The Thistle’s Experiences

by

Hans Christian Andersen

(1869)

ELONGING to the lordly manor-house was
beautiful, well-kept garden, with rare trees and flowers; the guests of
the proprietor declared their admiration of it; the people of the
neighborhood, from town and country, came on Sundays and holidays, and
asked permission to see the garden; indeed, whole schools used to pay
visits to it.

Outside the garden, by the palings at the road-side, stood a great mighty
Thistle, which spread out in many directions from the root, so that it
might have been called a thistle bush. Nobody looked at it, except the
old Ass which drew the milk-maid’s cart. This Ass used to stretch out his
neck towards the Thistle, and say, “You are beautiful; I should like to
eat you!” But his halter was not long enough to let him reach it and eat
it.

There was great company at the manor-house—some very noble people from
the capital; young pretty girls, and among them a young lady who came
from a long distance. She had come from Scotland, and was of high birth,
and was rich in land and in gold—a bride worth winning, said more than
one of the young gentlemen; and their lady mothers said the same thing.

The young people amused themselves on the lawn, and played at ball; they
wandered among the flowers, and each of the young girls broke off a
flower, and fastened it in a young gentleman’s buttonhole. But the young
Scotch lady looked round, for a long time, in an undecided way. None of
the flowers seemed to suit her taste. Then her eye glanced across the
paling—outside stood the great thistle bush, with the reddish-blue,
sturdy flowers; she saw them, she smiled, and asked the son of the house
to pluck one for her.

“It is the flower of Scotland,” she said. “It blooms in the scutcheon of
my country. Give me yonder flower.”

And he brought the fairest blossom, and pricked his fingers as completely
as if it had grown on the sharpest rose bush.

She placed the thistle-flower in the buttonhole of the young man, and he
felt himself highly honored. Each of the other young gentlemen would
willingly have given his own beautiful flower to have worn this one,
presented by the fair hand of the Scottish maiden. And if the son of the
house felt himself honored, what were the feelings of the Thistle bush?
It seemed to him as if dew and sunshine were streaming through him.

“I am something more than I knew of,” said the Thistle to itself. “I
suppose my right place is really inside the palings, and not outside. One
is often strangely placed in this world; but now I have at least managed
to get one of my people within the pale, and indeed into a buttonhole!”

The Thistle told this event to every blossom that unfolded itself, and
not many days had gone by before the Thistle heard, not from men, not
from the twittering of the birds, but from the air itself, which stores
up the sounds, and carries them far around—out of the most retired walks
of the garden, and out of the rooms of the house, in which doors and
windows stood open, that the young gentleman who had received the
thistle-flower from the hand of the fair Scottish maiden had also now
received the heart and hand of the lady in question. They were a handsome
pair—it was a good match.

“That match I made up!” said the Thistle; and he thought of the flower he
had given for the buttonhole. Every flower that opened heard of this
occurrence.

“I shall certainly be transplanted into the garden,” thought the Thistle,
and perhaps put into a pot, which crowds one in. “That is said to be the
greatest of all honors.”

And the Thistle pictured this to himself in such a lively manner, that at
last he said, with full conviction, “I am to be transplanted into a pot.”

Then he promised every little thistle flower which unfolded itself that
it also should be put into a pot, and perhaps into a buttonhole, the
highest honor that could be attained. But not one of them was put into a
pot, much less into a buttonhole. They drank in the sunlight and the air;
lived on the sunlight by day, and on the dew by night; bloomed—were
visited by bees and hornets, who looked after the honey, the dowry of the
flower, and they took the honey, and left the flower where it was.

“The thievish rabble!” said the Thistle. “If I could only stab every one
of them! But I cannot.”

The flowers hung their heads and faded; but after a time new ones came.

“You come in good time,” said the Thistle. “I am expecting every moment
to get across the fence.”

A few innocent daisies, and a long thin dandelion, stood and listened in
deep admiration, and believed everything they heard.

The old Ass of the milk-cart stood at the edge of the field-road, and
glanced across at the blooming thistle bush; but his halter was too
short, and he could not reach it.

And the Thistle thought so long of the thistle of Scotland, to whose
family he said he belonged, that he fancied at last that he had come from
Scotland, and that his parents had been put into the national escutcheon.
That was a great thought; but, you see, a great thistle has a right to a
great thought.

“One is often of so grand a family, that one may not know it,” said the
Nettle, who grew close by. He had a kind of idea that he might be made
into cambric if he were rightly treated.

And the summer went by, and the autumn went by. The leaves fell from the
trees, and the few flowers left had deeper colors and less scent. The
gardener’s boy sang in the garden, across the palings:

“Up the hill, down the dale we wend,
That is life, from beginning to end.”

The young fir trees in the forest began to long for Christmas, but it was
a long time to Christmas yet.

“Here I am standing yet!” said the Thistle. “It is as if nobody thought
of me, and yet I managed the match. They were betrothed, and they have
had their wedding; it is now a week ago. I won’t take a single
step-because I can’t.”

A few more weeks went by. The Thistle stood there with his last single
flower large and full. This flower had shot up from near the roots; the
wind blew cold over it, and the colors vanished, and the flower grew in
size, and looked like a silvered sunflower.

One day the young pair, now man and wife, came into the garden. They went
along by the paling, and the young wife looked across it.

“There’s the great thistle still growing,” she said. “It has no flowers
now.”

“Oh, yes, the ghost of the last one is there still,” said he. And he
pointed to the silvery remains of the flower, which looked like a flower
themselves.

“It is pretty, certainly,” she said. “Such an one must be carved on the
frame of our picture.”

And the young man had to climb across the palings again, and to break off
the calyx of the thistle. It pricked his fingers, but then he had called
it a ghost. And this thistle-calyx came into the garden, and into the
house, and into the drawing-room. There stood a picture—“Young Couple.” A
thistle-flower was painted in the buttonhole of the bridegroom. They
spoke about this, and also about the thistle-flower they brought, the
last thistle-flower, now gleaming like silver, whose picture was carved
on the frame.

And the breeze carried what was spoken away, far away.

“What one can experience!” said the Thistle Bush. “My first born was put
into a buttonhole, and my youngest has been put in a frame. Where shall I
go?”

And the Ass stood by the road-side, and looked across at the Thistle.

“Come to me, my nibble darling!” said he. “I can’t get across to you.”

But the Thistle did not answer. He became more and more thoughtful—kept
on thinking and thinking till near Christmas, and then a flower of
thought came forth.

“If the children are only good, the parents do not mind standing outside
the garden pale.”

“That’s an honorable thought,” said the Sunbeam. “You shall also have a
good place.”