Hans Christian Andersen, "The Travelling Companion" (trans. M. R. James) (Denmark)

It’s December 18. Welcome back to the 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar—a literary globetrotting adventure featuring 25 stories from 25 different countries.

Our editor, Alberto Manguel, is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

Here he is on Hans Christian Andersen’s story, “The Travelling Companion”:

Hans Christian Andersen acquired a formidable international reputation with his fairy tales, and several of them have become universal myths. “The Little Mermaid” and “The Ugly Duckling” no longer belong to him but are part of the imagination of our species. Others, like “The Travelling Companion,” are lesser known but equally remarkable in their conjuring-up of ancestral desires and fears. The figure of the Other, travelling with us as shadow, double or guardian, is as old as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Angel that accompanies Tobias in the Bible.

* * * * *

What did you think of today's story? Use the hashtag #ssac2021 on Twitter and Instagram to check in with your fellow advent calendarians. And check back tomorrow for commentary on the next story!