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When spring arrives, a flock of swans descends on the lake. He spends a miserable winter alone in the outdoors, mostly hiding in a cave on the lake that partly freezes over. Winter arrives.Ī farmer finds and carries the freezing little duckling home, but the foundling is frightened by the farmer’s noisy children and flees the house. He is delighted and excited, but he cannot join them, for he is too young and cannot fly.

The duckling sees a flock of migrating wild swans. He finds a home with an old woman, but her cat and hen tease and taunt him mercilessly and once again he sets off alone. He wanders sadly from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. One of the little birds is perceived by the other birds and animals on the farm as an ugly little creature and suffers much verbal and physical abuse from them.

When the story begins, a mother duck's eggs hatch. But at length she grew tired of sitting there all day.ĭen Grimme ælling = The Ugly Duckling‬, Hans Christian Andersen This was the first set of eggs that the duck had ever laid, and, to begin with, she was very pleased and proud, and laughed at the other mothers, who were always neglecting their duties to gossip with each other or to take little extra swims besides the two in the morning and evening that were necessary for health. But ducks are not clever at all, and are not quick at counting, so this duck did not worry herself about the matter, but just took care that the big egg should be as warm as the rest. Other birds might have thought that when the duck went down in the morning and evening to the water to stretch her legs in a good swim, some lazy mother might have been on the watch, and have popped her egg into the nest. The duck was always puzzled about that egg, and how it came to be so different from the rest. Five of them were white, but the sixth, which was larger than the others, was of an ugly grey colour. It was under these burdocks that a duck had built herself a warm nest, and was not sitting all day on six pretty eggs.