, whenever his hands are not already busy.

Bellman must have known the danse macabre in one or another of its eighteenth-century iterations; it was also frequently depicted on coffins at the close of the century, in serially produced printings from the renowned Lundström printing press of Jönköping. In previous lyrics, Bellman had already directly represented the death-dance scenario when, in his musical world, he made Death strike a tune:

Around all what you see, where'er you take a glance,

the Reaper's silently ambushed to play a tune, to dance.

But Bellman's own grand variation on the danse macabre, "Thus Saunter We So Gradually," is more than a pale echo of these lines. It is a Dionysian paraphrase of an originally religious and moral motif. You may go the extra mile and say that Bellman, that great master of literary and musical parody, has written a travesty of a danse macabre. Memento mori, look at the time on the hourglass, was and is the message both ostensible and latent of traditional danse macabre. Memento bibere, memento vivere, carpe diem, let me the canakin clink, is the content of the Bellman-style death-dance. Fredman's Song 21 is more than just a parade of vanities; it is also an elegant mealtime song, which ends in a charming skål for the hostess.

How does Bellman do when he translates the danse macabre parade into his Dionysian lyrics, and which characters does he present in the stanzas in quick cavalcade? Right from the start, he has left the conversational-dramatic pattern of the real danse macabre genre, where Death shows up before each and every person with the command to follow, and gives the living a chance to reply. Bellman's lyrics are however more of a soliloquy, and the speaker, at least in the first stanza, partially also in the others, is supposed to be the Reaper himself, who in an old-fashioned way comes calling: "Come to me!" However, the singer who performed this roll-call or dramatis-personae song in real life was the author, C.M. Bellman. This complicated metafictional situation lets, as the lyrics unfurl, to add glissandos into each and every stanza.

In turn, the narrator turns to each and every of the different representatives of professions or character types, as if that person were literally present in the room. This gives the poem dramatic concretion. But one should pay heed to the fact that Bellman not only adds people from the catalogues of ranks of the medieval or Rococo danses macabres, but also a list of more actual character types. After the elder, the young man, and the nymph, who represent the ages of life (old age, youth, and midlife at least), the ones who come the closest are the Dionysian votary (the lush) and thereafter the braggart with his chest full of medals:

You, th'one with apple-ruddy cheeks

and tricorn hat cocked to the side,

soon your procession dressed in black

is forward seen to stride!

And you, who speak of poppycocks,

with medals rife your overcoat...

I hear carpenters make your box

and rattle in your throat!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire... etc.

The ruddy face is one of the emblematic attributes in the Bellman world. The gentleman in the cocked hat in Song 21 is best understood as the innkeeper or restaurant owner himself. Right after him, Bellman names the great braggart, actualized in the theatre of that decade, the bombastic noble-blooded courtier or politician; Bellman is not as ordered in the list of ranks as the authors of real danse macabre. But his skill for concretion is admirable: he presents impending death in vivid symbolic images, ie the funeral procession and the carpenters making the coffin.

More of the stock character types of eighteenth-century theatrical comedy does Bellman replace the old parade of ranks with in his own character gallery. We have already mentioned the bombastic braggart; well, the lazy people-hater is another. And, by the side of the people-hater full of laziness, we find another actual type of the inflationary Gustavian Stockholm, the decadent aristocrat:

And you, who, chanting titles' clank,

deck your bâton with gold each year,

which barely gets, for all your rank,

a shilling for your bier!

And you, who, cowardly and irate,

curse the cradle that once you held,

yet, at the glass's second half, they relate,

each day by strong drink felled!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

It is a fresh and elegant move made by Bellman to renew the old cast of characters in the danse macabre, which had partially lost its staying power in the society of his days, by adding the character types of comedic drama and satire. For him and for his era, these character types were as living as the personality type schemes (Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, the zodiac...) of our days. Boileau in his fourth satire, Molière in his comedies, even Shakespeare had all taken up their casts from Plautine comedy and commedia dell'arte, from which these character types all descend.

But Bellman has not completely left the old pattern of danse macabre. Here the warrior is present, as well as the lover and the scholar:

You, who in blood-stained shirt forth strode

whenever Ares played fanfare,

you, who in the arms of Fräulein Bode

are weak and toss and flare...

...and you, with books inlaid with gold,

raising your head at church-bells' knell,

clever and learned, to wage war told

on ignorance and hell!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

Also here these that Bellman present are more types than individuals; the whole song constantly gives beautiful proof of his typifying human depictions, as Afzelius so finely characterized this in Myt och Bild (Myth and Picture).

At the end of the poem, the parade of both types and ranks disappears out of sight, and the character of the lyrics to a merry party song surfaces through and through. The old convention in drinking songs of offending and slandering the killjoys who won't partake in the revels is something that Bellman has variated with mastery:

But you, who as if honest shine,

offending your friends constantly,

and slandering them once drunk wine,

as if a joke, I see...

And you, your friends do you not defend,

in spite of all the drinks you've shared...

You could as well stick a carrot up your rear end!

What d'you say? Have you cared?

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

But you, upon returning, the most

times French leave took! What did you think?

Not pleased at all is our dashing host,

though he commanded: "Drink!"

Tear such a guest apart from the feast,

thrust him out with his whole entourage,

then, with a mien of fiend or beast,

tear the cup from his visage!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

Death had called: "Come to me!" The host commands now: "Drink!" Both give commands that must not be questioned. Not returning a toast was then seen as a particularly offensive insult, a token of hate itself.

In the Bellman song, this stanza, the second from the end, has a special function. It links associations in a new direction: it revolves around courtesy towards the hosts. And the coda is written as a speech of gratitude from the guests to the hosts, especially the hostess; thus, the character of the lyrics as drinking song with friends at a celebration table is guaranteed:

Say, are you pleased? What do you say?

Then praise the host now at the end all!

If we're all heading the same way,

we'll follow each other! Skål!

But first, with our wines red and white,

we bow before our hostess! Arr!

Slip freely into the grave in the light

of Venus, th'evening star!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire,

why not take a draught of liquid fire?

Then another, a third, make it four, make it five...

and you'll feel more alive!

This is one of the most whimsical stanzas, where Bellman moves across different levels simultaneously. If the guests are all heading the same way, they usually follow each other; this is the shallow, ostensible meaning of the third and fourth verses. In vanity literature and sacred texts, it is also spoken of that same way that everyone has to go; ie towards the afterlife. This innuendo gives the words their double meaning.

Venus, the evening star, has begun to shine; this element of nature is both literal and symbolic. Of the path "from tavern to grave" underneath the starry skies has Bellman spoken quite often, including in the parody instructions for his own funeral, but seldom with such a carefree phrase as "slip freely into the grave!" Dead drunk, many of Bellman's Dionysian knights had reeled; this grave is deep and dire... of the "dark dire deep" of both intoxication and death he had earlier spoken. Dying in peace was the traditional wisdom of the sacred texts. Dying and feeling alive is Bellman's Dionysian and whimsical variation on the religious wisdom of preparing for death.

In spite of this last stanza tying into the previous ones and carrying through the song's twin themes of death and drinking, it has overall a merry and whimsical character, as does this simultaneously pleasant and tragicomic deathly promenade polonaise, sung to the tune of Naumann's March from Kellgren's opera Gustaf Vasa.

Bellman has also used the same tune twice more; interestingly, both other times in drinking songs, both of them also written around 1787.

Hourglass and drinking glass; one could at last see these symbols as emblems of two poles in Bellman's personality. The hourglass stands for melancholy, gravity, and sadness; the drinking glass for the excessive elation, for the Dionysian ecstasy.

PS. Interestingly, I had already put it into words that this is a danse macabre: 

One of the Åkerström covers of Bellman that have struck me, and many a Swede, to the core is his rendition of Fredman's Song number 21, one of the finest in said compilation.
There are no proper names said in the lyrics of this song, because the ensemble cast of guests at this death-dance of a feast consists of archetypal stock characters: the womaniser, the warrior, the scholar, the upstart, the very important person, the wicked friend whose jokes prove painful... People that, in both Gustavian Sweden and in the present day, anyone may recognise from both their day-to-daily life and fictional universes (compare the cast of the Wizarding World or A Song of Ice and Fire or Les Misérables or the CLAMP shared universe, not to mention every Shakespearean tragedy!). And the master of ceremonies is the Grim Reaper himself, driving home the point of death as the Great Equaliser (or, to say it in Valyrian, "valar morghulis"). All people must die, no matter their rank, their ideas, or their personality. Yet there for all the valar morghulis in the fate of the guests in the stanzas, the refrain and the final stanza, aside from the chipper tune, give a bright counterpoint of carpe diem, or hakuna matata. Yes, all of us must die; so why not make the most of the lives we have left, drink and be merry, enjoy, live as if each and every day could be our last? That is a definitely Enlightenment, Epicurean, and optimistic solution to the existential concerns about mortality and the dark side of reality. A solution that Yours Truly supports with all her heart and soul, and what better way to hammer it home than in the lyrics of a drinking song? This Bellman song could as well have been Iago's "Let me the canakin clink clink," if Iago were a more creative, sensitive person, and if he at least had more time to sing something longer and more complex than a simple limerick.

Den onda och den goda manligheten

This text concerns the love interest/husband character in a mostly forgotten YA book series by Gerda Ghobé, set in 1940s rural eastern Sweden (Östergötland); primarily in a large country estate owned by nobility. The character I write about is a young lieutenant, whose development we follow from single playboyish yet gentlemanly officer preparing for war to devoted father and husband, lord of Sjöboda, the Linden family estate and setting of the series. Tall, blond, and clean shaven, he is the quintessential Swedish lieutenant. A career-ending injury proves critical to his change of heart; one may compare his case to that of, for instance, Jaime Lannister, Anatole in War and Peace, or Cassio in Othello. 

Eva Heggestad

Drömmen om det goda samhället

Men samtidigt som fokus riktas på individen och hens identitetsutveckling, riktas det också på den för alla tre berättelserna gemensamma miljön - herrgården. Såväl Eka

som Sjöboda och Höje fungerar inte bara som en geografisk mittpunkt

och det nav kring vilket de respektive berättelserna rör sig utan också

som ett samhälle i miniatyr. Emellertid är detta samhälle långt ifrån

statiskt. Tvärtom genomgår det en radikal förändring under berättelsernas

gång.

... har det anrika godset förvandlats från en plats där (patriarken)

suttit ensam och isolerad utan arvingar till ett mänskligare

samhälle sjudande av liv.

... den lantliga idyllen ... Det civilisationskritiska

draget hos många utopister ger deras visioner en regressiv karaktär, och

drömmen om det goda samhället kan lika ofta kopplas till det förgångna

som till framtiden, till en längtan efter ett förlorat paradis som till en

dröm om ett rike bortom det jordiska.

Den onda och den goda manligheten

Mannens bejakande av kvinnan, livet och det växande

hittar vi också hos Gerda Ghobé, som låter flyglöjtnant

Malmberg skadas så svårt i en flygolycka att han aldrig mer kan flyga.

Olyckan kan ses som ett symboliskt avståndstagande från kriget och ett

bejakande av den jordens och kulturens odling som Sjöboda representerar.

Om än som passiv åskådare blir Malmberg därmed delaktig i 

samhällsbygge.

Here is one of my favourite retellings of Nordic fairytales (In fact, I had a Jaimienne/Renlienne [Renlienne at the start, then Jaimienne in the second act] plot bunny with this premise, taking cues from both the fairytale and Westeros canon):

THE CHILD WHO CAME FROM AN EGG

A woman in a war-torn country is promised a child by a supernatural being, but first she must tend a child born from an egg.

There was once a queen who was very sad as she and her king had no children. When the king was with her, she would feel a little better, but she would still be sad. When he was away, however, all she was able to think about was how they hadn't any children, and she would feel as though her heart would break.
We shall call this king and queen, the king and queen of A Land or else things will get confusing in a moment.
Now it happened that the king of a neighbouring country (we shall call this country Another Land) did something or other, and soon a war broke out. The king of A Land got together an army and went out to do battle with Another Land.
The queen of A Land didn't like wars and was sad that one was now being fought. With her husband gone, except for her servants she was alone at the castle, and even though there was a war going on she found that she was only able to think about how she hadn't any children. Or maybe, because of the war, she thought about children even all the more, for to her the bright, shiny faces of children were the perfection of hope.

1

---

The sombre silence of the castle became so oppressive to the queen that, feeling as if its walls would stifle her, she went out to wander in the garden. After walking a while she lay down on a grassy bank, under the shade of a linden tree. The queen was thinking how nice it would be if the quiet garden was instead filled with the laughter of children, when she heard a rustling sound. Looking up, the queen saw an old beggar woman. The old crone was limping on crutches towards the stream that flowed through the grounds. At the stream, she took a long drink. When the old woman had quenched her thirst, she surprised the queen by coming straight up to her. Ordinary people didn't often approach royalty.
The old woman said, "Don't take it evil, noble lady, that I dare to speak to you, and don't you be afraid of me, for it may be that I shall bring you good luck."
The queen looked doubtfully at the crone and answered her, "As you are old and limping on crutches and don't seem particularly rich, it doesn't appear as if you have been very lucky yourself, or to have much good fortune to spare for anyone else," the queen answered without imagining herself in the least rude. "Besides," she added, "I'm a queen, what could you do for me?"
The wise old woman replied, "Under rough bark lies often sweet kernel. Now, let me see your hand, that I may read the future."
The queen held out her hand, and the old woman closely examined the lines of her palm. Then she said, "Your heart is heavy with two sorrows, one old and one new. The new sorrow is for your husband, who is fighting far away from you, but, believe me, he is well and will soon bring you joyful news. But your other sorrow is much older than this. Your happiness is spoilt because you have no children." 

The queen became upset and took her hand back from the beggar woman. The old woman said, "Have a little patience, for there are some things I want to see more clearly. If I might, can I examine your hand again?" The old woman asked this politely, for it is rude to tell anyone their future without their consent. It's just not done.
The queen gave the crone her hand again, but asked, "Who are you, for you seem to be able to read my heart. As far as I can tell, my heart is not in my hand. My mind is not in my hand. I wonder how you are able to read them when you look at my hand."

2

---

The wise woman answered, "Never mind my name. You ought to rejoice instead that it's permitted me to show you a way to lessen your grief. You must, however, promise to do exactly what I tell you, if any good is to come of it."
The queen said, "Then, I promise to obey you to the letter. And if you help me, you shall have in return anything for which you ask."
Thus, the crone drew something from the folds of her dress, and, undoing a number of wrappings, brought out a tiny basket made of birch-bark. She held the birch-bark basket out to the queen, saying, "In this basket you will find a robin's egg. This egg, you must be careful to keep in a warm place for three months, while it is incubating. After three months, out of the egg will come a doll. Line this basket with the softest wool and lay the doll in it. The doll does not need the kind of food you would ordinarily give a child, so let it alone to grow. By-and-by you will find it has grown to be the size of a baby. Then you will have a baby of your own, and you must put your baby by the side of the other child, and bring your husband to see his son and daughter. The boy you will raise yourself, but you must entrust the little girl to a nursemaid. When the time comes to have them christened, you will invite me to be godmother to the little princess. This is how you must send the invitation to me. Hidden in the basket, you will find a featherduster; throw this out of the window, and I will be with you directly. Now, I will leave you. Be sure that you tell no one of all the things that have befallen you."
Well, I want you to know how this is simply unheard of, that a human child would have its start in the calcium shell of a robin's egg. Mammals, which are warm-blooded, give live birth to their children--that is with the exception of the platypus, which is a monotreme and of the lowest order of mammals. Mammals are vertebrates that feed their young with milk from the female mammary glands have bodies that or more or less covered with hair, and, as I said, give birth to living young rather than eggs, with the exception of the monotremes. Reptiles are cold-blooded and reproduce with eggs. Birds lay eggs, as do fish and amphibians (which can live on water or land).
How could the queen possibly believe an old woman who would dare spout such nonsense, but she listened to her and was even going to ask the crone what she wanted in return, if the queen's wish should come true and she have a child, but the old woman was already limping away. Before the old woman had gone two steps, she had turned into a young girl, and she ran off so quickly, so lightly, that she seemed to rather fly than walk. The queen, seeing this, could scarcely believe her eyes. It is highly unusual to see an old woman transform into a maiden, and the queen would have taken it all for a dream, had it not been for the basket which she held in her hand.

3

---

The queen found that she herself felt transformed. She no longer felt like the poor, sad woman who had wandered into the garden so short a time before. She hastened to her room and not until she was there did she feel carefully in the basket for the egg. There it was, a tiny thing of soft blue with little green spots. The queen took out the egg, and slipped it into the bosom of her dress so that the egg rested against her skin and near her heart, for this was the warmest place she could think of to keep the egg.
A fortnight after the crone had paid the queen a visit, the king returned home, having conquered his enemies. In this matter, the wise woman had spoken the truth, and the queen's heart bounded with joy, for she now had fresh hopes that the rest of the prophecy might be fulfilled. She cherished the basket and the egg as her best treasures, and had a golden case made for the basket so that when the time came to lay the egg in it, it might not risk any harm.
Three months passed. Then, as the wise old woman had instructed, the queen lined the basket with soft wool. She took the egg from her bosom, and laid it snugly amidst the warm woolen folds of the cloth. First thing the next morning, when the queen had woken up, she looked into the basket and saw broken eggshells, and a little doll lying among the pieces. Happy and confident her hopes would be fulfilled, the queen left the doll in peace to grow, and waited, as she had been told, for a baby of her own to lay beside it. She was glad to have the birch-bark basket for the baby to grow in, for the birch was the tree of wisdom, health, and safety, and cradles for babies were often made from it.
In the course of time, the queen gave birth to a little boy. She placed the little boy in a golden cradle that glittered with precious stones. The infant doll in the birch-bark basket had grown to be a little baby girl, and this girl she took out of the basket and placed in the cradle beside her son. Then she sent for the king. When the king saw the children in the cradle, he nearly wept for joy, and proclaimed a holiday.
When the day came for the boy and the girl to be christened, the whole court gathered to witness the event. It was time for the queen to send the invitation to the old woman, so that she might come and take her place as a godmother. When the guests had almost all arrived, the queen quietly opened a window a little, and let the featherduster fly out. Immediately, there drove up a splendid coach drawn by six horses the color of cream, and out of the coach stepped a lady who wore a dress that shone like the sun. Her face couldn't be seen, for a veil covered it, and everyone wondered who she was. When she came into the place where the queen was standing with the babies, the lady drew the veil aside. Everyone was dazzled with her beauty, and whispered, "Who is she?" The lady took the little girl in her arms, and holding it up before the assembled company, she announced that henceforward the child would be known by the name of Dotter. Everyone thought this meant "daughter," but the queen knew better. Only the stranger lady and the queen knew that the little girl had hatched from an egg as a doll, and Dolly was sometimes a nick-name for Dorothy or Dot. Dorothy means "gift of God, or of the gods."

4

---

As for their little baby boy, the king and queen named him William.
After the feast was over and the guests were gone, the godmother laid the little girl in the cradle and said to the queen, "Whenever the baby goes to sleep, be sure you lay the birch-bark basket beside her, with its eggshell in it. As long as you do that, no evil can come to her. Guard the basket and the eggshell as the apple of your eye and treasure it, and teach the girl to do so likewise." Then, kissing the baby three times, the godmother got into her coach and went away.
The little boy and little girl throve well, and Dotter's nursemaid loved her as if she was the baby's real mother. Every day, the little girl seemed to grow prettier, and people said that she would soon be as beautiful as her godmother. No one knew, except the nursemaid, that at night, when the child slept, a strange and lovely lady would come and bend over her crib. When she told the queen about the strange lady, the queen said that they should keep this as a secret between themselves.
The twins were nearly two years old when the queen became very ill. The best doctors were sent for, but it was of no use. The queen, one night, called to the nursemaid and gave her the birch-bark basket to keep in her protection. She told her to treat the basket and the eggshell in it as a treasure, for it had the ability to protect little Dotter from harm. The queen then said, "When Dotter is ten years old, you are to hand the birch-bark basket and the eggshell in it over to her. Make sure you warn her solemnly that her future happiness depends on the way she guards it. About my son, I have no fears. He is the heir of the kingdom, and his father will see that he grows up as a prince should."
The next morning, the queen died, and the king and the entire country mourned.
Some years went by and the king remarried. It was a political marriage, a so-called marriage of state, not one for love, and the king had no feeling for his new wife. He had only married her for reasons of ambition and for the good of the realm, which used to be considered the more valid reasons to marry, and the new queen certainly understood that this was the reason for their marriage. Still, she must have hoped that the king would come to love her, and felt a great lack in her life when he did not. Perhaps this is why she hated her stepchildren, or it could be that she had always had a bad streak of cruelty in her. All that William and Dotter had to do was stray in her path and she would kick them out of her sight as if they were no better than some mangy, homeless mutts for whom no one holds any affection and all they persuade to receive is irritation that they persist on hanging about in hope of some table scraps or a friendly pat on the head. The king was aware that his new wife disliked William and Dotter, and attempted to keep them out of the way. Dotter he placed entirely under the care of her old nursemaid. William reminded the king too much of his dear departed wife, so he sent the boy away to school at a renowned foreign university, and thus Dotter and William were from then on apart. The king, in an attempt to escape the memory of what happiness he used to have, stayed away from the palace continually, having retired to the provinces to live the quiet life of any country gentleman, and visited the children once in a blue moon.

5

---

On Dotter's tenth birthday, her nursemaid handed her over the cradle, and told her the late queen's dying words, that she had said Dotter must guard the birch-bark basket with all her strength, as her whole future happiness depended upon it. Dotter thought little about the birch-bark basket except to be a little puzzled that a basket could be so important.
Two more years passed, when one day, while the king was away, the stepmother found Dotter sitting beneath a linden tree, and, falling into one of her fits of rage, she beat Dotter very badly. Afterwards, the girl stumbled back to her room to find her nursemaid. The old nanny was nowhere to be seen and, through her tears, Dotter noticed the gold case in which lay the precious basket which the queen had said was so vital to her happiness. Hopeful that it might hold some immediate consolation, though she couldn't imagine what, Dotter searched the cradle in the golden case and found a handful of wool and an empty eggshell that had been cracked in half. Lifting, the wool, she found beneath it a wing-shaped featherduster. "What old rubbish," Dotter said to herself, and, turning, she threw the wing out the open window.
Immediately, there stood a beautiful lady beside the little girl. "Don't be afraid," the lady said, stroking Dotter's hair. "I'm your fairy godmother. I can see by your red eyes that you are unhappy, but if you have the strength to be brave and patient, better days will come. Your stepmother will have no power over you when you are grown up. Indeed, no one else will be able to harm you either if only you are careful never to part from your basket, or to lose the eggshells that are in it. Make a silken case for the little birch-basket, and hide it away in your dress, keeping it with you night and day. Do this and you will be safe from not only your stepmother but anyone else who would try to harm you. If you should find yourself in any difficulty, and have thought hard but can't tell what to do, take the featherduster from the basket, throw it out the window, and in a moment I will come to help you. Now, let's go into the garden, that I may talk to you under the lindens where no one will be able to hear us."
Dotter and her godmother sat in the garden for so long that the sun was already setting when the godmother had finished with giving Dotter all the advice she had reserved for her until Dotter was old enough to receive it. "I would be neglectful if I gave you only food for thought, and then let your stomach go hungry to bed," the godmother said. "I doubt your stepmother will have saved any supper for you, so, if you will hand me your basket, I'll prepare you something to eat." Then, taking the basket, the fairy godmother bent over it, whispered some words, and instantly there was before them a table covered with candied fruits and cakes. When they had finished dining, the fairy godmother led Dotter back to her room, and on the way she taught her the words she must say to the basket when when she was needful of anything.

6

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Several more years passed, and Dotter had grown-up to be a lovely maiden when a terrible war broke out. The king and his army defended the borders of the country, but were beaten back until finally they had to retire into the town surrounding the castle, and prepare for a siege. The siege lasted so long that all the town's stores of food were almost gone, and even in the palace there wasn't enough to eat. Dotter had, since the visit with her fairy godmother, taken care to keep her basket with her, but had never spoken the secret words over it, to ask it for anything, for she was unsure if the basket was inexhaustible or if its mysterious door to bounty might close after being called upon a few times. Even now, she didn't think to ask the basket for food, as Dotter knew that the townspeople themselves were starving,and she would have felt guilty to have a solitary feast in her room. Not knowing what to do, Dotter took her featherduster and cast it out her open window. Directly, her fairy godmother appeared, but Dotter burst into tears and couldn't speak for some time.
"This is the way of war," the fairy godmother told Dotter. "I can carry you away from all this, and will, but as for the others, I must leave them to take their chance. If you prefer to remain here and suffer the same fate as your fellow townspeople, that is your option, but if I were you I'd take advantage of your privilege to leave, for you may very well find a way to serve more good by escaping than adding your number to their suffering." Then, bidding Dotter to follow her, the godmother passed through the gates of the town, and through the army outside, with Dotter behind her, and nobody stopped them or even seemed to see them.
The very next day, the town surrendered, and the king and all his courtiers were taken prisoners. Some time during the confusion, however, the king's son, who had left his studies to fight with his father, had managed to escape.
When Dotter and her fairy godmother were clear of the enemy, Dotter took off her own rich clothes, and put on the tattered dress of a peasant. In order to disguise Dotter even better, her godmother changed her face, which, when Dotter examined her reflection, she found very disturbing, that she could no longer recognize herself. "How will those I love recognize me," Dotter asked. "If I should meet them again, how am I to make myself known to them?" But the fairy godmother had already gone.

7

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Dotter wandered from one place to another without finding shelter, but her basket kept her well fed until she found an opportunity to serve as a barmaid at a small inn. At first the work she had to do seemed very difficult, but either she was wonderfully quick in learning, or else the basket may have secretly helped her. At the end of three days she could do everything as well as if she had cleaned pots and swept rooms all her life, and while she cleaned she thought about her former life, about her stepmother who had caused her so much misery (who she had no way of knowing had died in prison) and how war seemed hardly the ideal opportunity to extract her from her wretched life at the palace by way of thrusting her out into the wide world, where she now lived as a servant. But somehow Dotter knew that if she asked the basket for a palace of her own, rich clothes and servants, she would be doing both herself and the basket a disservice.
One morning, Dotter was busy scouring a wooden tub when a certain young man, passing through the village on horseback, noticed her. There was something in Dotter's manner that attracted him to her, and he stopped and called Dotter to come and speak with him.
"You seem very familiar. Is it possible we've met before?" the man asked her.
Dotter was at a loss, for she didn't recognize the rider. Her concern was, while still a refugee, to hide the fact she was a princess--if she could even be considered a princess anymore. With her new identity, not even she was sure.
The young man asked Dotter, "When this war is said and done with, may I return here and see you again? Though I think we should know each other, it seems that we don't, and I would like to make up for that lapse."
Dotter, a little flustered, but willing, agreed, and the man rode on.
The next day, Dotter was busy scouring the same wooden tub again, when a baroness, passing through the village, noticed her. "Simple work must be agreeable with simple thoughts, else you wouldn't look so content," the noblewoman said.
Dotter replied, "Seeing as how I had no work only a short while ago, a simple mind must certainly be an improvement over none at all."

8

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The baroness liked Dotter's response and said to her, "Would you not like to come and enter my service?"
"As you have asked me rather than ordered me, then I would, very much," Dotter replied, "but I would do my present mistress a disservice if I left her without help. She has, after all, been decent with me."
"I will settle that," the lady answered, and so she did, and the same day she and Dotter set out for the lady's house.
Six months went by, and then came the news that the rightful heir had gathered an army and defeated the usurper who had taken his father's place, but with this also came the news that the old king had died while in prison during the usurper's reign. Dotter wept bitterly for his loss, but in secret, as she had told her new mistress nothing about her past life. She thought once or twice about presenting herself at the palace, but she knew that with her new face she would not be recognized and unable to even get past the guards at the gate. As it was, she realized she was not so dissatisfied with her life. The better days her fairy godmother had promised were indeed here. Maybe, after a little more time had passed, she might seek a way to return to the palace again. And besides, there was still the matter of the young man who she had met when working for the innkeepers. He had promised to come and look for her after the war, and Dotter realized she didn't mind biding a little time, waiting to see if he might eventually return to find her, and be redirected to look for her in her present situation.
At the end of a year of mourning, the young King William sent out notice that he intended to marry, and that his intent was to choose his wife from among all the maidens of his kingdom. For weeks, all the mothers and all the daughters in the land busily prepared themselves for the feast at which all eligible maidens were to make their debut. Beautiful dresses were designed, and there was much experimenting with their hair, and decisions made about shoes and jewellery, and whether a diamond tiara was too presumptuous and a garnet necklace too mundane. The daughters of Dotter's mistress were as excited as the rest, and as Dotter was clever with her fingers she was occupied continually with getting ready their smart clothes. When the day for the feast had come, and Dotter had dressed the young mistresses and seen them depart with their mother, she was ready to retire to her room for some much needed rest when she heard a voice whisper to her, "Look in your basket, and you will find in it everything you need."

9

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Dotter took the birch-bark basket out of its silk bag, said over it the secret words her fairy godmother had taught her, and behold, there appeared a gown, shining as a star and covered with baroque pearls. Eager to see the palace once more, if a little sad that the young man for whom she'd been waiting had never appeared, Dotter quickly dressed herself. When she went downstairs, she found a fine carriage in front of the door. She stepped in it, and swift as the wind she found herself drawing up before the great gates of her childhood home.
The feast was already at its height, and the hall was brilliant with youth and beauty, when the door was flung wide and Dotter entered. Beside her, all the other maidens looked pale and dim. None were so beautiful. None so elegant or poised. It was then that Dotter realize that in her great excitement she had left her birch-bark basket at home. What misfortune might befall her, for Dotter had been told she must never be separated from the basket. She was ready to turn and leave, to go find her basket, when she saw the young man who had asked if he could return and court her when the war was done, and she saw that he had noticed her as well. In her befuddlement at seeing the young man in the palace, dressed as richly as a king, for a moment Dotter didn't realize that it was King William. 

The very reason King William had held the feast was that he hoped the peasant girl he had lost would make an appearance, for when he had sent to the inn for her, he realized he didn't know her name, and the landlady was at a loss to think who could possibly have worked for her that the King might want to see. 

When a thick cloud suddenly filled the hall, Dotter was certain that disaster was eminent. For a moment, all was dark. Then the mist suddenly grew bright, and Dotter's godmother was standing in the hall's center.
"This," the fairy godmother said, turning to the King, "is the girl whom you have always believed to be your sister, and who vanished during the siege. She is not your sister at all, but the daughter of the king of the neighbouring country, who has been your enemy these many years. She was given to your mother to bring up, to save her from the hands of the sinister advisors who inspired her father to war. Now, her father is dead, and she is the sole heir of his kingdom."

9

---

It would seem reasonable that the godmother should have had more to say, but she apparently thought she had said quite enough, for she vanished and was never seen again. Nor was the wonder-working basket seen again, which Dotter, when she later reflected on it, realized had disappeared with the appearance of her regal dress.
King William and Queen Dotter were married, and their consolidated kingdoms at last at peace, which is presumably what the fairy godmother had in mind all along, though she couldn't possibly have known for certain that William and Dotter would fall in love. Perhaps one of the points behind this story is that even though we are not all related, we should all consider ourselves family as we are all part of the family of humankind. But I imagine that the fairy godmother demanded that Dotter be raised by a nursemaid, separately from William, because brothers and sisters rarely get along and often squabble.
Well, I guess Dotter was human. She did hatch, as a little doll, from an egg, just like a little chick, or some kind of reptile. And she did later change her appearance when she left behind her life at the palace, just like a snake or lizard sheds its skin. And they say birds are actually living dinosaurs, and that feathers are evolutionary descendants of scales. What do you think about that? And that way, way, way back down the evolutionary ladder, aeons upon aeons ago, way before even monkeys or even mammals, what was to become humankind came from the same stock as what we know as reptiles? And before that, all life came from the oceans, so it seems we have brothers and sisters even among the fish? What do you think of that? Maybe all life on this planet is part of our family. And some say that the genesis of life on this planet came from the stars, from frozen microbes carried on comets that fell to earth? What do you think about that? We may be brothers and sisters to the stars.

The Child Who Came From an Egg Commentary

Though I was drawn to rewrite the tale "The child who came from an egg", I have to admit that as a fairytale it is vaguely unsatisfying. "The child who came from an egg" is interesting, however, in that it incorporates traces of a number of typical fairytale themes. This may also be one of the problems with the tale as well, the ending to which feels forced. The puzzle is skewed, something left out of the mix, despite the tale's broad scope. The read is similar to a second rate romance novel, the mystical quality essential to such a tale ironically lost in its devotion to artifacts of the "weird" world.

"Dotter" is a supernatural child. However, with Pinocchio, another example of the doll-child, we are always aware of his not being quite human--yet. A problem with "The Child who came from an egg" is that it can't quite decide what Dotter is. She is given as being supernatural, a doll-child, then at the end we suddenly have her as the daughter of the enemy king. The forced twist carries us over into the territory of the Lovers, as depicted in the Tarot, which I briefly cover in my commentary on "Beauty and the Beast". The feminine used here as a device communicating Dotter as an "opposite" to the masculine child, rather than being of mysterious supernatural origin, in order as if to further annotate the child as an "opposite", we find she is the daughter of the warring king. Just as the Lovers card can be viewed as referring to Eros, as well as depicting brothers, the brother and sister pair of Dotter and William are transformed into lovers. Despite the mystic truth had in this idea of the uniting of opposites, when Dotter is revealed as the child of the warring king, the twist feels false, an apologetic contrivance which conveniently legalizes a union that would otherwise offend sensibility with the two being familially-bound. Nevertheless, Dotter and William remain half-brother and half-sister through the queen, which means the queen was, in effect, consort to both kings.

Dotter is also a Cinderella figure. Alchemically, perhaps, we can see Cinderella as an allegory for the transformative qualities of putrefaction. From the ashes and cinders comes the queen. "The child who came from an egg" stops just short of this extreme, however. Dotter, as a refugee, is lowered in status, becomes a servant whose appearance is alien to what it had been. Cinderella too after her brief stint as a princess in glass slippers, must experience again a time of hiding her true identity while she waits to be discovered. Cinderella inspires sympathy, but Dotter's sufferings never become real enough for us to truly feel for her, even if we believe she has been wronged. Or so it seems to me. Any sympathy we could have has from the beginning been associated to the queen/mother, despite her being a minor figure who also never attains emotional reality; this sympathy is never successfully transferred to Dotter, and certainly not to William who scarce enters the tale at all.

A problem could be that Dotter's trials and tribulations visit her as haphazard fate. No ill befalls her as a result of any foolish error of her own, the effect of which she must work to supercede, or which reveals itself eventually as good luck in wolf's clothing. We never feel her weaknesses or strengths. A hapless victim, all that she really manages to do is take some good advice when it is given her.

Points of interest are the linden tree by which the late queen / mother meets the fairy godmother (who appears as crone, as maiden, and as mother), and the birch bark basket in which Dotter's hopes are kept. Robert Graves writes that the linden, a tree that was popular with romantic poets, was of some importance in Thessaly. The bast or inner bark of the tree was used for writing tablets; when torn into strips these were used for divination. Thus the old woman telling the queen's fortune beside the linden tree. A connection with the doll child may be through the centaur Chiron, who was a son of Philyra (Linden) and famed as a doctor, scholar, and prophet. Cheiron was also a descendant of Ixion. And who was Ixion? Well, Ixion was a Lapith king (a son of Phlegyas) who planned to seduce Hera. Zeus, becoming aware of his intentions, shaped a false Hera out of a cloud. Ixion didn't notice the deception and the false Hera, afterwards called Nephele (cloud), bore Ixion the outcast child Centaurus, half a man and half a horse.

It is perhaps not without significance that birch broom is given by Graves as beeing used in the flogging of delinquents and lunatics with the purpose of expelling evil spirits, as well as driving out the spirit of the old year. Dotter is the daughter of the enemy king we are to see as "evil," and it is as if through her various tribulations (remember, she is repeatedly beaten and berated by her "evil" stepmother) that this spirit is cleansed.