Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller

The fairy tale, The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson has always been a favorite of mine. It is a beautiful story and one that is not very well known which is unfortunate. There are so many elements in this story that stood out to me even as a young child and it was the first fairy tale I wanted to use for my books. You can check out my other post that goes a little more in depth to the elements I used from The Snow Queen.

In the original fairytale, The Snow Queen, a mischievous goblin puts together an evil mixture and uses a mirror to capture his evil intentions. He spies two good friends one day and decides on Kai for his mark of mischief. The goblin breaks the glass and parts of the cursed glass falls to the earth like snow and gets embeded in Kai’s eye, giving him shattered sight. The embedded glass makes him angry and irritable and turns him away from his best friend Gerta. He sees only the worst in people as a result. He falls from the rooftop and is whisked away by the Snow Queen to her realm and he finds himself living in her world of ice and snow. Because of the cursed glass in his eye, he is blinded to the fact that he is slowly freezing to death in the Snow Queen’s realm.

In Beauty Restored, Queen Anwyne, my Snow Queen character, uses her magic to manipulate and control those around her. Towards the beginning of the book when you first meet her, you see her use her magic to control the captain of her guard, Tharynn. Tharynn grew up in the palace because he had no other family and worked his way up through the ranks of page, squire, knight, etc. Because he lived in the palace, he became close friends with the Snow Queen’s daughter, Brinn. This friendship turned to unspoken feelings of love at some point for both of them, but neither realized or spoke these feelings until later on in the story when they are both faced with situations where they are battling the Snow Queen’s magic/curses to save the other. In the first chapter with Tharynn and Anwyne, she slowly winds her icy magic around Tharynn until it reaches his heart and squeezes his heart to painfully force him to do her bidding and as punishment for returning to the palace without having found the snow beast that had threatened their kingdom the night before. When he unknowingly admits his deeper feelings for Brinn under the queen’s antagonizing spell, she sees a means to an end by using him to destroy the beast, knowing full well who the beast is, and as a way to get her daughter back, who went missing when the beast attacked the night before. She releases her icy hold on him and walks over to her table of potions until she finds what she was looking for–mirror dust. She blows the cursed mirror dust into Tharynn’s eyes, causing him a different pain as the miniscule mirror pieces embed themselves in his eyes. Once his eyes have been transformed, he is now only able to view the world through the lens of shattered sight.

This curse of shattered sight blinds him to his life-long friendship with Brinn and sets his sights on one thing–killing the beast that the Snow Queen views as a threat. He attacks Brinn and Erianna in the woods in an attempt to kill the beast and doesn’t seem to even notice or remember Brinn. Later on, Queen Anwyne uses her power over him to bring Brinn back. Brinn runs into him in the woods and is relieved and grateful to be with her strong protector again, knowing there is nowhere safer she could be than with him, but starts to hear and see certain things that are just slightly off about Tharynn’s character or his interactions with her. When Brinn is able to look closer, she sees the mirror dust in his eyes and realizes that Erianna was right in saying he had been cursed with shattered sight. She kisses him and the love shared in the kiss allows some of the dust to be pushed from his eyes, restoring his sight for a moment before the queen enacts her menacing power over him again. Later on, Archimedes pours a potion made of tears into Tharynn’s eyes, against his will of course because he is still under the blinding hold of the Snow Queen, and the tears force the cursed dust from his eyes. He is able to see clearly at last.

In the original story of The Snow Queen, Gerta is surprised and confused by Kai’s sudden change in behavior when his eye becomes embedded with the cursed glass from the mirror. Once Kai is in her realm, The Snow Queen plants frozen kisses on his forehead to make him forget about his home and Gerta and the world he left behind. When he goes missing, Gerta sets out to find him. On her way to find the Snow Queen, she finds the Lady of Summer, the Snow Queen’s sister who makes everything summer. Gerta gets distracted by the Lady of Summer and stays in the warmth and beauty of summer for a long time. Because Gerta and Kai shared a love of roses, every time Gerta saw a rose, she thought of Kai, but the Lady of Summer wanted to keep her with her since she never had a daughter of her own, so she got rid of all of the roses in her beautiful garden–except for one that was embroidered on her hat. Gerta sees it one day and remembers Kai. She leaves the Lady of Summer and finds her way to the Snow Queen’s realm. By the time she gets there, Kai is almost frozen solid. Gerta tries to remind Kai who she is, but he doesn’t see her as the dear friend he left behind. Gerta begins to cry over Kai and her tears warm his heart and break through the coldness his heart had become in the Snow Queen’s presence. As his heart is warmed, he too begins to cry and the tears force the slivers of cursed glass from his eyes and his sight and heart are restored.

As I’ve said, there is so much in this story that points to our relationship with Christ and I tried to capture those elements that point to the Greater story of Christ’s pursuit and desire of a relationship with us. Sin can look very beautiful and enticing and like the Snow Queen, it’s beauty can lure us into a world that is cold and isolated. Different things can prick our hearts and cause us to lose sight of our loved ones or friends or the beauty of the world around us. Vanity, selfishness, pride, desires, busyness that distracts us from loving others and being loved in return. They can seem small and harmless like a delicate snowflake but can actually be dangerous slivers of glass that gets embedded in our eyes and hearts. Once they have become embedded, we too are cursed with shattered sight. We no longer see our Lord as the Lord and Savior that we need. We no longer see the error in our ways or the wrong in our desires. We forget about our friendships or family members and become consumed with other things. We become residents in a world that is slowly killing us and destroying us because we have become blinded to the danger of the place where our sins and our desires have left us. Christ is like Gerta and He comes after us and refuses to leave us despite our fallen state and no matter how much we try to deny Him or forget Him because of our shattered sight, He won’t leave until He convinces us of who we really are and who He really is. He cries tears of compassion and love over us and wept in the garden when he was about to make a sacrifice that would forever change the world. His drops of blood seep into our hearts and remind us of the sacrifice He made on the cross for us. His tears of compassion pour over us until our hearts start to thaw out from the frozen place of sin we have given ourselves over to and our tears of repentance start to pour out from our eyes, removing the curse of shattered sight and allowing us to see the beauty of His redeeming love in our lives. When we give our lives over to Him, our hearts are no longer trapped in the grip of the frigid winter realm. New life springs forth like the blossoms of spring after a long, cold winter. Life is restored. Sight is restored. Beauty is restored.

Take a look at your life today. Have you been living in the winter realm in your heart? Has your heart become cold and unfeeling? Have you lost sight of the friends and family God has placed in your life to remind you of His goodness and love? Has your heart succumbed to the curse of shattered sight, causing you to live life blinded to God’s beauty and love? Or, have you become distracted by the beauty and warmth of the summer realm that you have forgotten about the lost souls in the world and about God’s purpose for your life?

God is crying over your life today, begging you to return to Him and step out of the life of eternal dying and into His realm of eternal life. The curse of shattered sight can be broken. It has been broken by the ultimate show of true love by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The Holy Spirit is calling to you to remember who God is and who you are. Listen. Remember. Let your heart and eyes be opened to the beauty of God’s love.

May you find the key to letting the beauty within your own life being restored.