Scandinavian Folklore: The Elder-Tree Mother

Though much of Hans Christian Andersen’s work is original, a few of his fairytales come from local folklore. The Elder-Tree Mother, or Hyldemoer, pulls on lore around the elder tree from Scandinavia. This condensed retelling hopefully captures the parts that are most directly pulled from local folklore.

Long ago, a little boy lived with his mother in a house where they rented out rooms. He came home one day, having caught a cold from getting his feet wet. But no one could figure out how it happened, as the weather had been very dry for days.

Still, he needed to be warmed up to fight the cold, so his mother put him to bed and made him a pot of elder tea. As he sipped, the elderly man who lived upstairs came down. He had no children of his own, but he was fond of children and often entertained the boy and neighborhood children with his stories.

“Look who’s here!” said the mother. “Drink your tea, and perhaps you’ll get to hear a story.”

“I wish I could think of a story,” said the old man.

“A story can be made from anything you see or touch, mother says,” said the little boy. “Think

up a fairytale to tell me.”

“No,” the old man shook his head, “those stories aren’t worth much. True stories come by themselves.”

The boy frowned and reached for his tea.

“Look!” exclaimed the old man. “Here is a story now!”

The boy looked, and the lid of the teapot rattled and lifted as elderflowers burst from it, great branches stretching the length of the room. Soon, a large elder tree stood in the middle of the room. And at its center sat an old woman dressed in the leaves and flowers of the tree with a sweet smile.

“This is the Elder Tree Mother, and it is important that you pay attention to her,” the old man explained. “There is a great tree just like this in New Town. It grows in the corner of an old couple’s yard. And on a beautiful, sunny day, they sat beneath it and discussed their golden wedding day, which their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were soon coming to celebrate it. But they could not remember the day. The Elder Tree Mother sat in that tree too, and she whispered, ‘I know when your golden wedding day is,’ but they were lost in memory and did not hear her.

The man and woman reminisced of playing together as children in the yard, having planted twigs, one an elder that grew into the very tree they sat beneath. As a boy, the man played with a sailboat in a basin, and now he frowns, remembering that he eventually had to sail far away and in a different way.

“But first, we went to school, and then we traveled and saw the king and queen sailing in the canal,” the old woman reminded him. “That was before you sailed far away. I cried for you and worried you were dead at sea. But then I got a letter from you, and you surprised me the same day!”

“And then we were married,” the old man added. “And it was this time of year, on a day like today,” he recalled.

“Yes!” exclaimed the Elder Tree Mother. “Today is the day of your golden wedding!” And they sat in the fragrant shadow of the elder tree, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren came and celebrated with them.

“And that is a story of the Elder Tree Mother,” the old man finished.

The little boy protested, “That wasn’t a fairytale.”

The Elder Tree Mother said, “No, that wasn’t a fairytale, but here comes one now.” And she lifted the boy from his bed and held him close to her. But the Elder Tree Mother had changed and was now a beautiful little girl, the same age as the boy. Her golden hair was wreathed by elder blossoms, and her eyes were large and blue. Together they flew on the branches of the elder to the nearby garden, where a walking stick that the children pretended was a horse was resting on the fence. And before his eyes, the stick became a horse, and the young girl said,

“Now we will ride for miles!”

And though they never left the little garden, the boy would swear they rode for miles, and he could see each landmark as the girl pointed them out. There the farmhouse, here the church, then the forge. And the girl took a blossom from her hair and planted a tree that grew like the one the old couple sat beneath in New Town. And she took him by the waist, and together they flew through the whole of Denmark.

“It is so beautiful here in the spring!” the girl said as they stood amidst the most fragrant and beautiful trees and flowers the boy had ever seen. However, none smelled as good as the elder.

Then they were viewing beech wood, and the girl said, “It is so beautiful here in the summer!”

Next, they saw castles of old, and the girl was telling him, “It is so beautiful here in the autumn!”

Then the trees were covered in frost and glistened like gems, and the girl said, “It is so beautiful here in the winter!”

And they traveled through every season across the country, and the girl showed the boy everything. And when it ended, and the boy became a young man, the girl gave him a blossom from her hair. He stored it in his book, for like the old man in New Town, the boy had to sail far away. And in each new port, he would open the book and smell the blossom, which was sweeter and fresher than the first day it had been given to him. And each time he inhaled the fragrant blossom, he could hear the little girl whispering to him how beautiful it was.

Years passed, and the boy became an old man. He sat with his wife beneath a blossoming elder tree, just as great-grandmother and great-grandfather had done in New Town. Like them, the man and his wife reminisced and spoke of their golden wedding.

“Today is your golden wedding anniversary!” the little girl from his childhood leaned forward from the tree and said to them. She took two blossoms from her bosom. She kissed them, and they gleamed like silver and gold. She placed one on each of their heads, and they became crowns. The man told his wife the story of the Elder Tree Mother in New Town, and they laughed that the story sounded like their own.

“Yes,” said the Elder Tree Mother, both the little girl and the old woman at the same time. “For I am Memory. I am still in the Elder and tell all stories. Do you still have your flower?”

The old man opened the book, and there it lay, as perfect as the day it had been given to him. And he and his wife sat there in the twilight…

The boy was unsure if that was the end of a story or a dream, but he sat in bed with a warm teapot beside him. No tree or flowers grew from the pot. But the boy was warm and healed from his cold and drifted into a happy sleep.