The Wild Swans

The Wild Swans
By Hans Christian Andersen

Beginning with "Far away in the land to which the swallows fly..." to "all the church bells rang of themselves, and the birds came in great troops," this fairy tale abounds with beautiful imagery.  However the story-line and any intended symbolic meaning sail high over my head.  To help me gain some insight, I sought a formal analysis, and found several sites citing this story.  The most interesting read, by Katherine Odom-Tomchin, can be found at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature.  The article includes many examples of some uniquely beautiful illustrations by Thomas Aquinas Maguire.  

Northern Tales Anthology

Scandinavian Folk & Fairy Tales, Edited by Claire Booss, published by Avenel Books of Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1984; 688 pages
Here's a picture I took of the book jacket:

This is my source for the folk and fairy tales I'll be reading next.  The book is organized by Country, with various other subsets.  I'll be starting with the tales by Hans Christian Andersen just because they are the ones with which I am most familiar.  After that I'll read other (older) tales from Denmark.  And then I'll probably read the tales in the order in which they are presented in the book.

From the back of the jacket:

The back flap credits the jacket illustrations to Swedish artist John Bauer, courtesy of the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm.