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The motif Wedding is a part of: Ritual

Keywords:

Ritual, love, marriage

Description of this motif: Weddings are based on the church's wedding ritual, which unites two people in the sacred bonds of marriage. In Andersen's tales weddings usually are described as in a traditional folk tale: the hero gets the princess in the end, and they live happpily ever after.

Example 1:

One day he entered the Professor's plain room, and it was not just the Professor he wished to see this time either; it was again his daughter, Ingeborg Vinding, who gave him the kiss, – the inauguration of his fortune. A fortnight after, Paul Vendelbo Loevenoern (Lioneagle) celebrated his wedding.

Example 2:

From North Seeland there comes a gloomy incident that stirs the thoughts. The church of Roervig is situated far out toward the sand hills by the stormy Kattegat. One evening a large ship dropped anchor out there, and was presumed to be a Russian man-of-war. In the night a knocking was heard at the gate of the parsonage, and several armed and masked persons ordered the minister to put on his ecclesiastical gown and accompany them out to the church. They promised him good pay, but used menaces if he declined to go. He went with them. The church was lighted, unknown people were gathered, and all was in deep silence. Before the altar the bride and bridegroom were waiting, dressed in magnificent clothes, as if they were of high rank, but the bride was pale as a corpse. When the marriage ceremony was finished, a shot was heard, and the bride lay dead before the altar. They took the corpse, and all went away with it. The next morning the ship had weighed anchor. To this day nobody has been able to give any explanation of the event.

The minister who took part in it wrote down the whole event in his Bible, which is handed down in his family. The old church is still standing between the sand hills at the tossing Kattegat, and the story lives in writing and in memory.