Celebrating the World: "The Nightingale" by Hans Christian Andersen

Myth Matters

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Birds have a unique place in our cultural imagination. Observing their habits, our ancestors learned about home building, foraging, and partnership. Their presence inspired our earliest art forms and culture.
Today birds still teach us about sorrow and death, love and joy, and the beautiful power found in song, in singing. We're also learning new lessons from birds, about intelligence, cognition, and language.

"The Nightingale" is one of Hans Christian Andersen lesser-known stories. It's quirky and funny and an interesting reflection on the difference between art and artifice, nature and culture. I hope you enjoy the story.
“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”-- Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

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