Hans christian andersen

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

The West has become ungovernable

From our US edition

My favorite opinion poll of recent times was the one which showed that Donald Trump is disliked by more than 90 percent of Danes. This is a glorious achievement and one of which the President should be proud, and perhaps boast about from time to time – averse though he may be to boasting, of course. This was the lowest favorability rating for Trump anywhere in Yerp and I suppose is partly occasioned by his determination to pry Greenland from the grasp of these ineffably smug Scandis because they have no idea what to do with it and have mismanaged its meager affairs for decades. A personal admission: I cannot stand Danes.

Thursday

Philip Hensher

The first fairy stories were never intended for children

Stories are fundamental to humanity and no one can guess how far back they go — long before they were first recorded, no doubt. As Thomas Mann says at the beginning of Joseph and his Brothers: The further down into the lower world of the past we probe and press, the more do we find that the earliest foundations of humanity, its history and culture, reveal themselves unfathomable. The existence in different cultures and remote places of tales similar to Cinderella, for instance, suggests ur-stories, common ancestors millennia old. There is no accessing those original folk tales. All we can say is that they were already very deep-rooted when they first appeared in recorded culture. The routes by which they did so vary in nature and, apparently, in authority.