The Pigs by Hans Christian Andersen. Short summary

5 seconds

The old carriage was taken off its wheels and used as a pigsty. The author saw this structure in the summer, and in the fall it was an even sadder sight. The pigs were looking for acorns in the woods. They alone were fine in the mud.

1 minute

One day the author was driving by a farmer’s homestead and saw an interesting structure. An old dilapidated carriage had been taken off its wheels and set up as a pigsty. Several pigs were peeping out of the once ornate windows with curtains.

After a while, the author drove the same road again. The carriage stood still, but the pigs were not in it — they were grazing in the woods. It was rainy autumn. The leaves were gone, the songbirds had flown away. Only the wind whistled and the rain pounded the bare trees.

But pigs liked this time of year. They turned the clearing under the trees into a liquid mess and prowled around looking for acorns. «All we have to do is stuff our bellies!» — they said.

It seemed as if this reign of mud and pigs had been established forever. But the author noticed the light from the window of the forester’s hut. The children were frolicking there, and their grandfather was reading to them from the Bible that another Spring would come-the real Spring, when there would be no mud, no suffering, and no death anymore.