The Flax by Hans Christian Andersen
This is wonderful: a whole story about Flax that was missing from my childhood bookshelf. The Flax is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen that was published in 1849. It is a short allegorical tale of hope, pain and recycling. It describes the growth of the flax, its harvest, processing into linen and eventually its transformation into paper for important stories to be written on.
Flax, also known as linseed, has has a proper name of Linum usitatissimum, meaning “the most useful”. Hans Andersen’s tale illustrates beautifully some of the uses of flax and reflects how important flax as a fabric fibre was. Now, almost two hundred years later, flax’s usefulness is more in what the seed – as oil and ground – can do for our health when we eat it.
Listen to The Flax: A Fairy Tale by Hans Christian Andersen
Here’s the version you can listen to on YouTube. Listen
The full tale
Alternatively, you can read The Flax by Hans Christian Andersen online. The story appears in Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Second Series and is available free from the Project Gutenberg
THE FLAX – excerpt
The flax was in full bloom; it had pretty little blue flowers, as delicate as the wings of a moth. The sun shone on it and the showers watered it; and this was as good for the flax as it is for little children to be washed and then kissed by their mothers. They look much prettier for it, and so did the flax.
“People say that I look exceedingly well,” said the flax, “and that I am so fine and long that I shall make a beautiful piece of linen. How fortunate I am! It makes me so happy to know that something can be made of me. How the sunshine cheers me, and how sweet and refreshing is the rain! My happiness overpowers me; no one in the world can feel happier than I.”
This is the second children’s tale about Flax that I have found; the other being “How a Shirt Grew in the Field.
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