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4 months ago
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Immigrants to Denmark often wonder at how Danes greet you in the street when they do not know you. This is a very particular process where, as you are walking past a Dane, they will look you in the eye, let their gaze go from your eyes to your shoes and back with a rather sour expression. If your shoes are not perfectly tied the expression may even be distinctly unfriendly, if they are actually untied they will probably inform you that your shoes are untied as if the most important thing you could possibly have on your mind at any particular point in time is how to keep your shoes laced.
Sometimes if you are walking down the street with your shoes untied voices will come up behind you telling you your shoes are untied, either as people pass you at too brisk a pace, walk diagonally between doorways in the busy street, or are just walking behind you eyeing your shoelaces as Danes like to do. From much experimentation with this phenomenon I can report that what the Dane would like is for you to exclaim in horror and excitement at how such a state of affairs has come to be, and immediately kneel in the street to rectify matters, throwing away your hotdog or dropping your shopping bags if these things should be in the way of you speedily solving the potentially disastrous problem of the shoes not being tied up as shoes should be. If completely flipping out is off the table the Dane will also accept a “yes, thank you, I will fix” with a terse nod of acknowledgement conveying the feeling of a superior officer telling a subordinate “See that you do” when that subordinate has promised to get to an urgent matter as soon as possible. Obviously this scene with the subordinate and superior would be from a British war movie.
There are some Danes that model themselves more on Americans than Brits. Right wing politicians and members of Biker gangs mainly, and as a moment’s consideration will tell you no American officer would say “see that you do” to a subordinate when yelling “Goddamnit, now!” would suffice. These American fixated Danes will instead of a terse nod, point vigorously at the offending shoes before continuing down the street with their growling muscle dogs pulling their chains onward.
Responding with something like “later” or “yes I know” to being informed that one’s shoes are untied is very rude and will most likely ruin the rest of the Dane’s day, or perhaps even their weekend if it should happen late Friday or early Saturday morning. They will undoubtedly make note of your face, as it is good to keep track of terrorism suspects one encounters, so that they can avoid you in the future. They do not even seem to feel any gratitude that you have provided them with a subject of Monday morning’s office conversation focused on something other than how the weather has been for the last few days. It may help to talk over traumatic events, but nobody wants to have traumatic events happen just so they have interesting conversations, evidently.
If you have ever been in Denmark, with sober memory of the occasion, you are undoubtedly nodding vigorously along now and remarking “Why, yes, I did notice that! But what is the cause?!?”
Well, as many things obnoxious in the Danish character, this can all be traced back to H.C Anderson and a trauma he suffered.
One average summer day H.C. Andersen was walking in the city center of Copenhagen, he sat down and took out a book, looking down the boulevard that nowadays bears his name. This moment has been memorialized in statue form, but the statue lies.
This statue was commissioned not just to commemorate Andersen but to cover up one of the most scandalous and traumatic events of post-viking Danish history.
Notice the shoes on the statue
Solid, no laces dangling loosely — indeed no laces at all! Andersen’s laces have been removed from history by the obfuscatory statue! In fact from the records of the time Andersen did not sit stiffly but rather lolled with his two feet extended and crossed as he relaxed in the rare Danish summer sun. And, disastrously, with his shoes unlaced and loose about his feet.
It was in this condition that an absolutely huge crow flew down and viciously grabbed the shoes from off his feet. Let me expand on the size of this crow; although a hooded crow by genus it was larger than the largest Thick-Billed Raven and was indeed 3 feet in size. It was a common joke for years thereafter that any large nosed man better guard their footwear, because “Andersen’s crow” was still out there and needed one final shoe to cover its third foot.
The crow, in possession of the shoes, flew with them to the top of city hall where it evidently nested (not the present day city hall, but the old one which was later turned into the Copenhagen Court house). The crow cawed violently at the passersby beneath, who were all pointing up at the sight of a large and gray bird carrying two large shoes (Andersen had very large feet, and it is a well known saying that men with large noses also tend to have large feet, so many of the townspeople immediately jumped to the correct conclusion that the ‘scribbler’ had lost his shoes)
Andersen meanwhile, fell backwards with a cry, as is natural when astounded by a monstrous bird that easily comes up to your knees and also steals from you; the natural order was upended first and Andersen second.
Unfortunately he had neglected to put his stockings on that morning. Many writers, familiar with the life of the mind, are slovenly in their personal habits and Andersen was no exception. So as his large feet shot up in the air and he fell on his back their unwashed status was readily apparent to upright citizens strolling by.
Nothing is more judgemental than an upright Dane.
Andersen was cruelly mocked in the following months, and school kids made mean songs about him, such as the following that actually became popular across much of Northern Europe (tune based on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen) :
Here comes Shoeless Andersen
With his stinky feet
Beware of Shoeless Andersen
He’s the sort you hate to meet!
He tips his hat to say hello
We run from the stench
Oh wash your stinky feet and toes, I pray
Please wash your stinky toes!
Of course the sensitive Andersen did not handle this public ridicule well, and after this debacle spent much of his remaining years traveling abroad, trying to escape the song that celebrated, it seemed to him, the theft of his shoes by the enormous crow of the Copenhagen city hall.
In later years the crow bothered many citizens of Denmark for their shoes and other valuables, and was finally shot by a hunter brought in for the task from Jutland; various objects the crow had pilfered were retrieved from its nest, but Andersen’s shoes were not among them.
After Andersen’s death the citizens of Denmark were naturally embarrassed at how badly they had treated their greatest writer while he still lived, and absolved themselves as you might expect, by building the lying statue to honor him while covering up the true story of their shameful behavior, at the same time the native Danes developed the obsession with keeping their shoes tight upon their feet and safe from the predations of abnormally large fowls.
In the end the Danes are so adamant that you must tie your laces because keeping each other in line is the national pastime, and naturally keeping the immigrants in line is their way of welcoming new residents in to their homes and cold, cold hearts.
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