The Ugly Duckling

It was summer in the countryside, and everything was green and gold.

Down by an old farmhouse, hidden among tall leaves at the edge of a pond, a mother duck sat on her nest. She had been sitting there for a long, long time, keeping her eggs warm, and she was getting rather tired of it.

Then, at last, came a sound. Crack!

And another. Crack! Crack!

One by one, little yellow heads popped out of the shells. "Peep! Peep!" said the ducklings, blinking at the big bright world.

"How lovely you all are," said the mother duck. Then she looked down. "Oh! One egg hasn't hatched. The biggest one."

The biggest egg

An old duck waddled past and peered at the nest.

"That looks like a turkey's egg to me," she said. "Leave it. Take the others to the water."

But the mother duck shook her feathers. "I've sat on it this long," she said. "I can sit a little longer."

So she waited. At last the big egg cracked open, and out tumbled a chick.

He was large. He was grey. His feet were big and his neck was long, and he did not look one bit like his brothers and sisters.

"Oh dear," said the mother duck quietly. "He is very different."

Too big, too grey

The next day she led all her ducklings down to the pond. Splash! In they went, one after another. And the big grey chick swam best of all, straight and strong.

"Well," said his mother proudly, "he's no turkey. He's my own child, and he's quite handsome, if you look at him properly."

But the other animals of the farmyard did not look at him properly.

"What an ugly duckling!" quacked the ducks.

"Too big!" clucked the hens.

"Too grey!" gobbled the turkey.

They pecked at him and pushed him and laughed at him. Even his brothers and sisters said they wished he would go away. Every day it got a little worse, until the poor duckling felt that nobody in the whole world wanted him.

So one morning, very early, he slipped through the hedge and ran away.

Alone in the wide world

He wandered across marshes and fields. He met wild ducks, who looked him up and down and said he was very ugly, but he could stay in their marsh if he kept out of the way. He met an old woman who lived in a little cottage with a cat and a hen. The cat said he was useless because he couldn't purr, and the hen said he was useless because he couldn't lay eggs.

"I just want to swim," said the duckling. "I love to float on the water and dive down deep."

"What a silly idea," said the hen.

So he left the cottage too.

Autumn came. The leaves turned brown and blew about in the wind. One evening, as the sun went down, the duckling saw a flock of beautiful birds rising out of the reeds. They were dazzling white, with long, graceful necks, and they spread their great wings and flew away south, towards warmer lands.

The duckling stared after them until they were gone. He did not know what they were. But he felt a strange, deep longing, as if he had loved them all his life.

The long winter

Then winter came, and it was very cold.

The duckling had to keep swimming round and round to stop the water from freezing around him. One morning a kind farmer found him stuck in the ice, broke it free with his wooden clog, and carried him home to his family. But the farmer's children wanted to play, and they were so loud and bouncy that the frightened duckling flapped about and knocked over the milk. In the muddle, he escaped out of the door.

He spent the rest of that winter hiding among the reeds, cold and lonely, waiting.

And then, one day, the sun felt warm on his back. The larks were singing. Spring had come.

Spring

The duckling stretched his wings. They felt strong now, much stronger than before. He beat them once, twice, and suddenly he was flying. He flew over fields and gardens until he came down at last on a lake in a beautiful park.

There, gliding across the water, were three of those white birds he had seen in the autumn.

The duckling's heart thumped. "They will chase me away," he thought. "Everyone always does. But I'd rather be near something so beautiful than be alone any longer."

He swam towards them, and bowed his head down to the water.

And in the still water, he saw his reflection.

He was not a clumsy grey duckling any more. Looking back at him was a white bird with a long, graceful neck.

He was a swan.

The three swans swam round him and gently stroked him with their beaks, as if to say, welcome home. Children ran down to the lake with bread. "Look!" cried the smallest. "There's a new one! And he's the most beautiful of all!"

The young swan tucked his head shyly under his wing. He was very happy, but not a bit proud. He remembered too well how it felt to be laughed at.

About this story

Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish writer, published "The Ugly Duckling" in 1843. Andersen was a poor shoemaker's son who was teased as a gangly, awkward boy before he became one of the most famous storytellers in the world, and many readers have seen something of his own life in this tale. His original says that it does not matter being born in a duck yard, if you came from a swan's egg. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.