View source for Directory:The Storks

{{Infobox short story | <!-- See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] or [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Books]] -->
| name = The Storks
| title_orig = 
| translator = 
| author = [[Hans Christian Andersen]] (2&nbsp;April 1805 &ndash; 4&nbsp;August 1875)
| country = [[Denmark]]
| language = Danish
| series = 
| genre = Literary [[fairy tale]]
| published_in = ''Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. Second Booklet. 1839 (Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Ny Samling. Andet Hefte. 1839.)''
| publication_type = Fairy tale collection
| publisher = C. A. Reitzel
| media_type = Print
| pub_date = 19 October 1839
| english_pub_date = 
| preceded_by = [[The Flying Trunk]]
| followed_by = 
}}

"'''The Storks'''" ({{lang-da|Storkene}}) is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen first published by C. A. Reitzel in [[Copenhagen, Denmark]] on 19&nbsp;October 1839 with "[[The Garden of Paradise]]" and "[[The Flying Trunk]]" in the second booklet of ''Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection.''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/register/info_e.html?vid=23 |title=Hans Christian Andersen : The Garden of Paradise |publisher=Hans Christian Andersen Center |accessdate=2009-11-10}}</ref> Andersen biographer Jackie Wullschlager considers the story and its two companion pieces in the booklet as "grim" noting that the stork promises a dead baby brother to children who mock him.<ref>Wullschlager 194</ref>  Marina Warner points out that the legend of the stork as the deliverer of babies was "vigorously renewed" in the nineteenth century as a way of explaining adult events to children.<ref>Quoted in Wullschlager 194</ref> With the "[[The Little Mermaid]]" and "The Daisy", "The Storks" finally gave Andersen his authorial voice and he wrote B. S. Ingemann that his imagination had taken flight and he wrote such stories from his heart.  He further indicated that he had a vast store of material for such writing (more than any other writing), and that every object he saw provoked the subject of a story.<ref>Andersen 266</ref>
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