The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen

by Hans Christian Andersen

 

The Fairy Tales of

Hans Christian Andersen

WITH UPWARDS OF FOUR
HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS
BY HELEN STRATTON

 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY EDWARD E. HALE, D.D.

 

 

PHILADELPHIA

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

 

 

Copyright, 1899,
by
Truslove, Hanson and Comea.

 

INTRODUCTION

Hans Christian Andersen, without knowing it, prescribed a healthy tonic for more than one writer in England and America. It would be a pity not to acknowledge this.

He was not well known in either country when Mary Howitt published her translations of his stories in England. Perhaps her intimacy with Frederica Bremer, the Swedish novelist, opened the way to her acquaintance with the Danish story-teller.

The children of England and America had the first benefit of this invasion of the Dane. For, by a rather provoking law, it will happen that the literature of childhood is sadly apt to fall into the ruts of sentimentalists or of mechanics. “Anybody can write a child’s book” is the false theory of publishers in the decline which comes upon children’s books once in a generation. As an experienced editor once said to me, ninety-nine hundredths of the articles sent to him about boys and girls are written by ladies who never had the charge of either boy or girl.

Into the midst of books thus written down for children there comes, once in a generation, such a revelation as the publication of Grimm’s Fairy Tales made early in this century, as the appearance in England of Andersen’s children’s stories, made. And again, such as children enjoyed when Stevenson’s poems for them appeared. Probably Stevenson’s poems would not have been written but for such prose poems as

“The Constant Tin Soldier.”

“For certain soldiers lately dead
Our reverent dirge shall here be said:
Them, when their martial leader called,
No dread preparative appalled,
But leaden-hearted, leaden-heeled,
I marked them steadfast in the field.

Death grimly sided with the foe,
And smote each leaden hero low;
Proudly they perished one by one;
The dread pea-cannon’s work was done!
Oh not for them the tears we shed,
Consigned to their congenial lead;
But while unmoved their sleep they take,
We mourn for their dear captain’s sake,—
For their dear captain, who shall smart
Both in his pocket and his heart,
Who saw his heroes shed their gore,
And lacked a penny to buy more.”

I do not venture to describe the indescribable, and so I will not try to analyze the charm of Andersen’s children’s stories. They can speak for themselves. They do speak for themselves in the memories of all those young people who, if I may say so, were brought up on them. There is sentiment in them, because there is sentiment in all life; but it is not a morbid or manufactured sentiment. It is the sentiment which belongs to the occasion. Here is what I have meant when I say that he administered a healthful tonic to all those writers for children who had sense enough to wish to improve on their own methods. For the mere mechanics, the people who build stories up as a child makes a mud pie,—so much water and so much clay, without going farther than the water and the clay,—no tonic is possible.

People generally speak as if “The Improvisatore” were the autobiography of Andersen, and as if whoever has read that understands his life. This does not seem to me quite broad enough. His own memoir of himself, which has been translated by Mrs. Howitt, gives a very curious picture of life in Denmark. It shows us what that gallant little kingdom is, has been, and may be. And in the midst of a charming egotism,—perhaps because of this charming egotism—it reveals Andersen to us in a way which makes us love him more and not less.

It is immensely to the credit of the artists of Copenhagen, of the people of rank there, of what Mrs. Grundy calls “Society,” that this boy, only not a beggar boy, landing in the streets there with nothing but hope and one rixthaler, should have pressed his way forward and upward till he became the Dane spoken of most often in the literary circles of the world. It makes one believe in small kingdoms, small commonwealths—may I say, in Brick Moons?—when one sees the cordiality, the best form of charity, the distinguished care, with which Copenhagen could take care of such a Danish boy when he needed care. His first attempts at fame are made when he goes upon the stage of the theatre as one of the “populace,” dressed in the dress which was made out of his father’s coat for his own confirmation. He thinks to be a singer, and is not fit to be a singer. He thinks to be a poet, and they do not accept him as a poet; this is their fault, not his. But he then does what he can do: he writes, and writes the truth. He tells what he has seen, with that admirable unwillingness to try to tell what he has not seen. Realism, the realism of the nineteenth century, about which much is absurdly said and sung, appears, whether in the story of the tin soldier or in romance so called, made out of the life of a fiddler.

And here, as it seems to me, is the tonic which this Danish peasant administered to the literature of England and America. I do not know whether he did as much good in Denmark as he did here; I do not know whether they needed it as much as I think it was needed by the writers for children here; I do know that this quiet use of language, in which there is a nominative case for the thing that is described, and a good steadfast verb which describes that thing; in which there is no rushing north, south, east, or west for an effect which is visible and at hand,—I do know that this use of language is an excellent example for young authors or for old.

It is fifty-four years since Mary Howitt introduced this shepherd of the people to people who could not read Danish but could read English. This English nation for whom she wrote, and the American nation which is born from that English nation, would not be what they are if, some thousand years ago, rather more than less, certain Danes, so called, had not occasionally found their way into English seaports, and when they chose colonized the lands of the inhabitants. It is not simply that a quaint word or two slipped from their dialect into ours. There is more than that. The blood of Norsemen is in our veins. Perhaps it is true that the habit of calling a spade a spade was particularly a Danish habit. Perhaps the Danes had the gift of using words of one syllable where the Latin nations preferred to use words of four syllables; they liked to say Thor, and did not like to say Diispeter. And perhaps,—these are only my guesses, but I am in the habit of thinking that we like to hear Jenny Lind sing, that we like to read the poems of Tegner and the voyages of Nansen, that we like to find the Linnea borealis on the slopes of the White Mountains, because we are all Scandinavians in blood. Perhaps this is the reason why we and our children like to read Hans Christian Andersen.

It may please the reader to have a little remembrance of Andersen, which I copy from a private note of one of his friends: “I once had the good fortune to pass four months under the same roof with Hans Christian Andersen. I often heard him read his fairy tales, and one beautiful moonlight night he wrote down these lines to me. The following is a literal translation of the autograph:

“‘The moon shines round and full
Over field and swamp.
And in the stillness of the wood
Grows the Rose of Poesy.’

He then gathered this bouquet in the garden where we were, and gave it to me as a remembrance of him, but I shall not forget him even without it.” The faded rose is in the letter from which I copy the lines.

EDWARD E. HALE

 

Contents

	PAGE
THE RED SHOES	1
THE CHIMNEY SWEEP	6
THE NIGHTINGALE	11
THE GARDEN OF PARADISE	18
THE LITTLE SWINEHERD	29
A WEEK WITH OLÉ LUK-OIE	33
THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES	42
THE ICE-MAIDEN, OR THE EAGLE'S NEST	47
THE STORKS	78
THE UGLY DUCKLING	82
THE WILD SWANS	89
THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER	100
THE LITTLE MERMAID	125
THE GIRL WHO TROD ON THE LOAF	141
THE CONSTANT TIN SOLDIER	147
THE SNOW QUEEN	151
THE FELLOW-TRAVELLER	172
THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL	186
THE REAL PRINCESS	188
UNDER THE WILLOW	191
LITTLE CLAUS AND BIG CLAUS	202
THE SHADOW	210
THE STORY OF A MOTHER	220
THE FLYING TRUNK	225
THE TINDER-BOX	230
THE GOLOSHES OF HAPPINESS	236
HOLGER DANSKE	257
THE FIR-TREE	261
LITTLE TUK	268
WHAT THE MOON SAW	271
THE BRONZE PIG	293
IB AND LITTLE CHRISTINE	300
THE CRIPPLE	308
THE OLD BACHELOR'S NIGHTCAP	314

 

List of Illustrations

The Red Shoes
page
The Princess stood at a window	1
She thought only of her shoes	2
She could not stop herself	2
It was the old soldier	3
She tapped at the window	4
She went across the heath	5
All the children made much of her	5
Her soul was carried up to God	6

The Chimney Sweep
page
I entreat you to go with me into the wide world	7
They saw the old cupboard was all in an uproar	8
She fell on her china knee	9
He led her to the door of the stove	9
The roof of the town lay below	10
His head had rolled into a corner	10

The Nightingale
page
Sat on his golden throne reading the book	11
Ran up and down, and looked through all the rooms	12
The nightingale sang exquisitely	13
She went willingly on hearing the emperor wished it	14
Each had fastened a ribbon round her leg	14
All cried out “Oh!“	15
The boys in the street would go about singing	15
Jumped out of bed, and called for his physician	16
She sang, and the Emperor fell into a sweet sleep	17

The Garden of Paradise
page
At every step he slipped on the wet grass	19
“I sat and slept at the helm“	20
He kissed his mother so roughly that she nearly fell backwards	21
“An ostrich ran a race with me”	21
He sat on the back of the east wind	22
They now entered the cavern	23
She led the Princess into her palace	24
Storks and pelicans flew in long rows	26
The Fairy cried, “Come with me! come with me!”	27
He pushed the boughs aside	28

The Little Swineherd; or, The Prince in Disguise
“Good morning,” said he	29
The Prince became swineherd	30
The swineherd got ten kisses	30
“What’s the meaning of this?” cried he	31
“What a miserable creature I am,” sobbed the Princess	32

A Week with Olé Luk-Oie
On the balcony stood princesses	35
“We shall cook you to-morrow,” said Hjalmar	37
Away they went to the mouse’s wedding	37
The mice were near treading each other to death	38
The bridal pair were sitting on the floor	39
Olé Luk-Oie lifted little Hjalmar up to the window	41
“Look how he gallops along!”	42

The Emperor’s New Clothes
Staring as hard as he could	43
“It has our most gracious approval”	43
People could see them at work	44
The Emperor went forth in grand procession	45
“But he has got nothing on!”	46

The Ice-Maiden; or, The Eagle’s Nest
“Come with me on the roof,” said the cat	47
Rudy loved the morning air	48
They still had to cross one great glacier	49
The Queen of the Glaciers	49
The cold kisses which the Queen of the Glaciers had given him	50
They bleated “Med! med! may!”	51
Began to tell tales and legends of the spirits of the Alps	52
The mysterious shepherd and his black sheep	53
His uncle would tell tales of his childhood	54
Rudy clung to the stem of a tree	54
“Write a letter for me to the Lord Christ!”	55
“He gave me a kiss at the dance”	56
The parlour cat stood on the steps	57
Offered him an Alpine rose	58
Singing and playing on all kinds of instruments	59
“Have you a sweetheart?” said Rudy	60
The snow came down and the wind shrieked	61
Rudy submitted to be kissed	62
They trod on me more than once	63
They opened the door, and both went in	63
They set off with poles, banners, and ropes	64
In the black, gaping depth sat the Ice Maiden	65
It was captured alive	65
Rudy and Babette	67
“They play at masters down below,” said the Ice Maiden	68
Peeped through the curtain	70
Held the bowl to his lips	71
The Ice Maiden gave him a kiss	71
Therefore Babette lectured him	71
Only his hunting jacket and hat	73
Hand in hand, seated on the little bench	75
The ring expanded into a sparkling circle	75
The Ice Maiden stood majestic, with Rudy at her feet	76

The Storks
“Stork, stork, fly home and rest”	78
“We then go into the mire and eat frogs”	79
The four youngsters were all obliged to come out on the top of the roof	80
A little fellow, scarcely more than six years old	80
There were evolutions for you!	81
“Now, we’ll fly to the pond and fetch one for every child”	82
“In the pond lies a little infant, who has dreamed itself to death”	82

The Ugly Duckling
“Now bend your neck, and say ‘Quack!’”	84
The girl who fed the poultry kicked him	85
“What’s that?” said the woman, looking round	85
The duckling sat in a corner, very much out of spirits	86
He turned round and round in the water like a wheel	87
The children would have played with him	87
Some of the children threw bread-crumbs and corn into the water	88

The Wild Swans
A book full of prints	90
Helped her to undress and get into the bath	90
Stole out of the palace in great affliction	91
An old woman with a basket full of cherries	91
Elise followed the rivulet	92
Just at sunset Elise saw eleven swans flying towards the shore	92
She stroked his wings	93
The swans carried Elise away from the rock	94
Held him before him on his horse	95
Allowed the women to dress her in regal robes	96
Until she reached the churchyard	97
The rustling of a swan’s wings sounded near the grating	98
To see the witch burnt	99
The King plucked it, and placed it in Elise’s bosom	99

 

The Marsh King’s Daughter
Was found by the King’s daughter	100
“Don’t get excited”	101
Tore her feather dress into a hundred pieces	101
It was he who pulled her down	102
The stork at first believed it to be the Princess turned a child again	103
Screamed passionately, and stretched out its arms and legs	103
There, just at the foot of the bed, was a great ugly toad	104
The Viking’s wife sat on the cross bench in the open banqueting hall	105
The serfs slept for the night in the warm ashes	106
All his limbs rigid and stretched out like a mummy	107
We bound fire under the wings of a swallow	108
He stood on one leg	109
She was to hold her ear to the lips of the dead	109
Came dripping with water into the lofty hall	110
Then the Viking’s wife could take her on her knees	111
“But he is still the handsomest of them all,” said the mother stork	112
Drove the knife into his side	112
Vent away wrathful and sad	113
“Who art thou?”	114
The horse galloped on	114
Rode through the forest	115
The sun went down at that moment	116
Sat there all through the long day	117
Looked with astonishment at her fine white hands	117
The Christian priest raised his cross on high	118
Lay a sleeping woman	118
Trembled and nestled up closer to her foster-mother	119
Stretched out her arms towards them	120
There stood two beautiful women, as like as two drops of dew	121
She saw two powerful ostriches running round in narrow circles	122
Placed the golden circlet about his neck	123
Asked him to fly to the beech forest	123
She looked towards the twinkling, sparkling stars	124
Fell on her knees	125

The Little Mermaid
Ate out of their hands and allowed themselves to be stroked	126
The youngest planted hers in a circle to imitate the sun	126
A statue, representing a handsome youth, hewn out of pure white marble	127
They flew away in great alarm	128
All the vessels scudded past in great alarm	128
As often as the water lifted her up she peeped in through the transparent panes	129
She held his head above the water, and then let the waves carry them whither they pleased	130
It was not long before a young maiden approached the spot where he was lying	131
“You must not think about that,” said the old dame	132
Crossing her hands over her bosom she darted along	133
Within sat the sea witch, feeding a toad from her mouth	134
When the sun rose over the sea she awoke and felt a sharp pang	135
Everybody was enchanted, but most of all the Prince, who called her his little foundling	136
She would go and sit on the broad marble steps, for it cooled her burning feet to bathe them in the water	137
He kissed her rosy mouth and played with her long hair	137
Gazed through the clear waters, and fancied she saw her father’s palace	138
She was fain to laugh and dance, though the thoughts of death were in her heart	138
She then saw her sisters rising out of the flood	139
Then jumped overboard, and felt her body dissolving into foam	140

The Girl who Trod on the Loaf
Inger turned away, for she was ashamed to have for her mother a ragged woman who gathered sticks	142
Flung the loaf into the mud that she might step on it and come over dry-shod	143
But the worst of all was the horrible hunger which she felt	143
They told her story to the children, and the little ones called her “the wicked Inger”	144
“I do so wish she would!” said the little girl, and she was quite inconsolable	145
A peasant set up a pole close to the wall, and tied a sheaf of oats to the top	145
“There is a sea-swallow flying away over the sea,” said the children	146

The Constant Tin Soldier
Though they had nearly trodden upon him they could not manage to find him	148
The boat flew past, and the rat followed	149
Everybody was desirous of seeing the celebrated man who travelled about inside a fish	149
When the maid raked out the ashes she found him in the shape of a tin heart	151

The Snow Queen
He climbed up to the window	151
And she placed him beside her in the sledge, and wrapped the skin round him	154
A little house with strange red and blue windows	155
While she was eating, the old woman combed her hair with a golden comb	156
Gerda knew every flower	156
“I don’t understand anything about it,” said little Gerda	157
Little Gerda ran forth with bare feet into the wide world	158
“No—have you, though?” cried the little girl, and had nearly hugged the crow to death, so fondly did she kiss him	159
She began to sing a song which ran thus; “Wherefore shouldn’t I marry?”	160
And when they approached the throne where sat the Princess, they found nothing to say	161
On the third day there came marching cheerfully along towards the palace a little body, who had neither horse nor coach	162
And he was pleased with her, and she with him	163
Gazed at Gerda, who curtsied	163
Horses with flying manes appeared like shadows on the wall	164
The coach was amply stored inside with sweet cakes, and under the seat were fruit and gingerbread nuts	164
“Oh, la!” screamed the woman	165
By that time they had reached Lapland	166
The Finlandish woman’s intelligent eyes twinkled, though she said nothing	167
Little Gerda then repeated the Lord’s Prayer	168
But he sat quite motionless, stiff and cold	169
There emerged from it a beautiful horse	169

 

The Fellow Traveller
The first night he was obliged to lie on a haycock in the open fields	173
Before the church door stood an aged beggar, leaning on a crutch	173
“Of course,” said the ugly men, “if you pay his debt, we will neither of us lay a finger upon him”	174
Took out a box, saying that he had an ointment which would immediately make her leg whole again	175
Seized the Queen by the middle of her slender waist, so that it cracked again	176
The Queen knelt down	176
He cut off the two wings of the dead swan, at a single blow, and kept them	177
He, and all his soldiers used to kneel and pray that the Princess might grow good	177
They now heard the mob cheering outside the inn. The Princess was passing by	178
A frightful sight to behold! From every tree hung three or four kings’ sons	179
The Princess, wrapped in a flowing white robe, flew over the city	180
The judges sat in their arm-chairs with their heads propped up, because they had so much to think about	181
Thrashed her more violently than before, having taken two rods with him	182
But the Princess lay on the sofa, and would not speak a word	182
“So much the better,” said the old King; “that’s just what I wish”	183
The Princess shrieked aloud when he dipped her into the water	184
The old King dandled his grandchildren on his knees, and let them play with his sceptre	185

The Little Match Girl
She now sat down, cowering in a corner. She had drawn her little feet under her, but felt colder than ever	186
And—what was more delightful still—the goose jumped down and waddled along the ground with a knife and fork in its breast	187

The Real Princess
There came a knock at the town gate, and the old king went and opened it	189
But she said nothing, and went into a spare room and laid a pea on the sacking of the bedstead	190
“I scarcely closed my eyes all night! I do not know what was in the bed”	190

Under the Willow
It was impossible to get him to go and paddle	191
One evening he told a story, which greatly impressed them	192
And told to a party of children the story of their mute affection, which led to nothing	193
He should certainly not be mute, like those two gingerbreads	194
She poured out the tea, and she herself offered him a cup	195
Canute went out into the town and looked up at her window	195
Joan turned as pale as death; she let go his hand	196
As she had a whole handful of roses, she gave him one also	197
Right opposite there was a great, old willow-tree	198
The girls nodded to him from the wooden balconies of the houses, as they made their lace	199
Canute looked right into her face and she looked right into Canute’s face; but she did not recognise him	199
And here stood Joan in all her magnificence, with the golden crown on	200
She bent her head over his face, and ice-cold tears trickled from her eyes	201

Little Claus and Big Claus
She was pouring him out wine, while he was busy with his fork in the fish	203
“Zounds!” said the farmer, hastily opening the oven	204
The farmer opened the lid a little, and peeped in	205
“What can he want it for?” thought Big Claus, as he smeared the bottom of it with tar	206
Fell to belabouring Big Claus’s shoulders	207
Seized his axe, and killed his old grandmother at a blow	208
“The moment I fell upon it the loveliest girl imaginable took me by the hand”	209
“There’s no fear about that,” said Little Claus; still he put a large stone into the bag	209

The Shadow
In the midst of the flowers stood a slender, lovely maiden	211
A light was burning in the room, just behind him	211
He perceived, to his great joy, that a new shadow had sprouted out of his legs	212
“Come in,” said he; but no one came. So he opened the door	213
“Yes, I will tell you,” said the shadow, sitting down	214
I drew myself up to my full height along the walls, which tickled my vanity very agreeably	215
The shadow always managed to take the precedence	216
She immediately perceived that the newly-arrived stranger was quite a different sort of person to everybody else	217
Being a king’s daughter, she was not obliged to stand upon ceremony	217
On all of which topics the learned man answered with sense and judgment	218
“I will go straight to the king’s daughter,” said the learned man	219
“It is a hard case, for he was a faithful servant,” said the shadow, pretending to sigh	220

The Story of a Mother
The mother then wrung her hands, wept, and sang	221
And she wept and wept till her eyes dissolved into the lake and became two costly pearls	222
And Death stretched out his hand towards the little delicate flower	223

The Flying Trunk
“I say, you Turkish nurse,” cried he, “what is that large castle near the town, where the windows are placed so high?”	226
She lay asleep on the sofa, and looked so beautiful that the merchant’s son could not help kissing her	227
The king and queen and the whole court were at tea with the princess, and he was received very politely	228
The boys in the streets stood on tip-toe, cried hurrah! and whistled through their fingers	229
She stood on the roof, and waited the whole day long	229

The Tinder Box
And he set the dog on the witch’s apron	231
“Do you know what?” said the soldier. “You must either tell me at once what you mean to do with it, or I’ll draw my sword and cut your head off”	232
She lay asleep on the dog’s back, and was so lovely that everybody might see she was a real princess	233
“But there’s one and there’s another,” said all present, for, whichever way they looked, there were crosses on all the doors	234
“I say, you shoemaker’s ’prentice, you needn’t be in such a hurry,” said the soldier	235

The Goloshes of Happiness
These goloshes have the property instantly to transport whomsoever shall put them on, to the place and time he best likes	236
The more he talked to the boatmen the more incomprehensible they appeared to him	238
“Excuse me,” said the councillor of justice to the landlady	239
“How are you now?” said the landlady, pulling the councillor’s sleeve	240
Just as he was going out, the company perceived his intention, and seized him by the feet	241
The lieutenant felt this to be the case, and therefore leant his head against the window frame and sighed deeply	243
He found himself on one of the countless circular ranges of mountains that we see in Dr. Madler’s large map of the moon	244
The young fellow then filliped his nose, which made him lose his balance	245
The first heart he entered was a lady’s, but at first he fancied he had got into an orthopædic institution	246
Her husband’s portrait served as a weathercock	247
The attendant uttered a loud exclamation at the sight of a man in all his clothes	248
Close by stood a boy, striking with a stick in a swampy ditch	250
At the same moment the skirts and sleeves of his coat became wings, his clothes turned to feathers, and his goloshes to claws	251
They purchased the bird for eightpence, and so the clerk returned to Copenhagen	251
Lovely half-naked children were tending a herd of coal-black swine, under a knot of fragrant laurels	254
The shrivelled arms and the monotonous whines of “Miserabili eccelenza!” came in much faster than the breezes	255
She drew the goloshes off his feet, when the sleep of death ended, and he once more revived	256

Holger Danske
As the old man sat talking, he was carving a large wooden figure representing Holger Danske	258
The first flame led him into a dark and narrow prison, where sat captive a beautiful woman	259
“But what you have carved is very fine, grandfather,” said she	260

The Fir Tree
They would often bring a pipkin full of berries and seat themselves near the little fir tree	261
“We know, we know,” twittered the sparrows, “for we have looked in at the windows in yonder town!”	262
At length the tapers were lit, and a grand sight it was, to be sure	263
Told the story of Humpty-Dumpty, who fell downstairs	264
The little mice were fit to jump to the top of the tree with delight	265
“Your servant,” answered the rats, and they returned back to their own sets	265
The youngest ran and tore off the gold star. “See what is sticking to the ugly old fir tree,” said the child	266
So the children left off playing, and came and sat near the fire	267

Little Tuk
And Tuk ran off and helped her	269
Large streams of water sprang from the cliff, and close by sat an aged king with a golden crown on his white hair	270

What the Moon Saw
Up and down danced the flame, but yet kept alight, and the dark eyes dwelt longingly upon it as it went	272
The hen was terrified, and made a great to do, spreading her wings to protect her chicks	272
She dropt her head, and her eyes brimmed with tears	273
Motionless she sat, as I looked at her, her hands in her lap	273
She knelt down and kissed the purple	274
Then came a poor girl, who dropped her load and sat down to rest on the grave of the Hun	275
A shroud of skins was already being sewed upon him by his wife	276
The driver glanced round nervously	277
The singer stood upon the time-worn stage and sang	278
Away in a corner sat a girl reading a book	278
A little boy came out and stood by his sister. “What are you watching?” said he	279
An angel brings them under his cloak	280
“Come in both of you,” she said, “and see the little brother the stork brought”.	280
The wives bore the babies on their backs, while the older ones trotted unsteadily at their sides	281
As a child among children Nature marked him out for Punch’s part	281
Columbine, indeed, was beautiful and kind to him	282
His chin on his hands, his eyes turned to me, he looked like a grotesque sculpture	283
There stood the little thing stiff and starched	284
He looked at his white cheeks in the glass	284
There she stood barefoot, weeping, daring not to lift the latch to her palace home	285
The leader drew a figure in the sand with his staff	285
In the bell-tower stood two of the sisters, still young, and looked out over tiie world beyond	286
The child wept, for she could neither reach her doll, nor could the doll be helped down	286
The bushes seemed to her fancy crowded with elves in steeple hats	287
I laughed at the duck with her leg tied up, she did limp so funnily	287
Just then his mother woke up. She moved the curtain aside	288
Their master stood bareheaded, and reverently kissed her hand—his mother’s hand	288
“Swe-e-ep,” cried a voice—the little chimney-sweeper’s, who had just climbed the chimney and stuck his head out	289
Stirred slowly, deep in thought	289
The white faced child dreamed too, her lashes wet with unshed tears	290
They crept into corners of the room, but he found each one, and snuffed at them, and did no harm	291
The bear lay down, and the baby climbed on him, and hid his head in the shaggy fur	291
So they began marching—Right, left; Right, left!	292
Piling up the clothes round a chair, making out that he was playing statues	292
“Don’t be angry, mother dear,” I only said, “and a lot of butter, please”	293

The Bronze Pig
He sat himself on the Bronze Pig’s back, and ere he was aware of it sank into slumber	294
The bronze horse that bears the Duke’s statue neighed out loud	295
“What do you bring back?” she asked the boy	296
“Innocent souls know each other” said the woman, and petted dog and child	297
Beheld Bellissima barking, as if to say, “Hallo! I’m here too”	298
The creature shivered with cold, and he took to his heels at full speed	299
The woman bemoaned her dog, and the boy wept	299
“You bad, bad boy! The poor little creature!” was all she could utter	300

Ib and Little Christine
There they found some snipe’s eggs—a great event in their lives	301
As both wanted it at once, the result was that they let it fall into the water	302
At last they were quite lost in the bushes	302
On her back she had a bundle, and in her hand a knotted stick. She was a gipsy	303
“You must have that,” said Christine, “and it’s so pretty, too”	304
He set it in the hinge of the door and broke the shell, but there was little inside	304
“Did you know me then, lb?” she said	305
So he set himself to write, but the words would not come	305
Where the plough had cut it, it glittered before him	306
Life and joy reigned there, for there was little Christine	307

The Cripple
But Hans was pleased with it	308
“Good-night,” said the king; “now you can go home and curse your folly”	309
The swineherd sat in the ditch, and laughed and sang. “I am that most fortunate man”	311
Even people quite out on the high-road could hear it singing	312
He held the cage in his hands, and ran with it out of the door into the road	313

The Old Bachelor’s Nightcap
Seated on the bed he chanted an evening psalm	315
One pip the little girl proposed they should plant in the earth	315
“Lady Holle! Lady Holle!” she cried, loud and clear	316
“I dare kiss him,” she would cry, and throw her arms round his neck	317
He longed to say, “Lady Holle, Lady Holle, open the door to me!”	318
Wine, bread, and all the basket held, miraculously changed to roses	319
Prone he lay, clasping in death his old nightcap	320