The Traveling Companion
Illustration by Gordon Browne from a 1919 edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales.
The Traveling Companion is a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1835. It follows the travels of a man named John, and how he comes to marry a princess. Along the way, he meets a traveling companion who helps him in various situations, and one of his defining features is his ability to fly.
As the story goes, John sets out to seek his fortune after his father dies, leaving him with no living family. After the funeral John dreams of marrying a beautiful princess. He subsequently sets out, and comes upon a church. Inside is a coffin and two men trying to break into it. John intervenes and learns that the dead man owed these men money, and they are taking revenge on the unpaid debt. John pays the debt and continues on his way.
John then meets a man while walking in the forest, who joins him in his travels. This man has a magical ointment that helps them in a few ways. They meet an old woman with a broken leg, and the traveling companion rubs ointment on it, and it heals. In return, the old woman gives them three sticks. Next, they come upon a puppet show, and one of the puppets is broken. The traveling companion rubs ointment on it, and it is fixed. In return, the puppets give them the puppeteer’s sword. Next, at the top of a mountain, the pair encounters a dead swan. The traveling companion cuts off its wings with the puppeteer’s sword and keeps them.
Next, the pair reach a town with a king and a princess. The princess is a cruel woman, and is rumored to be a witch. She is also quite beautiful. In order to gain her hand in marriage, a suitor must correctly guess what she is thinking three times in a row. If he fails, he is put to death. When John sees the princess, he recognizes her from his dream, and he decides to marry her. John goes to the castle, and the King immediately likes him. He is saddened to hear John wants to marry his daughter, but he accepts his wish. He tells John to return the next day to guess what the princess is thinking.
After John falls asleep, the traveling companion puts on the swan wings and flies to the palace. He finds the princess wearing black wings, and flying out of the palace. He makes himself invisible and hits her with one of the sticks. She thinks she is being hit with hailstones, and flies inside a mountain to the home of a troll. The troll has cast a spell on her, making her evil. The traveling companion, still invisible, follows her and overhears the troll telling her to think about her shoe. The traveling companion flies back to John, and tells him to guess her shoe. The next day John heads to the palace, meets the princess, and correctly guesses what she is thinking. The next night, the same thing happens. The traveling companion finds the princess, hits her with a stick, follows her to the troll and overhears him tell her to think about her glove. The next day, John correctly guesses again, and is told to return the third day.
That night, the traveling companion follows the princess again, hits her with a stick again, and overhears the troll tell her to think of his head. After the princess leaves, the traveling companion slays the troll with the puppeteer’s sword and cuts off his head. He wraps it in a sheet and brings it to John. He tells John to show the princess the troll’s head when she asks him what she’s thinking about. He does, and he wins her hand in marriage.
The princess is still under the troll’s spell, however, so she doesn’t love John. The traveling companion gives John three feathers from the swan wings and some ointment. The princess takes a bath with the feathers and ointment, and the spell is lifted. Now free from the troll’s spell, the princess falls in love with John. John asks the traveling companion to stay with him, but he refuses. He then reveals that he was the man in the coffin who John helped, and he was helping John in order to repay his debt to him. He then vanishes, and the newlyweds live happily ever after.
The tale of the Traveling Companion a classic case of what goes around, comes around, with lots of seemingly random elements coming together perfectly in the end. John is good to a stranger, and this good deed is repaid to him later. Also of interest is how Andersen uses verticality to elevate the fantasy throughout the story.
Andersen uses verticality in two ways. The first is the mountain that the pair climbs. Their ascent is described thus: They climbed so high that at last the church towers down below looked like little red berries among all that greenery. They could see in the distance, many and many a mile away, places where neither of them had ever been. Never before had John seen so many of the glories of this lovely world at once … It was all so fair and sweet that tears came into his eyes. This moment describes John as he achieves verticality, and it brings him to tears. The mountaintop affords him vast views, and it allowed him to escape the surface world below.
The second is the swan wings found on the mountaintop. These wings give the traveling companion the gift of flight, which is symbolic of his ascent up the mountain. The act of climbing a mountain is symbolic of escaping the surface below, and the summit is a perfect place to gain the power of flight from the swan wings.
The Traveling Companion is a classic folk tale with elements of verticality woven throughout the story. Humanity has always been obsessed with flight, so it’s no wonder it’s so common to find characters who can fly throughout stories like this.
Check out other posts from literary sources that deal with verticality here.