Andersen’s first tale found

A Danish researcher has stumbled across the first fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark's national archives.

Entitled "The Tallow Candle", it tells the story of a candle that has difficulty finding its place in the world until a tinder box discovers its worth and lights its wick, The Australian reported.

National Archive director Mads Peter Christensen told the Politiken newspaper late on Wednesday that staff had been contacted by the researcher who disclosed the discovery.

Lacking the polished standards of Andersen's later fairy tales, it is believed to have been written when he was a schoolboy.

"This is a sensational discovery," Ejnar Stig Askgaard of the Odense City Museum and one of Denmark's leading Hans Christian Andersen experts told Politiken.

Askgaard's conclusions were confirmed by two other leading Andersen experts, research librarian Bruno Svindborg of the Royal Library and professor Johan de Mylius of the Andersen Centre and the University of Southern Denmark.
Askgaard said it was a thrill to be "able to work with his first attempt at a fairy tale. It was a great experience to read it for the first time".

The manuscript found was written in ink on yellowing pages. The copy was made by the family of a "Madam Bunkeflod", to whom the piece was dedicated.

The original manuscript has not been found.

A vicar's widow, Madam Bunkeflod was a confidante of the budding author in his childhood.

The copied manuscript was sent by the Bunkeflod family to another family close to Andersen, the Plum family, in whose archives the story was found.