{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43600/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43600","id":"gutenberg_43600","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43600","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Short Stories","Fairy tales","Fairy tales -- Denmark"],"text":"TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n\nObvious spelling, typographical and punctuation errors have been\ncorrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the\ntext and consultation of external sources.\n\n  More detail can be found at the end of the book.\n\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n  The oe ligature has been expanded.\n\n\n\n\n  WONDERFUL STORIES\n  FOR CHILDREN.\n\n  BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN,\n  AUTHOR OF \"THE IMPROVISATORE,\" ETC.\n\n  TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH BY MARY HOWITT.\n\n  NEW YORK.\n  WILEY & PUTNAM,\n  161 Broadway.\n\n  1846.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                     PAGE\n\n  OL\u00c9 LUCKOI\u00c8--THE STORY-TELLER AT NIGHT                5\n\n  THE DAISY                                            28\n\n  THE NAUGHTY BOY                                      37\n\n  TOMMELISE                                            42\n\n  THE ROSE-ELF                                         64\n\n  THE GARDEN OF PARADISE                               74\n\n  A NIGHT IN THE KITCHEN                              102\n\n  LITTLE IDA'S FLOWERS                                108\n\n  THE CONSTANT TIN SOLDIER                            124\n\n  THE STORKS                                          133\n\n\n\n\nOL\u00c9 LUCKOI\u00c8, (SHUT-EYE.)\n\n\nThere is nobody in all this world who knows so many tales as Ol\u00e9\nLuckoi\u00e8! He can tell tales! In an evening, when a child sits so nicely\nat the table, or on its little stool, Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 comes. He comes\nso quietly into the house, for he walks without shoes; he opens the\ndoor without making any noise, and then he flirts sweet milk into the\nchildren's eyes; but so gently, so very gently, that they cannot keep\ntheir eyes open, and, therefore, they never see him; he steals softly\nbehind them and blows gently on their necks, and thus their heads\nbecome heavy. Oh yes! But then it does them no harm; for Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8\nmeans nothing but kindness to the children, he only wants to amuse\nthem; and the best thing that can be done is for somebody to carry them\nto bed, where they may lie still and listen to the tales that he will\ntell them.\n\nNow when the children are asleep, Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 sits down on the bed;\nhe is very well dressed; his coat is of silk, but it is not possible\nto tell what color it is, because it shines green, and red, and blue,\njust as if one color ran into another. He holds an umbrella under each\narm; one of them is covered all over the inside with pictures, and\nthis he sets over the good child, and it dreams all night long the\nmost beautiful histories. The other umbrella has nothing at all within\nit; this he sets over the heads of naughty children, and they sleep so\nheavily, that next morning when they wake they have not dreamed the\nleast in the world.\n\nNow we will hear how Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 came every evening for a whole week to\na little boy, whose name was Yalmar, and what he told him. There are\nseven stories, because there are seven days in a week.\n\n\nMONDAY.\n\n\"Just listen!\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, in the evening, when they had put\nYalmar in bed; \"now I shall make things fine!\"--and with that all the\nplants in the flower-pots grew up into great trees which stretched\nout their long branches along the ceiling and the walls, till the\nwhole room looked like the most beautiful summer-house; and all the\nbranches were full of flowers, and every flower was more beautiful than\na rose, and was so sweet, that if anybody smelt at it, it was sweeter\nthan raspberry jam! The fruit on the trees shone like gold, and great\nbig bunches of raisins hung down--never had any thing been seen like\nit!--but all at once there began such a dismal lamentation in the\ntable-drawer where Yalmar kept his school-books.\n\n\"What is that?\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, and went to the table and opened\nthe drawer. It was the slate that was in great trouble; for there was\nan addition sum on it that was added up wrong, and the slate-pencil\nwas hopping and jumping about in its string, like a little dog that\nwanted to help the sum, but it could not! And besides this, Yalmar's\ncopy-book was crying out sadly! All the way down each page stood a\nrow of great letters, each with a little one by its side; these were\nthe copy; and then there stood other letters, which fancied that they\nlooked like the copy; and these Yalmar had written; but they were\nsome one way and some another, just as if they were tumbling over the\npencil-lines on which they ought to have stood.\n\n\"Look, you should hold yourselves up--thus!\" said the copy; \"thus, all\nin a line, with a brisk air!\"\n\n\"Oh! we would so gladly, if we could,\" said Yalmar's writing; \"but we\ncannot, we are so miserable!\"\n\n\"Then we will make you!\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 gruffly.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" cried the poor little crooked letters; but for all that they\nstraightened themselves, till it was quite a pleasure to see them.\n\n\"Now, then, cannot we tell a story?\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8; \"now I can\nexercise them! One, two! One, two!\" And so, like a drill-sergeant, he\nput them all through their exercise, and they stood as straight and\nas well-shaped as any copy. After that Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 went his way; and\nYalmar, when he looked at the letters next morning, found them tumbling\nabout just as miserably as at first.\n\n\nTUESDAY.\n\nNo sooner was Yalmar in bed than Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 came with his little wand,\nand touched all the furniture in the room; and, in a minute, every\nthing began to chatter; and they chattered all together, and about\nnothing but themselves. Every thing talked except the old door-mat,\nwhich lay silent, and was vexed that they should be all so full of\nvanity as to talk of nothing but themselves, and think only about\nthemselves, and never have one thought for it which lay so modestly in\na corner and let itself be trodden upon.\n\nThere hung over the chest of drawers a great picture in a gilt frame;\nit was a landscape; one could see tall, old trees, flowers in the\ngrass, and a great river, which ran through great woods, past many\ncastles out into the wild sea.\n\nOl\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 touched the picture with his wand; and with that the birds\nin the picture began to sing, the tree-branches began to wave, and the\nclouds regularly to move,--one could see them moving along over the\nlandscape!\n\nOl\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 now lifted little Yalmar up into the picture; he put his\nlittle legs right into it, just as if into tall grass, and there he\nstood. The sun shone down through the tree-branches upon him. He ran\ndown to the river, and got into a little boat which lay there. It was\npainted red and white, the sails shone like silk, and six swans, each\nwith a circlet of gold round its neck and a beaming blue star upon its\nhead, drew the little boat past the green-wood,--where he heard the\ntrees talking about robbers, and witches, and flowers, and the pretty\nlittle fairies, and all that the summer birds had told them of.\n\nThe loveliest fishes, with scales like silver and gold, swam after the\nboat, and leaped up in the water; and birds, some red and some blue,\nsmall and great, flew, in two long rows, behind; gnats danced about,\nand cockchafers said hum, hum! They all came following Yalmar, and you\nmay think what a deal they had to tell him.\n\nIt was a regular voyage! Now the woods were so thick and so dark--now\nthey were like the most beautiful garden, with sunshine and flowers;\nand in the midst of them there stood great castles of glass and of\nmarble. Upon the balconies of these castles stood princesses, and every\none of them were the little girls whom Yalmar knew very well, and with\nwhom he had played. They all reached out their hands to him, and held\nout the most delicious sticks of barley-sugar which any confectioner\ncould make; and Yalmar bit off a piece from every stick of barley-sugar\nas he sailed past, and Yalmar's piece was always a very large piece!\nBefore every castle stood little princes as sentinels; they stood with\ntheir golden swords drawn, and showered down almonds and raisins. They\nwere perfect princes!\n\nYalmar soon sailed through the wood, then through a great hall, or into\nthe midst of a city; and at last he came to that in which his nurse\nlived, she who had nursed him when he was a very little child, and\nhad been so very fond of him. And there he saw her, and she nodded\nand waved her hand to him, and sang the pretty little verse which she\nherself had made about Yalmar--\n\n    Full many a time I thee have missed,\n      My Yalmar, my delight!\n    I, who thy cherry-mouth have kissed,\n      Thy rosy cheeks, thy forehead white!\n    I saw thy earliest infant mirth--\n      I now must say farewell!\n    May our dear Lord bless thee on earth,\n      Then take thee to his heaven to dwell!\n\nAnd all the birds sang, too, the flowers danced upon their stems, and\nthe old trees nodded like as Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 did while he told his tales.\n\n\nWEDNESDAY.\n\nHow the rain did pour down! Yalmar could hear it in his sleep! and\nwhen Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 opened the casement, the water stood up to the very\nwindow-sill. There was a regular sea outside; but the most splendid\nship lay close up to the house.\n\n\"If thou wilt sail with me, little Yalmar,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, \"thou\ncanst reach foreign countries in the night, and be here again by\nto-morrow morning!\"\n\nAnd with this Yalmar stood in his Sunday clothes in the ship, and\nimmediately the weather became fine, and they sailed through the\nstreets, tacked about round the church, and then came out into a great,\ndesolate lake. They sailed so far, that at last they could see no more\nland, and then they saw a flock of storks, which were coming from home,\non their way to the warm countries; one stork after another flew on,\nand they had already flown such a long, long way. One of the storks was\nso very much tired that it seemed as if his wings could not support him\nany longer; he was the very last of all the flock, and got farther and\nfarther behind them; and, at last, he sank lower and lower, with his\noutspread wings: he still flapped his wings, now and then, but that\ndid not help him; now his feet touched the cordage of the ship; now he\nglided down the sail, and, bounce! down he came on the deck.\n\nA sailor-boy then took him up, and set him in the hencoop among hens,\nand ducks, and turkeys. The poor stork stood quite confounded among\nthem all.\n\n\"Here's a thing!\" said all the hens.\n\nAnd the turkey-cock blew himself up as much as ever he could, and asked\nthe stork who he was; and the ducks they went on jostling one against\nthe other, saying, \"Do thou ask! do thou ask!\"\n\nThe stork told them all about the warm Africa, about the pyramids, and\nabout the simoom, which sped like a horse over the desert: but the\nducks understood not a word about what he said, and so they whispered\none to the other, \"We are all agreed, he is silly!\"\n\n\"Yes, to be sure, he is silly,\" said the turkey-cock aloud. The poor\nstork stood quite still, and thought about Africa.\n\n\"What a pair of beautiful thin legs you have got!\" said the\nturkey-cock; \"what is the price by the yard?\"\n\n\"Ha! ha! ha!\" laughed all the ducks; but the stork pretended that he\ndid not hear.\n\n\"I cannot help laughing,\" said the turkey-cock, \"it was so very witty;\nor, perhaps, it was too low for him!--ha! ha! he can't take in many\nideas! Let us only be interesting to ourselves!\" And with that they\nbegan to gobble, and the ducks chattered, \"Gik, gak! gik, gak!\" It was\namazing to see how entertaining they were to themselves.\n\nYalmar, however, went up to the hencoop, opened the door, and called\nto the stork, which hopped out to him on the deck. It had now rested\nitself; and it seemed as if it nodded to Yalmar to thank him. With this\nit spread out its wings and flew away to its warm countries; but the\nhens clucked, the ducks chattered, and the turkey-cocks grew quite red\nin the head.\n\n\"To-morrow we shall have you for dinner!\" said Yalmar; and so he awoke,\nand was lying in his little bed.\n\nIt was, however, a wonderful voyage that Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 had taken him that\nnight.\n\n\nTHURSDAY.\n\n\"Dost thou know what?\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8. \"Now do not be afraid, and\nthou shalt see a little mouse!\" and with that he held out his hand with\nthe pretty little creature in it.\n\n\"It is come to invite thee to a wedding,\" said he. \"There are two\nlittle mice who are going to be married to-night; they live down\nunder the floor of thy mother's store-closet; it will be such a nice\nopportunity for thee.\"\n\n\"But how can I get through the little mouse-hole in the floor?\" asked\nYalmar.\n\n\"Leave that to me,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8; \"I shall make thee little\nenough!\" And with that he touched Yalmar with his wand, and immediately\nhe grew less and less, until at last he was no bigger than my finger.\n\n\"Now thou canst borrow the tin soldier's clothes,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8; \"I\nthink they would fit thee, and it looks so proper to have uniform on\nwhen people go into company.\"\n\n\"Yes, to be sure!\" said Yalmar; and in a moment he was dressed up like\nthe most beautiful new tin soldier.\n\n\"Will you be so good as to seat yourself in your mother's thimble,\"\nsaid the little mouse; \"and then I shall have the honor of driving you!\"\n\n\"Goodness!\" said Yalmar; \"will the young lady herself take the\ntrouble?\" and with that they drove to the mouse's wedding.\n\nFirst of all, after going under the floor, they came into a long\npassage, which was so low that they could hardly drive in the thimble,\nand the whole passage was illuminated with touchwood.\n\n\"Does it not smell delicious?\" said the mouse as they drove along; \"the\nwhole passage has been rubbed with bacon-sward; nothing can be more\ndelicious!\"\n\nThey now came into the wedding-hall. On the right hand stood the little\nshe-mice, and they all whispered and tittered as if they were making\nfun of one another; on the left hand all the he-mice, and stroked their\nmustachios with their paws. In the middle of the floor were to be seen\nthe bridal pair, who stood in a hollow cheese-paring; and they kept\nkissing one another before everybody, for they were desperately in\nlove, and were going to be married directly.\n\nAnd all this time there kept coming in more and more strangers, till\none mouse was ready to trample another to death; and the bridal pair\nhad placed themselves in a doorway, so that people could neither go in\nnor come out. The whole room, like the passage, had been smeared with\nsward of bacon; that was all the entertainment: but as a dessert a pea\nwas produced, on which a little mouse of family had bitten the name of\nthe bridal pair,--that is to say, the first letters of their name; that\nwas something quite out of the common way.\n\nAll the mice said that it was a charming wedding, and that the\nconversation had been so good!\n\nYalmar drove home again; he had really been in very grand society, but\nhe must have been regularly squeezed together to make himself small\nenough for a tin soldier's uniform.\n\n\nFRIDAY.\n\n\"It is incredible how many elderly people there are who would be so\nglad of me,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, \"especially those who have done any\nthing wrong. 'Good little Ol\u00e9,' say they to me, 'we cannot close our\neyes; and so we lie all night long awake, and see all our bad deeds,\nwhich sit, like ugly little imps, on the bed's head, and squirt hot\nwater on us. Wilt thou only just come and drive them away, that we may\nhave a good sleep!' and with that they heave such deep sighs--'we would\nso gladly pay thee; good-night, Ol\u00e9!' Silver pennies lie for me in the\nwindow,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, \"but I do not give sleep for money!\"\n\n\"Now what shall we have to-night?\" inquired Yalmar.\n\n\"I do not know whether thou hast any desire to go again to-night to a\nwedding,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8; \"but it is of a different kind to that of\nlast night. Thy sister's great doll, which is dressed like a gentleman,\nand is called Herman, is going to be married to the doll Bertha;\nbesides, it is the doll's birthday, and therefore there will be a great\nmany presents made.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" said Yalmar; \"always, whenever the dolls have new\nclothes, my sister entreats that they have a birthday or a wedding;\nthat has happened certainly a hundred times!\"\n\n\"Yes, but to-night it is the hundred and first wedding, and when\na hundred and one is done then all is over! Therefore it will be\nincomparably grand. Only look!\"\n\nYalmar looked at the table; there stood the little doll's house\nwith lights in the windows, and all the tin soldiers presented arms\noutside. The bridal couple sat upon the floor, and leaned against the\ntable-legs, and looked very pensive, and there might be reason for it.\nBut Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, dressed in the grandmother's black petticoat, married\nthem, and when they were married, all the furniture in the room joined\nin the following song, which was written in pencil, and which was sung\nto the tune of the drum:--\n\n    Our song like a wind comes flitting\n    Into the room where the bride-folks are sitting;\n    They are partly of wood, as is befitting:\n    Their skin is the skin of a glove well fitting!\n    Hurrah, hurrah! for sitting and fitting!\n    Thus sing we aloud as the wind comes flitting!\n\nAnd now the presents were brought, but they had forbidden any kind of\neatables, for their love was sufficient for them.\n\n\"Shall we stay in the country, or shall we travel into foreign parts?\"\nasked the bridegroom; and with that they begged the advice of the\nbreeze, which had travelled a great deal, and of the old hen, which\nhad had five broods of chickens. The breeze told them about the\nbeautiful, warm countries where the bunches of grapes hung so large and\nso heavy; where the air was so mild, and the mountains had colors of\nwhich one could have no idea \"in this country.\"\n\n\"But there they have not our green cabbage!\" said the hen. \"I lived\nfor one summer with all my chickens in the country; there was a dry,\ndusty ditch in which we could go and scuttle, and we had admittance to\na garden where there was green cabbage! O, how green it was! I cannot\nfancy any thing more beautiful!\"\n\n\"But one cabbage-stalk looks just like another,\" said the breeze; \"and\nthen there is such wretched weather here.\"\n\n\"Yes, but one gets used to it,\" said the hen.\n\n\"But it is cold--it freezes!\"\n\n\"That is good for the cabbage!\" said the hen. \"Besides, we also have\nit warm. Had not we four years ago a summer which lasted five weeks,\nand it was so hot that people did not know how to bear it? And then we\nhave not all the poisonous creatures which they have there! and we are\nfar from robbers. He is a good-for-nothing fellow who does not think\nour country the most beautiful in the world! and he does not deserve to\nbe here!\" and with that the hen cried.--\"And I also have travelled,\"\ncontinued she; \"I have gone in a boat above twelve miles; there is no\npleasure in travelling.\"\n\n\"The hen is a sensible body!\" said the doll Bertha; \"I would rather not\ntravel to the mountains, for it is only going up to come down again.\nNo! we will go down into the ditch, and walk in the cabbage-garden.\"\n\nAnd so they did.\n\n\nSATURDAY.\n\n\"Shall I have any stories?\" said little Yalmar, as soon as Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8\nhad put him to sleep.\n\n\"In the evening we have no time for any,\" said Ol\u00e9, and spread out\nhis most beautiful umbrella above his head. \"Look now at this Chinese\nscene!\" and with that the whole inside of the umbrella looked like a\ngreat china saucer, with blue trees and pointed bridges, on which\nstood little Chinese, who stood and nodded with their heads. \"We shall\nhave all the world dressed up beautifully this morning,\" said Ol\u00e9, \"for\nit is really a holiday; it is Sunday. I shall go up into the church\ntowers to see whether the little church-elves polish the bells, because\nthey sound so sweetly. I shall go out into the market, and see whether\nthe wind blows the dust, and grass, and leaves, and what is the hardest\nwork there. I shall have all the stars down to polish them; I shall put\nthem into my apron, but first of all I must have them all numbered, and\nthe holes where they fit up there numbered also; else we shall never\nput them into their proper places again, and then they will not be\nfirm, and we shall have so many falling stars, one dropping down after\nanother!\"\n\n\"Hear, you Mr. Luckoi\u00e8, there!\" said an old portrait that hung on the\nwall of the room where Yalmar slept: \"I am Yalmar's grandfather. We are\nobliged to you for telling the boy pretty stories, but you must not go\nand confuse his ideas. The stars cannot be taken down and polished! The\nstars are globes like our earth, and they want nothing doing at them!\"\n\n\"Thou shalt have thanks, thou old grandfather,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8;\n\"thanks thou shalt have! Thou art, to be sure, the head of the family;\nthou art the old head of the family; but for all that, I am older than\nthou! I am an old heathen; the Greeks and the Romans called me the god\nof dreams. I go into great folks' houses, and I shall go there still. I\nknow how to manage both with young and old. But now thou mayst take thy\nturn.\" And with this Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 went away, and took his umbrella with\nhim.\n\n\"Now, one cannot tell what he means!\" said the old Portrait.\n\nAnd Yalmar awoke.\n\n\nSUNDAY.\n\n\"Good-evening!\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, and Yalmar nodded; but he jumped up\nand turned the grandfather's portrait to the wall, that it might not\nchatter as it had done the night before.\n\n\"Now thou shalt tell me a story,\" said Yalmar, \"about the five peas\nthat live in one pea-pod, and about Hanebeen who cured Honebeen; and\nabout the darning-needle, that was so fine that it fancied itself a\nsewing-needle.\"\n\n\"One might do a deal of good by so doing,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8; \"but, dost\nthou know, I would rather show thee something. I will show thee my\nbrother; he also is called Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8. He never comes more than once\nto anybody,--and when he comes he takes the person away with him on his\nhorse, and tells him a great and wonderful history. But he only knows\ntwo, one of them is the most incomparably beautiful story, so beautiful\nthat nobody in the world can imagine it; and the other is so dismal and\nsad--oh, it is impossible to describe how sad!\"\n\nHaving said this, Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 lifted little Yalmar up to the window\nand said, \"There thou mayst see my brother, the other Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8!\nThey call him Death! Dost thou see, he does not look horrible as they\nhave painted him in picture-books, like a skeleton; no, his coat is\nembroidered with silver; he wears a handsome Hussar uniform! A cloak of\nblack velvet flies behind, over his horse. See how he gallops!\"\n\nYalmar looked, and saw how the other Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8 rode along, and took\nboth young and old people with him on his horse. Some he set before\nhim, and some he set behind; but his first question always was, \"How\ndoes it stand in your character-book?\"\n\nEverybody said, \"Good!\"\n\n\"Yes! let me see myself,\" said he; and they were obliged to show him\ntheir books: and all those in whose books were written, \"Very good!\" or\n\"Remarkably good!\" he placed before him on his horse; and they listened\nto the beautiful story that he could tell. But they in whose books was\nwritten, \"Not very good,\" or \"Only middling,\" they had to sit behind\nand listen to the dismal tale. These wept bitterly, and would have been\nglad to have got away, that they might have amended their characters;\nbut it was then too late.\n\n\"Death is, after all, the most beautiful Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8,\" said Yalmar; \"I\nshall not be afraid of him.\"\n\n\"Thou need not fear him,\" said Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8, \"if thou only take care and\nhave a good character-book.\"\n\n\"There is instruction in that,\" mumbled the old grandfather's\nportrait; \"that is better: one sees his meaning!\" and he was pleased.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSee, this is the story about Ol\u00e9 Luckoi\u00e8. This night, perhaps, he may\ntell thee some others.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DAISY.\n\n\nNow thou shalt hear!--Out in the country, close by the high road, there\nstood a pleasure-house,--thou hast, no doubt, seen it thyself. In the\nfront is a little garden full of flowers, and this is fenced in with\npainted palisades. Close beside these, in a hollow, there grew, all\namong the loveliest green grass, a little tuft of daisies. The sun\nshone upon it just as warmly and as sweetly as upon the large and rich\nsplendid flowers within the garden, and, therefore, it grew hour by\nhour. One morning it opened its little shining white flower-leaves,\nwhich looked just like rays of light all round the little yellow sun\nin the inside. It never once thought that nobody saw it down there in\nthe grass, and that it was a poor, despised flower! No, nothing of the\nkind! It was so very happy; turned itself round towards the warm sun,\nlooked up, and listened to the lark which sang in the blue air.\n\nThe little daisy was as happy as if it had been some great holiday, and\nyet it was only a Monday. All the children were in school, and while\nthey sat upon the benches learning their lessons, it also sat upon its\nlittle green stalk, and learned from the warm sun and from every thing\naround it, how good God is. And it seemed to it quite right that the\nlittle lark sang so intelligibly and so beautifully every thing which\nit felt in stillness; and it looked up with a sort of reverence to\nthe happy bird, which could sing and fly, but it was not at all vexed\nbecause it could not do the same.\n\n\"I see it and hear it,\" thought the daisy; \"the sun shines upon me, and\nthe winds kiss me! O, what a many gifts I enjoy!\"\n\nInside the garden paling there were such a great many stiff, grand\nflowers; and all the less fragrance they had the more they seemed to\nswell themselves out. The pionies blew themselves out that they might\nbe bigger than the roses; but it is not size which does every thing.\nThe tulips had the most splendid colors, and they knew it too, and\nheld themselves so upright on purpose that people should see them all\nthe better. They never paid the least attention to the little daisy\noutside, but it looked at them all the more, and thought, \"How rich\nthey are, and how beautiful! Yes, to be sure, the charming bird up\nthere must fly down and pay them a visit. Thank God! that I am so\nnear that I can see all the glory!\" And while she was thinking these\nthoughts--\"Quirrevit!\" down came the lark flying,--but not down to the\npionies and the tulips: no! but down into the grass to the poor little\ndaisy; which was so astonished by pure joy, that it did not know what\nit should think.\n\nThe little bird danced round about, and sang, \"Nay, but the grass is in\nflower! and see, what a sweet little blossom, with a golden heart and a\nsilver jerkin on!\"--for the yellow middle of the daisy looked as if it\nwere of gold, and the little leaves round about were shining and silver\nwhite.\n\nSo happy as the little daisy was it is quite impossible to describe!\nThe bird kissed it with its beak, sang before it, and then flew up\nagain into the blue air. It required a whole quarter of an hour before\nthe daisy could come to itself again. Half bashfully, and yet with\ninward delight, it looked into the garden to the other flowers; they\nhad actually seen the honor and the felicity which she had enjoyed;\nthey could certainly understand, she thought, what a happiness it was.\nBut the tulips stood yet just as stiffly as before, and their faces\nwere so peaked and so red!--for they were quite vexed. The pionies were\nquite thick-headed, too! it was a good thing that they could not talk,\nor else the daisy would have been regularly scolded. The poor little\nflower, however, could see very plainly that they were not in a good\nhumor, and that really distressed her. At that very moment there came\na girl into the garden with a great knife in her hand, which was very\nsharp and shining, and she went all among the tulips, and she cut off\nfirst one and then another.\n\n\"Ah!\" sighed the little daisy, \"that was very horrible; now all is over\nwith them!\"\n\nSo the girl went away with the tulips. The daisy was glad that it grew\nin the grass, and was a little mean flower; it felt full of gratitude,\nand when the sun set, it folded its leaves, slept, and dreamed the\nwhole night long about the sun and the little bird.\n\nNext morning, the flower again, full of joy, spread out all its white\nleaves, like small arms, towards the air and the light; it recognised\nthe bird's voice; but the song of the bird was very sorrowful. Yes,\nthe poor little bird had good reason for being sad! it had been taken\nprisoner, and now sat in a cage close by the open window of the\npleasure-house. It sang about flying wherever it would in freedom and\nbliss; it sang about the young green corn in the fields, and about the\ncharming journeys which it used to make up in the blue air upon its\nhovering wings. The poor bird was heavy at heart, and was captive in a\ncage.\n\nThe little daisy wished so sincerely that it could be of any service;\nbut it was difficult to tell how. In sympathizing with the lark, the\ndaisy quite forgot how beautiful was every thing around it--how warmly\nthe sun shone, and how beautifully white were its own flower-leaves.\nAh! it could think of nothing but of the captive bird, for which it\nwas not able to do any thing.\n\nJust then came two little boys out of the garden; one of them had a\nknife in his hand, large and sharp, like that which the girl had, and\nwith which she cut off the tulips. They went straight up to the little\ndaisy, which could not think what they wanted.\n\n\"Here we can get a beautiful grass turf for the lark,\" said one of the\nboys; and began deeply to cut out a square around the daisy-root, so\nthat it was just in the middle of the turf.\n\n\"Break off the flower!\" said the other boy; and the daisy trembled for\nvery fear of being broken off, and thus losing its life; when it would\nso gladly live and go with the turf into the cage of the captive lark.\n\n\"Nay, let it be where it is!\" said the other boy; \"it makes it look so\npretty!\"\n\nAnd so it was left there, and was taken into the cage to the lark.\n\nBut the poor bird made loud lamentations over its lost freedom, and\nstruck the wires of the cage with its wings. The little daisy could\nnot speak, could not say one consoling word, however gladly it would\nhave done so. Thus passed the forenoon.\n\n\"There is no water here,\" said the captive lark; \"they are all gone\nout, and have forgotten to give me a drop to drink! my throat is dry\nand burning! it is fire and ice within me, and the air is so heavy! Ah!\nI shall die away from the warm sunshine, from the fresh green leaves,\nfrom all the glorious things which God has created!\" and with that\nit bored its little beak down into the cool turf to refresh itself a\nlittle. At that moment it caught sight of the daisy, nodded to it,\nkissed it with its beak, and said, \"Thou also must wither here, thou\npoor little flower! Thou and the little plot of grass, which they have\ngiven me for the whole world which I had out there! Every little blade\nof grass may be to me a green tree, every one of thy little white\nleaves a fragrant flower! Ah! you only tell me how much I have lost!\"\n\n\"Ah! who can comfort him!\" thought the daisy, but could not move a\nleaf; and yet the fragrance which was given forth from its delicate\npetals was much sweeter than is usual in such flowers. The bird\nremarked this, and when, overcome by the agony of thirst and misery, it\ntore up every green blade of grass, it touched not the little flower.\n\nEvening came, and yet no one brought a single drop of water to the\npoor bird. It stretched out its beautiful wings, fluttered them\nconvulsively, and its song was a melancholy wailing; its little head\nbowed down towards the flower, and its heart broke from thirst and\nlonging. The little flower knew this not; before the evening was ended,\nit had folded its petals together and slept upon the earth, overcome\nwith sickness and sorrow.\n\nNot until the next morning came the boys, and when they saw that the\nbird was dead they wept, wept many tears, and dug for it a handsome\ngrave, which they adorned with leaves of flowers. The corpse of the\nbird was laid in a beautiful red box. It was to be buried royally, the\npoor bird! which, when full of life and singing its glorious song, they\nforgot, and let it pine in a cage, and suffer thirst--and now they did\nhim honor, and shed many tears over him!\n\nBut the sod of grass with the daisy, that they threw out into the dust\nof the highway; no one thought about it, though it had felt more than\nany of them for the little bird, and would so gladly have comforted it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NAUGHTY BOY.\n\n\nThere was once upon a time an old poet, such a really good old poet!\nOne evening, he sat at home--it was dreadful weather out of doors--the\nrain poured down; but the old poet sat so comfortably, and in such a\ngood humor, beside his stove, where the fire was burning brightly, and\nhis apples were merrily roasting.\n\n\"There will not be a dry thread on the poor souls who are out in this\nweather!\" said he; for he was such a good old poet.\n\n\"O let me in! I am freezing, and I am so wet!\" cried the voice of a\nlittle child outside. It cried and knocked at the door, while the rain\nkept pouring down, and the wind rattled at all the windows.\n\n\"Poor little soul!\" said the old poet, and got up to open the door.\nThere stood a little boy; he had not any clothes on, and the rain ran\noff from his long yellow hair. He shook with the cold; if he had not\nbeen taken in, he would most surely have died of that bad weather.\n\n\"Thou poor little soul!\" said the kind old poet, and took him by the\nhand; \"come in, and I will warm thee! and thou shalt have some wine,\nand a nice roasted apple, for thou art a pretty little boy!\"\n\nAnd so he was. His eyes were like two bright stars, and, although the\nwater ran down from his yellow hair, yet it curled so beautifully. He\nlooked just like a little angel; but he was pale with the cold, and his\nlittle body trembled all over. In his hand he carried a pretty little\nbow; but it was quite spoiled with the rain, and all the colors of his\nbeautiful little arrows ran one into another with the wet.\n\nThe good old poet seated himself by the stove, and took the little boy\nupon his knee; he wrung the rain out of his hair, warmed his little\nhands in his, and made some sweet wine warm for him; by this means the\nrosy color came back into his cheeks, he jumped down upon the floor,\nand danced round and round the old poet.\n\n\"Thou art a merry lad,\" said the poet; \"what is thy name?\"\n\n\"They call me Love,\" replied the boy; \"dost thou not know me? There\nlies my bow; I shoot with it, thou mayst believe! See, now, the weather\nclears up; the moon shines!\"\n\n\"But thy bow is spoiled,\" said the old poet.\n\n\"That would be sad!\" said the little boy, and took it up to see if\nit were. \"Oh, it is quite dry,\" said he; \"it is not hurt at all! The\nstring is quite firm: now I will try it!\"\n\nAnd with that he strung it, laid an arrow upon it, took his aim, and\nshot the good old poet right through the heart!\n\n\"Thou canst now see that my bow is not spoiled!\" said he; and laughing\nas loud as he could, ran away. What a naughty boy! to shoot the good\nold poet who had taken him into the warm room; who had been so kind to\nhim, and given him nice wine to drink, and the very best of his roasted\napples!\n\nThe poor poet lay upon the floor and wept, for he was actually shot\nthrough the heart, and he said, \"Fy! what a naughty boy that Love is! I\nwill tell all good little children about him, that they may drive him\naway before he makes them some bad return!\"\n\nAll good children, boys and girls, to whom he told this, drove away\nthat naughty little lad; but for all that he has made fools of them\nall, for he is so artful! When students go from their lectures, he\nwalks by their side with a book under his arm, and they fancy that he\ntoo is a student, and so he runs an arrow into their breasts. When\nyoung girls go to church, and when they stand in the aisle of the\nchurch, he too has followed them. Yes, he is always following people!\n\nHe sits in the great chandelier in the theatre, and burns with a\nbright flame, and so people think he is a lamp, but afterwards they\nfind something else! He runs about the king's garden, and on the\nbowling-green! Yes! he once shot thy father and mother through the\nheart! Ask them about it, and then thou wilt hear what they say. Yes,\nindeed, he is a bad boy, that Love; do thou never have any thing to do\nwith him!--he is always running after people! Only think! once upon a\ntime, he even shot an arrow at thy good old grandmother!--but that is a\nlong time ago, and it is past. But thus it is, he never forgets anybody!\n\nFy, for shame, naughty Love! But now thou knowest him, and knowest what\na bad boy he is!\n\n\n\n\nTOMMELISE.\n\n\nOnce upon a time, a beggar woman went to the house of a poor peasant,\nand asked for something to eat. The peasant's wife gave her some bread\nand milk. When she had eaten it, she took a barley-corn out of her\npocket, and said--\"This will I give thee; set it in a flower-pot, and\nsee what will come out of it.\"\n\nThe woman set the barley-corn in an old flower-pot, and the next day\nthe most beautiful plant had shot up, which looked just like a tulip,\nbut the leaves were shut close together, as if it still were in bud.\n\n\"What a pretty flower it is!\" said the woman, and kissed the small\nred and yellow leaves; and just as she had kissed them, the flower\ngave a great crack, and opened itself. It was a real tulip, only one\ncould see that in the middle of the flower there sat upon the pintail\na little tiny girl, so delicate and lovely, and not half so big as my\nthumb, and, therefore, woman called her Tommelise.\n\nA pretty polished walnut-shell was her cradle, blue violet leaves\nwere her mattress, and a rose leaf was her coverlet; here she slept\nat night, but in the day she played upon the table, where the woman\nhad set a plate, around which she placed quite a garland of flowers,\nthe stalks of which were put in water. A large tulip-leaf floated on\nthe water. Tommelise seated herself on this, and sailed from one end\nof the plate to the other; she had two white horse-hairs to row her\nlittle boat with. It looked quite lovely; and then she sang--Oh! so\nbeautifully, as nobody ever had heard!\n\nOne night, as she lay in her nice little bed, there came a fat, yellow\nfrog hopping in at the window, in which there was a broken pane. The\nfrog was very large and heavy, but it hopped easily on the table where\nTommelise lay and slept under the red rose leaf.\n\n\"This would be a beautiful wife for my son!\" said the frog; and so she\ntook up the walnut-shell in which Tommelise lay, and hopped away with\nit, through the broken pane, down into the garden.\n\nHere there ran a large, broad river; but just at its banks it was\nmarshy and muddy: the frog lived here, with her son. Uh! he also was\nall spotted with green and yellow, and was very like his mother. \"Koax,\nkoax, brekke-ke-kex!\" that was all that he could say when he saw the\npretty little maiden in the walnut-shell.\n\n\"Don't make such a noise, or else you will waken her,\" said the old\nfrog; \"and if you frighten her, she may run away from us, for she is as\nlight as swan's down! We will take her out on the river, and set her on\na waterlily leaf; to her who is so light, it will be like an island;\nshe cannot get away from us there, and we will then go and get ready\nthe house in the mud, where you two shall live together.\"\n\nThere grew a great many waterlilies in the river, with their broad\ngreen leaves, which seemed to float upon the water. The old frog swam\nto the leaf which was the farthest out in the river, and which was the\nlargest also, and there she set the walnut-shell, with little Tommelise.\n\nThe poor little tiny thing awoke quite early in the morning, and when\nshe saw where she was she began to cry bitterly, for there was water on\nevery side of the large green leaf, and she could not get to land.\n\nThe old frog sat down in the mud, and decked her house with sedge and\nyellow water-reeds, that it might be regularly beautiful when her new\ndaughter-in-law came. After this was done, she and her fat son swam\naway to the lily leaf, where Tommelise stood, that they might fetch her\npretty little bed, and so have every thing ready before she herself\ncame to the house.\n\nThe old frog courtesied to her in the water, and said,--\"Allow me to\nintroduce my son to you, who is to be your husband, and you shall live\ntogether, so charmingly, down in the mud!\"\n\n\"Koax, koax, brekke-ke-kex!\" that was all that the son could say.\n\nSo they took the pretty little bed, and swam away with it; but\nTommelise sat, quite alone, and wept, upon the green leaf, for she did\nnot wish to live with the queer-looking, yellow frog, nor to have her\nugly son for her husband. The little fishes which swam down in the\nwater had seen the frog, and had heard what she said; they put up,\ntherefore, their heads, to look at the little girl. The moment they\nsaw her they thought her very pretty; and they felt very sorry that\nshe should have to go down into the mud and live with the frog. No,\nnever should it be! They therefore went down into the water in a great\nshoal, and gathered round the green stalk of the leaf upon which she\nstood; they gnawed the stalk in two with their teeth, and thus the leaf\nfloated down the river. Slowly and quietly it floated away, a long way\noff, where the frog could not come to it.\n\nTommelise sailed past a great many places, and the little birds sat in\nthe bushes, looked at her, and sang,--\"What a pretty little maiden!\"\nThe leaf on which she stood floated away farther and farther, and, at\nlast, she came to a foreign land.\n\nA pretty little white butterfly stayed with her, and flew round about\nher, and, at length, seated itself upon the leaf; for it knew little\nTommelise so well and she was so pleased, for she knew that now the\nfrog could not come near her, and the land to which she had come was\nvery beautiful. The sun shone upon the water, and it was like the most\nlovely gold. She took off her girdle, therefore, and bound one end of\nit to the butterfly, and the other end of it to the leaf, and thus she\nglided on more swiftly than ever, and she stood upon the leaf as it\nwent.\n\nAs she was thus sailing on charmingly, a large stag-beetle came flying\ntowards her; it paused for a moment to look at her, then clasped its\nclaws around her slender waist, and flew up into a tree with her, but\nthe green lily leaf floated down the stream, and the white butterfly\nwith it, because it was fastened to it, and could not get loose.\n\nPoor Tommelise! how frightened she was when the stag-beetle flew away\nwith her up into the tree! but she was most of all distressed for the\nlovely white butterfly which she had fastened to the leaf. But that did\nnot trouble the stag-beetle at all. It seated itself upon one of the\nlargest green leaves of the tree, gave her the honey of the flowers\nto eat, and said that she was very pretty, although she was not at\nall like a stag-beetle. Before long, all the other stag-beetles that\nlived in the tree came to pay her a visit; they looked at Tommelise;\nand the misses stag-beetle, they examined her with their antenn\u00e6, and\nsaid,--\"Why, she has only two legs, that is very extraordinary!\" \"She\nhas no antenn\u00e6!\" said the others. \"She has such a thin body! Why she\nlooks just like a human being!\" \"How ugly she is!\" said all the lady\nstag-beetles; and yet Tommelise was exceedingly pretty.\n\nThe stag-beetle which had carried her away had thought so himself, at\nfirst; but now, as all the others said that she was ugly, he fancied,\nat last, that she was so, and would not have her, and she could now\ngo where she would. They flew down with her out of the tree, and set\nher upon a daisy. Here she wept, because she was so ugly, and the\nstag-beetles would have nothing to do with her; and yet she really was\nso very lovely as nobody could imagine, as delicate and bright as the\nmost beautiful rose leaf!\n\nPoor Tommelise lived all that long summer, though quite alone, in\nthe great wood. She wove herself a bed of grass, and hung it under a\nlarge plantain leaf, so that the rain could not come to her; she fed\nfrom the honey of the flowers, and drank of the dew which stood in\nglittering drops every morning on the grass. Thus passed the summer\nand the autumn; but now came winter, the cold, long winter. All the\nbirds which had sung so sweetly to her were flown away; the trees and\nthe flowers withered; the large plantain leaf under which she had\ndwelt shrunk together, and became nothing but a dry, yellow stalk; and\nshe was so cold, for her clothes were in rags; and she herself was so\ndelicate and small!--poor Tommelise, she was almost frozen to death! It\nbegan to snow, and every snow-flake which fell upon her was just as if\na whole drawer-full had been thrown upon us, for we are strong, and she\nwas so very, very small! She crept, therefore, into a withered leaf,\nbut that could not keep her warm; she shook with the cold.\n\nClose beside the wood in which she now was, lay a large cornfield;\nbut the corn had long been carried; nothing remained but dry stubble,\nwhich stood up on the frozen ground. It was, to her, like going into\na bare wood--Oh! how she shivered with cold! Before long she came to\nthe fieldmouse's door. The fieldmouse had a little cave down below the\nroots of the corn-stubble, and here she dwelt warm and comfortable,\nand had whole rooms full of corn, and a beautiful kitchen and a\nstore-closet. Poor Tommelise stood before the door, like any other\nlittle beggar-child, and prayed for a little bit of a barley-corn, for\nshe had now been two whole days without having eaten the least morsel.\n\n\"Thou poor little thing!\" said the fieldmouse, for she was at heart\na good old fieldmouse; \"come into my warm parlor, and have a bit of\ndinner with me.\"\n\nHow kind that seemed to Tommelise!\n\n\"Thou canst stop with me the whole winter,\" said the old fieldmouse;\n\"but then thou must be my little maid, and keep my parlor neat and\nclean, and tell me tales to amuse me, for I am very fond of them!\" And\nTommelise did all that the good old fieldmouse desired of her, and was\nvery comfortable.\n\n\"Before long we shall have a visitor,\" said the fieldmouse, soon after\nTommelise was settled in her place; \"my neighbor is accustomed to\nvisit me once a week. He is much better off in the world than I am; he\nhas a large house, and always wears such a splendid velvet dress! If\nthou couldst only manage to get him for thy husband, thou wouldst be\nlucky,--but then he is blind. Thou canst tell him the very prettiest\nstory thou knowest.\"\n\nBut Tommelise gave herself no trouble about him; she did not wish to\nhave the neighbor, for he was only a mole. He came and paid his visits\nin his black velvet dress; he was very rich and learned, the fieldmouse\nsaid, and his dwelling-house was twenty times larger than hers; and he\nhad such a deal of earning, although he made but little of the sum and\nthe beautiful flowers; he laughed at them; but then he had never seen\nthem!\n\nThe fieldmouse insisted on Tommelise singing, so she sang. She sang\nboth \"Fly, stag-beetle, fly!\" and \"The green moss grows by the water\nside;\" and the mole fell deeply in love with her, for the sake of her\nsweet voice, but he did not say any thing, for he was a very discreet\ngentleman.\n\nHe had lately dug a long passage through the earth, between his house\nand theirs; and in this he gave Tommelise and the fieldmouse leave\nto walk whenever they liked. But he told them not to be afraid of a\ndead bird which lay in the passage, for it was an entire bird, with\nfeathers and a beak; which certainly was dead just lately, at the\nbeginning of winter, and had been buried exactly where he began his\npassage.\n\nThe mole took a piece of touchwood in his mouth, for it shines just\nlike fire in the dark, and went before them, to light them in the long,\ndark passage. When they were come where the dead bird lay, the mole\nset his broad nose to the ground, and ploughed up the earth, so that\nthere was a large hole, through which the daylight could shine. In\nthe middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, with its beautiful wings\npressed close to its sides. Its legs and head were drawn up under the\nfeathers; the poor bird had certainly died of cold. Tommelise was very\nsorry for it, for she was so fond of little birds; they had, through\nthe whole summer, sung and twittered so beautifully to her; but the\nmole stood beside it, with his short legs, and said,--\"Now it will\ntweedle no more! It must be a shocking thing to be born a little bird;\nthank goodness that none of my children have been such; for a bird\nhas nothing at all but its singing; and it may be starved to death in\nwinter!\"\n\n\"Yes, that you, who are a sensible man, may well say,\" said the\nfieldmouse; \"what has the bird, with all its piping and singing, when\nwinter comes? It may be famished or frozen!\"\n\nTommelise said nothing; but when the two others had turned their backs,\nshe bent over it, stroked aside the feathers which lay over its head,\nand kissed its closed eyes.\n\n\"Perhaps it was that same swallow which sang so sweetly to me in\nsummer,\" thought she; \"what a deal of pleasure it caused me, the dear,\nbeautiful bird!\"\n\nThe mole stopped up the opening which it had made for the daylight\nto come in, and accompanied the ladies home. Tommelise, however,\ncould not sleep in the night; so she got up out of bed, and wove a\nsmall, beautiful mat of hay; and that she carried down and spread\nover the dead bird; laid soft cotton-wool, which she had found in the\nfieldmouse's parlor, around the bird, that it might lie warm in the\ncold earth.\n\n\"Farewell, thou pretty little bird,\" said she; \"farewell, and thanks\nfor thy beautiful song, in summer, when all the trees were green, and\nthe sun shone so warmly upon us!\"\n\nWith this she laid her head upon the bird's breast, and the same moment\nwas quite amazed, for it seemed to her as if there were a slight\nmovement within it. It was the bird's heart. The bird was not dead; it\nlay in a swoon, and now being warmed, it was reanimated.\n\nIn the autumn all the swallows fly away to the warm countries; but if\nthere be one which tarries behind, it becomes stiff with cold, so that\nit falls down as if dead, and the winter's snow covers it.\n\nTommelise was quite terrified, for in comparison with her the bird\nwas a very large creature; but she took courage, however, laid the\ncotton-wool closer around the poor swallow, and fetched a coverlet of\nchrysanthemum leaves, which she had for her bed, and laid it over its\nhead.\n\nNext night she listened again, and it was quite living, but so weak\nthat it could only open its eyes a very little, and see Tommelise, who\nstood with a piece of touchwood in her hand, for other light she had\nnone.\n\n\"Thanks thou shalt have, thou pretty little child!\" said the sick\nswallow to her; \"I have been beautifully revived! I shall soon recover\nmy strength, and be able to fly again out into the warm sunshine!\"\n\n\"O,\" said she, \"it is so cold out-of-doors! it snows and freezes! stop\nin thy warm bed, and I will nurse thee!\"\n\nShe brought the swallow water, in a flower-leaf, and it drank it, and\nrelated to her how it had torn one of its wings upon a thorn-bush, and,\ntherefore, had not been able to fly so well as the other swallows, who\nhad flown far, far away, into the warm countries. It had, at last,\nfallen down upon the ground; but more than that it knew not, nor how it\nhad come there.\n\nDuring the whole winter it continued down here, and Tommelise was very\nkind to it, and became very fond of it; but neither the mole nor the\nfieldmouse knew any thing about it, for they could not endure swallows.\n\nAs soon as ever spring came, and the sun shone warm into the earth,\nthe swallow bade farewell to Tommelise, who opened the hole which the\nmole had covered up. The sun shone so delightfully down into it, and\nthe swallow asked whether she would not go with him; she might sit upon\nhis back, and he would fly out with her far into the green-wood. But\nTommelise knew that it would distress the old fieldmouse if she thus\nleft her.\n\n\"No, I cannot,\" said Tommelise.\n\n\"Farewell, farewell, thou good, sweet little maiden!\" said the swallow,\nand flew out into the sunshine. Tommelise looked after it, and the\ntears came into her eyes, for she was very fond of the swallow, and she\nfelt quite forlorn now it was gone.\n\n\"Quivit! quivit!\" sung the bird, and flew into the green-wood.\n\nTommelise was very sorrowful. She could not obtain leave to go out into\nthe warm sunshine. The corn which had been sown in the field above the\nmouse's dwelling, had grown so high that it was now like a thick wood\nto her.\n\n\"Now, during this summer, thou shalt get thy wedding clothes ready,\"\nsaid the fieldmouse to her; for the old neighbor, the wealthy mole, had\npresented himself as a wooer.\n\n\"Thou shalt have both woollen and linen clothes; thou shalt have both\ntable and body linen, if thou wilt be the mole's wife,\" said the old\nfieldmouse.\n\nTommelise was obliged to sit down and spin; and the fieldmouse hired\nsix spiders to spin and weave both night and day. Every evening the\nmole came to pay a visit, and always said that when the summer was\nended, and the sun did not shine so hotly as to bake the earth to a\nstone,--yes, when the summer was over, then he and Tommelise would have\na grand wedding; but this never gave her any pleasure, for she did not\nlike the wealthy old gentleman. Every morning, when the sun rose, and\nevery evening, when it set, she stole out to the door; and if the wind\nblew the ears of corn aside so that she could see the blue sky, she\nthought how bright and beautiful it was out there, and she wished so\nmuch that she could, just once more, see the dear swallow. But he never\ncame; he certainly had flown far, far away from the lovely green-wood.\n\nIt was now autumn, and all Tommelise's wedding things were ready.\n\n\"In four weeks thou shalt be married,\" said the old fieldmouse to her.\nBut Tommelise cried, and said that she would not have the rich mole.\n\n\"Snick, snack!\" said the fieldmouse; \"do not go and be obstinate, else\nI shall bite thee with my white teeth! He is, indeed, a very fine\ngentleman! The queen herself has not got a dress equal to his black\nvelvet! He has riches both in kitchen and coffer. Be thankful that thou\ncanst get such a one!\"\n\nSo the wedding was fixed. The bridegroom was already come, in his best\nblack velvet suit, to fetch away Tommelise. She was to live with him\ndeep under ground, never to come out into the warm sunshine, for that\nhe could not bear. The poor child was full of sorrow; she must once\nmore say farewell to the beautiful sun; and she begged so hard, that\nthe fieldmouse gave her leave to go to the door to do so.\n\n\"Farewell, thou bright sun!\" said she, and stretched forth her arms,\nand went a few paces from the fieldmouse's door, for the corn was now\ncut, and again there was nothing but the dry stubble.\n\n\"Farewell! farewell!\" said she, and threw her small arms around a\nlittle red flower which grew there; \"greet the little swallow for me,\nif thou chance to see him!\"\n\n\"Quivit! quivit!\" said the swallow, that very moment, above her head;\nshe looked up, there was the little swallow, which had just come by. As\nsoon as Tommelise saw it, she was very glad; she told it how unwilling\nshe was to marry the rich old mole, and live so deep underground, where\nthe sun never shone. She could not help weeping as she told him.\n\n\"The cold winter is just at hand,\" said the little swallow; \"I am\ngoing far away to the warm countries, wilt thou go with me? Thou canst\nsit upon my back; bind thyself fast with thy girdle, and so we will\nfly away from the rich mole and his dark parlor, far away over the\nmountains, to the warm countries, where the sun shines more beautifully\nthan here, and where there always is summer, and where the beautiful\nflowers are always in bloom. Only fly away with me, thou sweet little\nTommelise, who didst save my life when I lay frozen in the dark prison\nof the earth!\"\n\n\"Yes, I will go with thee!\" said Tommelise, and seated herself upon\nthe bird's back, with her feet upon one of his outspread wings. She\nbound her girdle to one of the strongest of his feathers, and thus\nthe swallow flew aloft into the air, over wood and over sea, high up\nabove the great mountains, where lies the perpetual snow, and Tommelise\nshivered with the intensely cold air; but she then crept among the\nbird's warm feathers, and only put out her little head, that she might\nlook at all the magnificent prospect that lay below her.\n\nThus they came to the warm countries. There the sun shone much brighter\nthan it does here; the heavens were twice as high, and upon trellis\nand hedge grew the most splendid purple and green grapes. Oranges and\nlemons hung golden in the woods, and myrtle and wild thyme sent forth\ntheir fragrance; the most beautiful children, on the highways, ran\nafter and played with large, brilliantly-colored butterflies. But the\nswallow still flew onward, and it became more and more beautiful. Among\nlovely green trees, and beside a beautiful blue lake, stood a palace,\nbuilt of the shining white marble of antiquity. Vines clambered up the\ntall pillars; on the topmost of these were many swallow nests, and in\none of these dwelt the very swallow which carried Tommelise.\n\n\"Here is my home!\" said the swallow; \"but wilt thou now seek out for\nthyself one of the lovely flowers which grow below, and then I will\nplace thee there, and thou shalt make thyself as comfortable as thou\npleasest?\"\n\n\"That is charming!\" said she, and clapped her small hands.\n\nJust by there lay a large white marble pillar, which had fallen down,\nand broken into three pieces, but amongst these grew the most exquisite\nlarge white flowers.\n\nThe swallow flew down with Tommelise, and seated her upon one of the\nbroad leaves,--but how amazed she was! There sat a little man in the\nmiddle of the flower, as white and transparent as if he were of glass;\nthe most lovely crown of gold was upon his head, and the most beautiful\nbright wings upon his shoulders; and he, too, was no larger than\nTommelise. He was the angel of the flower. In every flower lived such a\nlittle man or woman, but this was the king of them all.\n\n\"Good heavens! how small he is!\" whispered Tommelise to the swallow.\nThe little prince was as much frightened at the swallow, for it was,\nindeed, a great, gigantic bird in comparison of him, who was so very\nsmall and delicate; but when he saw Tommelise he was very glad, for\nshe was the prettiest little maiden that ever he had seen. He took,\ntherefore, the golden crown from off his head, and set it upon hers,\nand asked her what was her name, and whether she would be his wife, and\nbe the queen of all the flowers? Yes, he was really and truly a little\nman, quite different to the frog's son, and to the mole, with his black\nvelvet dress; she therefore said, Yes, to the pretty prince; and so\nthere came out of every flower a lady or a gentleman, so lovely that\nit was quite a pleasure to see them, and brought, every one of them,\na present to Tommelise; but the best of all was a pair of beautiful\nwings, of fine white pearl, and these were fastened on Tommelise's\nshoulders, and thus she also could fly from flower to flower,--that was\nsuch a delight! And the little swallow sat up in its nest and sang to\nthem as well as it could, but still it was a little bit sad at heart,\nfor it was very fond of Tommelise, and wished never to have parted\nfrom her.\n\n\"Thou shalt not be called Tommelise!\" said the angel of the flowers to\nher; \"it is an ugly name, and thou art so beautiful. We will call thee\nMaia!\"\n\n\"Farewell, farewell!\" said the little swallow, and flew again forth\nfrom the warm countries, far, far away, to Denmark. There it had a\nlittle nest above the window of a room in which dwelt a poet, who can\ntell beautiful tales; for him it sang,--\"Quivit, quivit!\" and from the\nswallow, therefore, have we this history.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROSE-ELF.\n\n\nThere grew a rose-tree in the middle of a garden; it was quite full of\nroses; and in one of these, the prettiest of them all, dwelt an elf. He\nwas so very, very small, that no human eye could see him; behind every\nleaf in the rose he had a sleeping-room; he was as well-formed and as\npretty as any child could be, and had wings, which reached from his\nshoulders down to his feet. O, how fragrant were his chambers, and how\nbright and beautiful the walls were! They were, indeed, the pale pink,\ndelicate rose leaves.\n\nAll day long he enjoyed himself in the warm sunshine, flew from flower\nto flower, danced upon the wings of the fluttering butterfly, or\ncounted how many paces it was from one footpath to another, upon one\nsingle lime leaf. What he considered as footpaths, were what we call\nveins in the leaf; yes, it was an immense way for him! Before he had\nfinished, the sun had set; thus, he had begun too late.\n\nIt became very cold; the dew fell, and the wind blew; the best thing he\ncould do was to get home as fast as he could. He made as much haste as\nwas possible, but all the roses had closed--he could not get in; there\nwas not one single rose open; the poor little elf was quite terrified,\nhe had never been out in the night before; he always had slept in the\nsnug little rose leaf. Now, he certainly would get his death of cold!\n\nAt the other end of the garden he knew that there was an arbor, all\ncovered with beautiful honeysuckle. The flowers looked like exquisitely\npainted horns; he determined to creep down into one of these, and sleep\nthere till morning.\n\nHe flew thither. Listen! There are two people within the bower; the\none, a handsome young man, and the other, the loveliest young lady that\never was seen; they sat side by side, and wished that they never might\nbe parted, through all eternity. They loved each other very dearly,\nmore dearly than the best child can love either its father or mother.\n\nThey kissed each other; and the young lady wept, and gave him a rose;\nbut before she gave it to him she pressed it to her lips, and that with\nsuch a deep tenderness, that the rose opened, and the little elf flew\ninto it, and nestled down into its fragrant chamber. As he lay there,\nhe could very plainly hear that they said,--Farewell! farewell! to each\nother; and then he felt that the rose had its place on the young man's\nbreast. Oh! how his heart beat!--the little elf could not go to sleep\nbecause the young man's heart beat so much.\n\nThe rose lay there; the young man took it forth whilst he went through\na dark wood, and kissed it with such vehemence that the little elf was\nalmost crushed to death; he could feel, through the leaves, how warm\nwere the young man's lips, and the rose gave forth its odor, as if to\nthe noon-day's sun.\n\nThen came another man through the wood; he was dark and wrathful, and\nwas the handsome young lady's cruel brother. He drew forth from its\nsheath a long and sharp dagger, and whilst the young man kissed the\nrose, the wicked man stabbed him to death, and then buried him in the\nbloody earth, under a lime tree.\n\n\"Now he is gone and forgotten!\" thought the wicked man; \"he will never\ncome back again. He is gone a long journey over mountains and seas; it\nwould be an easy thing for him to lose his life,--and he has done so!\nHe will never come back again, and I fancy my sister will never ask\nafter him.\"\n\nHe covered the troubled earth, in which he had laid the dead body, with\nwithered leaves, and then set off home again, through the dark night;\nbut he went not alone, as he fancied; the little elf went with him; it\nsat in a withered, curled-up lime leaf, which had fallen upon the hair\nof the cruel man as he dug the grave. He had now put his hat on, and,\nwithin, it was very dark; and the little elf trembled with horror and\nanger over the wicked deed.\n\nIn the early hour of morning he came home; he took off his hat, and\nwent into his sister's chamber; there lay the beautiful, blooming\nmaiden, and dreamed about the handsome young man. She loved him very\ndearly, and thought that now he went over mountains and through woods.\nThe cruel brother bent over her; what were his thoughts we know not,\nbut they must have been evil. The withered lime leaf fell from his hair\ndown upon the bed cover, but he did not notice it; and so he went out,\nthat he, too, might sleep a little in the morning hour.\n\nBut the elf crept out of the withered leaf, crept to the ear of the\nsleeping maiden, and told her, as if in a dream, of the fearful murder;\ndescribed to her the very place where he had been stabbed, and where\nhis body lay; it told about the blossoming lime tree close beside, and\nsaid,--\"And that thou mayest not fancy that this is a dream which I\ntell thee, thou wilt find a withered lime leaf upon thy bed!\"\n\nAnd she found it when she woke.\n\nOh! what salt tears she wept, and she did not dare to tell her sorrow\nto any one. The window stood open all day, and the little elf could\neasily go out into the garden, to the roses and all the other flowers;\nbut for all that, he resolved not to leave the sorrowful maiden.\n\nIn the window there stood a monthly rose, and he placed himself in one\nof its flowers, and there could be near the poor young lady who was so\nunhappy. Her brother came often into her room, but she could not say\none word about the great sorrow of her heart.\n\nAs soon as it was night she stole out of the house, went to the wood,\nand to the very place where the lime tree stood; tore away the dead\nleaves from the sod, dug down, and found him who was dead! Oh! how she\nwept and prayed our Lord, that she, too, might soon die!\n\nGladly would she have taken the body home with her,--but that she could\nnot; so she cut away a beautiful lock of his hair, and laid it near her\nheart!\n\nNot a word she said; and when she had laid earth and leaves again upon\nthe dead body, she went home; and took with her a little jasmine tree,\nwhich grew, full of blossoms, in the wood where he had met with his\ndeath.\n\nAs soon as she returned to her chamber, she took a very pretty\nflower-pot, and, filling it with mould, laid in it the beautiful\ncurling hair, and planted in it the jasmine tree.\n\n\"Farewell, farewell!\" whispered the little elf; he could no longer bear\nto see her grief, so he flew out into the garden, to his rose; but its\nleaves had fallen; nothing remained of it but the four green calix\nleaves.\n\n\"Ah! how soon it is over with all that is good and beautiful!\" sighed\nhe. At last he found a rose,--which became his house; he crept among\nits fragrant leaves, and dwelt there.\n\nEvery morning he flew to the poor young lady's window, and there she\nalways stood by the flower-pot, and wept. Her salt tears fell upon the\njasmine twigs, and every day, as she grew paler and paler, they became\nmore fresh and green; one cluster of flower-buds grew after another;\nand then the small white buds opened into flowers, and she kissed them.\nHer cruel brother scolded her, and asked her whether she had lost her\nsenses. He could not imagine why she always wept over that flower-pot,\nbut he did not know what secret lay within its dark mould. But she knew\nit; she bowed her head over the jasmine bloom, and sank exhausted on\nher couch. The little rose-elf found her thus, and, stealing to her\near he whispered to her about the evening in the honeysuckle arbor,\nabout the rose's fragrance, and the love which he, the little elf, had\nfor her. She dreamed so sweetly, and while she dreamed, the beautiful\nangel of death conveyed her spirit away from this world, and she was in\nheaven with him who was so dear to her.\n\nThe jasmine buds opened their large white flowers; their fragrance was\nwondrously sweet.\n\nWhen the cruel brother saw the beautiful blossoming tree, he took it,\nas an heir-loom of his sister, and set it in his sleeping-room, just\nbeside his bed, for it was pleasant to look at, and the fragrance was\nso rich and uncommon. The little rose-elf went with it, and flew from\nblossom to blossom. In every blossom there dwelt a little spirit, and\nto it he told about the murdered young man, whose beautiful curling\nlocks lay under their roots; told about the cruel brother, and the\nheart-broken sister.\n\n\"We know all about it,\" said the little spirit of each flower; \"we know\nit! we know it! we know it!\" and with that they nodded very knowingly.\n\nThe rose-elf could not understand them, nor why they seemed so merry,\nso he flew out to the bees which collected honey, and told them all the\nstory. The bees told it to their queen, who gave orders that, the next\nmorning, they should all go and stab the murderer to death with their\nsharp little daggers; for that seemed the right thing to the queen-bee.\n\nBut that very night, which was the first night after the sister's\ndeath, as the brother slept in his bed, beside the fragrant jasmine\ntree, every little flower opened itself, and all invisibly came forth\nthe spirits of the flower, each with a poisoned arrow; first of all\nthey seated themselves by his ear, and sent such awful dreams to his\nbrain as made him, for the first time, tremble at the deed he had done.\nThey then shot at him with their invisible poisoned arrows.\n\n\"Now we have avenged the dead!\" said they, and flew back to the white\ncups of the jasmine-flowers.\n\nAs soon as it was morning, the window of the chamber was opened, and in\ncame the rose-elf, with the queen of the bees and all her swarm.\n\nBut he was already dead; there stood the people round about his bed,\nand they said--\"That the strong-scented jasmine had been the death of\nhim!\"\n\nThen did the rose-elf understand the revenge which the flowers had\ntaken, and he told it to the queen-bee, and she came buzzing, with all\nher swarm, around the jasmine-pot.\n\nThe bees were not to be driven away; so one of the servants took up the\npot to carry it out, and one of the bees stung him, and he let the pot\nfall, and it was broken in two.\n\nThen they all saw the beautiful hair of the murdered young man; and so\nthey knew that he who lay in the bed was the murderer.\n\nThe queen-bee went out humming into the sunshine, and she sung about\nhow the flowers had avenged the young man's death; and that behind\nevery little flower-leaf is an eye which can see every wicked deed.\n\nOld and young, think on this! and so, Fare ye well.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GARDEN OF PARADISE.\n\n\nThere was a king's son: nobody had so many, or such beautiful books\nas he had. Every thing which had been done in this world he could\nread about, and see represented in splendid pictures. He could give\na description of every people and every country; but--where was the\nGarden of Paradise?--of that he could not learn one word; and that it\nwas of which he thought most.\n\nHis grandmother had told him, when he was quite a little boy, and first\nbegan to go to school, that every flower in the Garden of Paradise\nwas the most delicious cake; one was history, another geography, a\nthird, tables, and it was only needful to eat one of these cakes, and\nso the lesson was learned; and the more was eaten of them, the better\nacquainted they were with history, geography, and tables.\n\nAt that time he believed all this; but when he grew a bigger boy, and\nhad learned more, and was wiser, he was quite sure that there must be\nsome other very different delight in this Garden of Paradise.\n\n\"Oh! why did Eve gather of the tree of knowledge? why did Adam eat the\nforbidden fruit? If it had been me, I never would have done so! If it\nhad been me, sin should never have entered into the world!\"\n\nSo said he, many a time, when he was young; so said he when he was much\nolder! The Garden of Paradise filled his whole thoughts.\n\nOne day he went into the wood; he went alone, for that was his greatest\ndelight.\n\nThe evening came. The clouds drew together; it began to rain as if\nthe whole heavens were one single sluice, of which the gate was open;\nit was quite dark, or like night in the deepest well. Now, he slipped\nin the wet grass; now, he tumbled over the bare stones, which were\nscattered over the rocky ground. Every thing streamed with water; not a\ndry thread remained upon the prince. He was obliged to crawl up over\nthe great blocks of stone, where the water poured out of the wet moss.\nHe was ready to faint. At that moment he heard a remarkable sound, and\nbefore him he saw a large, illuminated cave. In the middle of it burned\na fire, so large that a stag might have been roasted at it,--and so it\nwas; the most magnificent stag, with his tall antlers, was placed upon\na spit, and was slowly turning round between two fir trees, which had\nbeen hewn down. A very ancient woman, tall and strong, as if she had\nbeen a man dressed up in woman's clothes, sat by the fire, and threw\none stick after another upon it.\n\n\"Come nearer!\" said she, seeing the prince; \"sit down by the fire, and\ndry thy clothes.\"\n\n\"It is bad travelling to-night,\" said the prince; and seated himself on\nthe floor of the cave.\n\n\"It will be worse yet, when my sons come home!\" replied the woman.\n\"Thou art in the cave of the winds; my sons are the four winds of the\nearth; canst thou understand?\"\n\n\"Where are thy sons?\" asked the prince.\n\n\"Yes, it is not well to ask questions, when the questions are\nfoolish,\" said the woman. \"My sons are queer fellows; they play at\nbowls with the clouds, up in the big room there;\" and with that she\npointed up into the air.\n\n\"Indeed!\" said the prince, \"and you talk somewhat gruffly, and are not\nas gentle as the ladies whom I am accustomed to see around me.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, they have nothing else to do!\" said she; \"I must be gruff\nif I would keep my lads in order! But I can do it, although they have\nstiff necks. Dost thou see the four sacks which hang on the wall; they\nare just as much afraid of them, as thou art of the birch-rod behind\nthe looking-glass! I can double up the lads, as I shall, perhaps, have\nto show thee, and so put them into the bags; I make no difficulties\nabout that; and so I fasten them in, and don't let them go running\nabout, for I do not find that desirable. But here we have one of them.\"\n\nWith that in came the northwind; he came tramping in with an icy\ncoldness; great, round hail-stones hopped upon the floor, and\nsnow-flakes flew round about. He was dressed in a bear's-skin jerkin\nand hose; a hat of seal's-skin was pulled over his ears; long icicles\nhung from his beard, and one hail-stone after another fell down upon\nhis jerkin-collar.\n\n\"Do not directly go to the fire!\" said the prince, \"else thou wilt have\nthe frost in thy hands and face!\"\n\n\"Frost!\" said the northwind, and laughed aloud. \"Frost! that is\nprecisely my greatest delight! What sort of a little dandified chap art\nthou? What made thee come into the winds' cave?\"\n\n\"He is my guest!\" said the old woman; \"and if that explanation does not\nplease thee, thou canst get into the bag!--now thou knowest my mind!\"\n\nThis had the desired effect; and the northwind sat down, and began to\ntell where he was come from, and where he had been for the greater part\nof the last month.\n\n\"I come from the Arctic Sea; I have been upon Bear Island with the\nRussian walrus-hunters. I lay and slept whilst they sailed up to the\nNorth Cape. When I now and then woke up a little, how the storm-birds\nflew about my legs! They are ridiculous birds! they make a quick stroke\nwith their wings, and then keep them immoveably expanded, and yet they\nget on.\"\n\n\"Don't be so diffuse!\" said the winds' mother; \"and so you came to Bear\nIsland.\"\n\n\"That is a charming place; that is a floor to dance upon!\" roared the\nnorthwind, \"as flat as a pan-cake! Half covered with snow and dwarfish\nmosses, sharp stones and leg-bones of walruses and ice-bears lie\nscattered about, looking like the arms and legs of giants. One would\nthink that the sun never had shone upon them. I blew the mist aside a\nlittle, that one might see the erection there; it was a house, built\nof pieces of wrecks, covered with the skin of the walrus, the fleshy\nside turned outward; upon the roof sat a living ice-bear, and growled.\nI went down to the shore, and looked at the birds' nests, in which were\nthe unfledged young ones, which screamed, and held up their gaping\nbeaks; with that I blew down a thousand throats, and they learned to\nshut their mouths. Down below tumbled about the walruses, like gigantic\nascarides, with pigs' heads and teeth an ell long!\"\n\n\"Thou tell'st it very well, my lad!\" said the mother; \"it makes my\nmouth water to hear thee!\"\n\n\"So the hunting began,\" continued the northwind. \"The harpoons were\nstruck into the breast of the walrus, so that the smoking blood started\nlike a fountain over the iron. I then thought of having some fun! I\nblew, and let my great ships, the mountain-like fields of ice, shut in\nthe boats. How the people shrieked and cried; but I cried louder than\nthey! The dead bodies of their fish, their chests and cordage, were\nthey obliged to throw out upon the ice! I showered snow-flakes upon\nthem, and left them, in their imprisoned ship, to drive southward with\ntheir prey, there to taste salt-water. They will never again come to\nBear Island!\"\n\n\"It was very wrong of thee!\" said the winds' mother.\n\n\"The others can tell what good I have done!\" said he! \"And there we\nhave my brother from the west; I like him the best of them all; he\nsmacks of the sea, and has a blessed coldness about him!\"\n\n\"Is it the little zephyr?\" inquired the prince.\n\n\"Yes, certainly, it is the zephyr!\" said the old woman; \"but he is not\nso little now. In old times he was a very pretty lad, but that is all\nover now.\"\n\nHe looked like a wild man, but he had one of those pads round his\nhead, which children used to wear formerly, to prevent them from being\nhurt. He held in his hand a mahogany club, which had been cut in the\nmahogany woods of America.\n\n\"Where dost thou come from?\" asked the mother.\n\n\"From the forest-wilderness,\" said he, \"where the prickly lianas makes\na fence around every tree; where the water-snakes lie in the wet grass,\nand man seems superfluous!\"\n\n\"What didst thou do there?\"\n\n\"I looked at the vast river, saw how it was hurled from the cliffs,\nbecame mist, and was thrown back into the clouds, to become rainbows. I\nsaw the wild buffalo swim in the river; but the stream bore him along\nwith it; madly did it bear him onward, faster and faster, to where the\nriver was hurled down the cliffs--down, also, must he go! I bethought\nmyself, and blew a hurricane, so the old trees of the forest were torn\nup, and carried down, too, and became splinters!\"\n\n\"And didst thou do any thing else?\" asked the old woman.\n\n\"I tumbled head-over-heels in the Savannas; I have patted the wild\nhorses, and shook down cocoa-nuts! Yes, yes, I could tell tales, if\nI would! But one must not tell all one knows, that thou know'st, old\nlady!\" said he, and kissed his mother so roughly that he nearly knocked\nher backward from her chair; he was a regularly wild fellow.\n\nNow came in the southwind, with a turban on his head, and a flying\nBedouin-cloak.\n\n\"It is dreadfully cold out here!\" said he, and threw more wood on the\nfire; \"one can very well tell that the northwind has come first!\"\n\n\"Here it is so hot, that one might roast an ice-bear!\" said the\nnorthwind.\n\n\"You are an ice-bear, yourself!\" replied the southwind.\n\n\"Do you want to go in the bags?\" asked the old woman; \"sit down on the\nstone, and tell us where thou hast been.\"\n\n\"In Africa, mother,\" said he; \"I have been lion-hunting, with the\nHottentots, in Caffreland. What grass grows in the fields there, as\ngreen as the olive! There dances the gnu; and the ostrich ran races\nwith me, but my legs were the nimblest. I came to the deserts of yellow\nsand, which look like the surface of the ocean. There I met a caravan!\nThey had killed their last camel to get water to drink, but they only\nfound a little. The sun burned above them, and the sand beneath their\nfeet. There was no limit to the vast desert. I then rolled myself in\nthe fine, loose sand, and whirled it up in great pillars--that was a\ndance! You should have seen how close the dromedaries stood together,\nand the merchants pulled their kaftans over their heads. They threw\nthemselves down before me, as if before Allah, their god. They are now\nburied; a pyramid of sand lies heaped above them; I shall, some day,\nblow it away, and then the sun will bleach their white bones, and so\ntravellers can see that there have been human beings before them in the\ndesert; without this it were hard to believe it!\"\n\n\"Thou, also, hast done badly!\" said the mother. \"March into the bag!\"\nand before the southwind knew what she would be at, she had seized him\nby the body, and thrust him into the bag. The bag, with him in it,\nrolled about on the floor; but she seized it, held it fast, and sat\ndown upon it; so he was forced to lie still.\n\n\"They are rough fellows!\" said the prince.\n\n\"So they are!\" returned she; \"but I can chastise them! But here we have\nthe fourth!\"\n\nThis was the eastwind, and he was dressed like a Chinese.\n\n\"Indeed! so thou comest from that corner, dost thou?\" asked the mother;\n\"I fancied that thou hadst been to the Garden of Paradise.\"\n\n\"I shall go there to-morrow,\" said the eastwind. \"It will be a hundred\nyears, to-morrow, since I was there. I am now come from China, where\nI have been dancing around the porcelain tower, till all the bells\nhave rung. Down in the street the royal officers were beating people;\nbamboos were busy with their shoulders, and from the first, down to the\nninth rank, they cried out--'Thanks, my fatherly benefactor!' but they\ndid not mean any thing by it; and I rung the bells, and sang--'Tsing,\ntsang, tsu! Tsing, tsang, tsu!'\"\n\n\"Thou art merry about it,\" said the old woman; \"it is a good thing that\nto-morrow morning thou art going to the Garden of Paradise; that always\nmends thy manners! Drink deeply of wisdom's well, and bring a little\nbottleful home with thee, for me!\"\n\n\"That I will!\" said the eastwind; \"but why hast thou put my brother\nfrom the south down in the bag? Let him come out! I want him to tell\nme about the phoenix; the princess of the Garden of Paradise always\nlikes to hear about it, when I go, every hundred years, to see her.\nOpen the bag! and so thou shalt be my sweetest mother, and I will give\nthee a pocketful of tea, very fresh and green, which I myself gathered,\non the spot!\"\n\n\"Nay, for the sake of the tea, and because thou art my darling, I will\nopen the bag!\"\n\nShe did so, and the southwind crept out, and looked so ashamed, because\nthe foreign prince had seen him.\n\n\"There hast thou a palm leaf for the princess,\" said the southwind;\n\"that leaf was given to me by the phoenix bird, the only one in the\nwhole world. He has written upon it, with his beak, the whole history\nof his life during the hundred years that he lived; now she can read it\nherself. I saw how the phoenix himself set fire to his nest, and sat\nin it and burned like a Hindoo widow. How the dry branches crackled!\nThere was a smoke and an odor. At length it flamed up into a blaze; the\nold phoenix was burned to ashes, but its egg lay glowingly red in the\nfire; then it burst open with a great report, and the young one flew\nout; now it is the regent of all birds, and the only phoenix in the\nwhole world. He has bitten a hole in the palm leaf which I gave thee;\nit is his greeting to the princess.\"\n\n\"Let us now have something to strengthen us!\" said the mother of the\nwinds; and with that they all seated themselves, and ate of the roasted\nstag; and the prince sat at the side of the eastwind, and therefore\nthey soon became good friends.\n\n\"Listen, and tell me,\" said the prince, \"what sort of a princess is\nthat of which thou hast said so much, and who lives in the Garden of\nParadise?\"\n\n\"Ho! ho!\" said the eastwind, \"if you wish to go there, you can fly with\nme there to-morrow morning. This, however, I must tell you, there has\nbeen no human being there since Adam and Eve's time. You have heard of\nthem, no doubt, in the Bible.\"\n\n\"Yes, to be sure!\" said the prince.\n\n\"At the time when they were driven out,\" said the eastwind, \"the\nGarden of Paradise sank down into the earth; but it still preserved its\nwarm sunshine, its gentle air, and its wonderful beauty. The queen of\nthe fairies lives there; there lies the Island of Bliss, where sorrow\nnever comes, and where it is felicity to be. Seat thyself on my back\nto-morrow morning, and so I will take thee with me. I think that will\nbe permitted. But now thou must not talk any more, for I want to go to\nsleep!\"\n\nAnd so they all slept together.\n\nEarly the next morning the prince awoke, and was not a little amazed to\nfind himself already high above the clouds. He sat upon the back of the\neastwind, which kept firm hold of him. They were so high in the air,\nthat the woods and fields, the rivers and sea, showed themselves as if\nupon a large illustrated map.\n\n\"Good-morning,\" said the eastwind; \"thou mightest have slept a little\nbit longer, for there is not much to see upon the flat country below\nus, unless thou hast any pleasure in counting the churches, which stand\nlike dots of chalk upon the green board.\"\n\nThey were the fields and meadows which he called the green board.\n\n\"It was very ill-mannered that I did not say good-by to thy mother and\nbrothers,\" said the prince.\n\n\"There is no blame when people are asleep!\" said the eastwind; and with\nthat flew away faster than ever. One could have heard, as they went\nover the woods, how the trees shook their leaves and branches; one\ncould have heard, on lakes and seas that they were passing over, for\nthe billows heaved up more loftily, and the great ships bowed down into\nthe water like sailing swans.\n\nTowards evening, when it grew dusk, it was curious to look down to\nthe great cities; the lights burned within them, now here, now there;\nit was exactly like the piece of paper which children burn to see the\nmultitude of little stars in it, which they call people coming out of\nchurch. The prince clapped his hands, but the eastwind told him not\nto do so, but much better to keep fast hold; or else he might let him\nfall, and then, perhaps, he would pitch upon a church spire.\n\nThe eagle flew lightly through the dark wood, but the eastwind flew\nstill lighter; the Cossack on his little horse sped away over the\nplain, but the prince sped on more rapidly by another mode.\n\n\"Now thou canst see the Himalaya,\" said the eastwind; \"they are the\nhighest mountains in Asia; we shall not be long before we come to the\nGarden of Paradise!\"\n\nWith that they turned more southward, and perceived the fragrance of\nspice and flowers. Figs and pomegranates grew wild, and the wild vine\nhung with its clusters of blue and red grapes. There they both of them\nalighted, stretched themselves on the tender grass, where the flowers\nnodded, as if they would say,--\"Welcome back again!\"\n\n\"Are we now in the Garden of Paradise?\" asked the prince.\n\n\"No, certainly not,\" replied the eastwind; \"but we shall soon come\nthere. Dost thou see the winding field-path there, and the great cavern\nwhere the vine leaves hang like rich green curtains? We shall go\nthrough there. Wrap thee in thy cloak; here the sun burns, but one step\nmore and it is icy cold! The birds which fly past the cavern have the\none, outer wing, in the warm summer, and the other, inner one, in the\ncold winter!\"\n\n\"Really! And that is the way to the Garden of Paradise!\" said the\nprince.\n\nThey now went into the cave. Ha! how ice-cold it was; but that did\nnot last long, for the southwind spread out his wings, and they gave\nthe warmth of the brightest fire. Nay, what a cavern it was! The huge\nmasses of stone, from which the water dripped, hung above them in the\nmost extraordinary shapes; before long it grew so narrow that they were\nobliged to creep upon hands and feet; again, and it expanded itself\nhigh and wide, like the free air. It looked like a chapel of the dead,\nwith its silent organ pipes and organ turned to stone!\n\n\"Then we go the way of the dead to the Garden of Paradise,\" said the\nprince; but the eastwind replied not a word, but pointed onward, and\nthe most lovely blue light beamed towards them. The masses of stone\nabove them became more and more like a chiselled ceiling, and at last\nwere bright, like a white cloud in the moonshine. They now breathed the\nmost deliciously mild atmosphere, as if fresh from the mountains, and\nas fragrant as the roses of the valley.\n\nA river flowed on as clear as the air itself, and the fishes were of\ngold and silver; crimson eels, whose every movement seemed to emit blue\nsparks of fire, played down in the water, and the broad leaf of the\nwaterlily had all the colors of the rainbow; the flower itself was an\norange-colored burning flame, to which the water gave nourishment, in\nthe same manner as the oil keeps the lamp continually burning. A firm\nbridge of marble, as artistically and as exquisitely built as if it had\nbeen of pearl and glass, led across the water to the Island of Bliss,\nwhere the Garden of Paradise bloomed.\n\nThe eastwind took the prince in his arms and carried him over. The\nflowers and the leaves began the most exquisite song about his youth,\nso incomparably beautiful as no human voice could sing.\n\nWere they palm trees or gigantic water plants which grew there? Trees\nso large and succulent the prince had never seen. Long garlands of the\nmost wondrously formed twining plants, such as one only sees painted\nin rich colors and gold upon the margins of old missals, or which\ntwined themselves through their initial letters, were thrown from tree\nto tree. It was altogether the most lovely and fantastic assemblage of\nbirds, flowers, and graceful sweeping branches. In the grass just by\nthem was a flock of peacocks, with outspread glittering tails. Yes, it\nwas really so!--No, when the prince touched them he observed that they\nwere not animals, but plants; it was the large plantain, which has the\ndazzling hues of the peacock's tail! Lions and tigers gambolled about,\nlike playful cats, between the green hedges, which sent forth an odor\nlike the blossom of the olive; and the lions and tigers were tame; the\nwild wood-dove glittered like the most beautiful pearl, and with its\nwings playfully struck the lion on the cheek; and the antelope, which\nusually is so timid, stood and nodded with its head, as if it too\nshould like to join in the sport.\n\nNow came the Fairy of Paradise; her garments shone like the sun,\nand her countenance was as gentle as that of a glad mother when she\nrejoices over her child. She was youthful; and the most beautiful\ngirls attended her, each of whom had a beaming star in her hair.\n\nThe eastwind gave her a written leaf from the phoenix, and her eyes\nsparkled with joy; she took the prince by the hand, and led him into\nher castle, the walls of which were colored like the most splendid leaf\nof the tulip when held against the sun. The ceiling itself was a large\nglittering flower, and the longer one gazed into it the deeper seemed\nits cup. The prince stepped up to the window and looked through one of\nthe panes; there he saw the Tree of Knowledge, with the snake and Adam\nand Eve standing close beside it.\n\n\"Are they not driven out?\" asked he; and the Fairy smiled, and\nexplained to him that upon every pane of glass had time burned in its\npicture, but not as we are accustomed to see it,--no, here all was\nliving; the trees moved their leaves, and people came and went as in\nreality. He looked through another pane, and there was Jacob's dream,\nwhere the ladder reached up to heaven, and the angels with their large\nwings ascended and descended upon it. Yes, every thing which had been\ndone in this world lived and moved in these panes of glass. Such\npictures as these could only be burnt in by time.\n\nThe Fairy smiled, and led him into a large and lofty hall, the walls\nof which seemed transparent, and were covered with pictures, the one\nmore lovely than the other. These were the millions of the blessed,\nand they smiled and sang so that all flowed together into one melody.\nThe uppermost were so small that they seemed less than the smallest\nrosebud, when it looks like a pin-prick on paper. In the middle of\nthe hall stood a great tree with drooping luxuriant branches; golden\napples, large and small, hung like oranges among the green leaves.\nIt was the Tree of Knowledge; of the fruit of which Adam and Eve had\neaten. On every leaf hung a crimson drop of dew; it was as if the tree\nwept tears of blood.\n\n\"Let us now go into the boat,\" said the Fairy; \"it will be refreshing\nto us out upon the heaving water. The boat rocks, but does not move\nfrom the place, and all the regions of the world pass before our eyes.\"\n\nAnd it was wonderful to see how the coast moved! There came the lofty,\nsnow-covered Alps, with clouds and dark pine trees; horns resounded\nwith such a deep melancholy, and peasants _jodelled_ sweetly in the\nvalleys. Now the banyan tree bowed its long depending branches over the\nboat; black swans swam upon the water, and the strangest animals and\nflowers showed themselves along the shores: this was Australia, the\nfifth quarter of the world, which glided past, with its horizon bounded\nby blue mountains. They heard the song of the priests, and saw the\nsavages dancing to the sound of the drum and bone-tubes. The pyramids\nof Egypt now rose into the clouds; overturned pillars and sphinxes,\nhalf buried in sand, sailed past them. The northern lights flamed above\nthe Hecla of the north; they were such magnificent fireworks as no one\ncould imitate. The prince was delighted, and in fact, he saw a hundred\ntimes more than what we have related.\n\n\"And may I always remain here?\" asked he.\n\n\"That depends upon thyself,\" replied the Fairy. \"If thou do not, like\nAdam, take of the forbidden thing, then thou mayest always remain here.\"\n\n\"I shall not touch the apples upon the Tree of Knowledge,\" said the\nprince; \"here are a thousand fruits more beautiful than that. I should\nnever do as Adam did!\"\n\n\"Prove thyself, and if thou be not strong enough, then return with the\neastwind which brought thee; he is about to go back again, and will\nnot return here for a whole century. That time will pass to thee in\nthis place as if it were only a hundred minutes, but it is time enough\nfor temptation and sin. Every evening when I am about to leave thee,\nI shall say to thee, 'Follow me!' and beckon to thee. But follow me\nnot, for with every step would the temptation become stronger, and thou\nwouldst come into the hall where grows the Tree of Knowledge. I sleep\nbeneath its fragrant depending branches; if thou follow me, if thou\nimpress a kiss upon me, then will Paradise sink deep in the earth, and\nit will be lost to thee. The sharp winds of the desert will howl around\nthee, cold rain will fall upon thy hair, and sorrow and remorse will be\nthy punishment!\"\n\n\"I will remain here!\" said the prince; so the eastwind kissed his brow,\nand said, \"Be strong! and then we shall meet again here in a hundred\nyears!\"\n\nThe eastwind spread out his large wings, which shone like the harvest\nmoon in autumn, or the northern lights in the cold winter.\n\n\"Farewell! farewell!\" resounded from the flowers and the trees. The\nstorks and the pelicans flew after, in a line like a waving riband, and\naccompanied him to the boundary of the Garden.\n\n\"Now we begin our dance!\" said the Fairy; \"at the conclusion, when I\nhave danced with thee, thou wilt see that when the sun sets I shall\nbeckon to thee, and thou wilt hear me say, 'Follow me!' But do it not!\nThat is thy temptation--that is sin to thee! During a hundred years\nI shall every evening repeat it. Every time that thou resistest the\ntemptation wilt thou gain more strength, till at length it will cease\nto tempt thee. This evening is the first trial! Remember that I have\nwarned thee!\"\n\nThe Fairy led him into a great hall of white transparent lilies; in\neach one the yellow stamina was a little golden harp, which rung with\nclear and flute-like tones. The most beautiful maidens floated in the\ndance, and sung how glorious was the gift of life; that they who were\npurified by trial should never die, and that the Garden of Paradise\nfor them should bloom forever!\n\nThe sun went down, the whole heaven became of gold, which gave to\nthe lilies the splendor of the most beautiful roses. The prince felt\na bliss within his heart such as he had never experienced before.\nHe looked, and the background of the hall opened, and the Tree of\nKnowledge stood there with a splendor which dazzled his eyes. A song\nresounded from it, low and delicious as the voice of his mother, and it\nseemed as if she sung, \"My child! my beloved child!\"\n\nThen beckoned the Fairy, and said, \"Follow, follow me!\"\n\nHe started towards her--he forgot his promise--forgot it all the first\nevening! \"Follow, follow me!\" alone sounded in his heart. He paused\nnot--he hastened after her.\n\n\"I will,\" said he; \"there is really no sin in it! Why should I not do\nso? I will see her! There is nothing lost if I only do not kiss her,\nand that I will not do--for I have a firm will!\"\n\nThe Fairy put aside the green, depending branches of the Tree of\nKnowledge, and the next moment was hidden from sight.\n\n\"I have not sinned,\" said the prince, \"and I will not!\" He also put\naside the green, depending branches of the Tree of Knowledge, and\nthere sat the Fairy with her hands clasped, and the tears on her dark\neyelashes!\n\n\"Weep not for me!\" said he passionately. \"There can be no sin in what\nI have done; weep not!\" and he kissed away her tears, and his lips\ntouched hers!\n\nAt once a thunder crash was heard--a loud and deep thunder crash, and\nall seemed hurled together! The beautiful, weeping Fairy, the Garden of\nParadise, sunk--sunk so deep--so deep!--and the prince saw it sink in\nthe deep night! Like a little gleaming star he saw it shining a long\nway off! The coldness of death went through his limbs; he closed his\neyes, and lay long as if dead!\n\nThe cold rain fell upon his face; the keen wind blew around his head;\nhis thoughts turned to the past.\n\n\"What have I done!\" sighed he; \"I have sinned like Adam! Sinned, and I\nhave forfeited Paradise!\"\n\nHe opened his eyes; the star so far off, which had shone to him like\nthe sunken Paradise, he now saw was the morning star in heaven.\n\nHe raised himself up, and was in the great wood near to the cave of the\nwinds; the old woman sat by his side, she looked angrily at him, and\nlifted up her arm.\n\n\"Already! the first time of trial!\" said she: \"I expected as much! Yes,\nif thou wast a lad of mine, I would punish thee!\"\n\n\"Punishment will come!\" said a strong old man, with a scythe in his\nhand, and with large, black wings!--\"I shall lay him in his coffin, but\nnot now. Let him return to the world, atone for his sin, and become\ngood in deed, and not alone in word. I shall come again; if he be then\ngood and pious, I will take him above the stars, where blooms the\nGarden of Paradise; and he shall enter in at its beautiful pearl gates,\nand be a dweller in it forever and ever; but if then his thoughts are\nevil, and his heart full of sin, he will sink deeper than Paradise\nseemed to sink--sink deeper, and that forever!--Farewell!\"\n\nThe prince arose--the old woman was gone--the cave of the winds was\nnothing now but a hollow in the rock; he wondered how it had seemed so\nlarge the night before; the morning star had set, and the sun shone\nwith a clear and cheerful light upon the little flowers and blades of\ngrass, which were heavy with the last night's rain; the birds sang, and\nthe bees hummed in the blossoms of the lime tree. The prince walked\nhome to his castle. He told his grandmother how he had been to the\nGarden of Paradise, and what had happened to him there, and what the\nold man with the black wings had said.\n\n\"This will do thee more good than many book-lessons,\" said the old\ngrandmother; \"never let it go out of thy memory!\"--and the prince never\ndid.\n\n\n\n\nA NIGHT IN THE KITCHEN.\n\n\nOnce upon a time, there was a bunch of brimstone matches, which were\nexceedingly proud, because they were of high descent; their ancestral\ntree, that is to say, the great fir tree, of which they were little\nbits of chips, had been a great, old tree in the forest. The brimstone\nmatches now lay beside the kitchen fender, together with the tinder and\nan old iron pot, and were speaking of their youth.\n\n\"Yes, we were then on the green branch,\" said they; \"then we were\nreally and truly on a green branch; every morning and evening we\ndrank diamond tea, that was the dew; every day we had sunshine, if\nthe sun shone, and all the little birds told us tales. We could very\nwell observe also, that we were rich; for the common trees were only\ndressed in summer, but our family had a good stock of green clothing\nboth winter and summer. But then came the wood-cutters--that was a\ngreat revolution, and our family was cut up root and branch; the main\nhead of the family, he took a place as mainmast in a magnificent ship,\nwhich sailed round the world wherever it would; the other branches,\nsome took one place, and some took another; and we have now the post of\ngiving light to the common herd; and, therefore, high-born as we are,\nare we now in the kitchen.\"\n\n\"Yes, it was different with me,\" said the iron pot, when the matches\nwere silent; \"as soon as ever I came into the world I was cleaned and\nboiled many a time! I care for the solid, and am properly spoken of as\nfirst in the house. My only pleasure is, as soon as dinner is over, to\nlie clean and bright upon the shelf, and head a long row of comrades.\nIf I except the water-bucket, which now and then goes down in the yard,\nwe always live in-doors. Our only newsmonger is the coal-box; but it\ntalks so violently about government and the people!--yes, lately there\nwas an old pot, which, out of horror of it, fell down and broke to\npieces!\"\n\n\"Thou chatterest too much!\" interrupted the tinder, and the steel\nstruck the flint until sparks came out. \"Should we not have a merry\nevening?\"\n\n\"Yes; let us talk about who is the most well-bred among us,\" said the\nbrimstone matches.\n\n\"No, I don't think it right to talk about ourselves,\" said an earthen\njug; \"let us have an evening's entertainment. I will begin; I will\ntell something which everybody has experienced; people can do that so\nseldom, and it is so pleasant. By the Baltic sea--\"\n\n\"That is a beautiful beginning!\" said all the talkers; \"it will\ncertainly be a history which we shall like.\"\n\n\"Yes, then I passed my youth in a quiet family; the furniture was of\nwood; the floors were scoured; they had clean curtains every fortnight.\"\n\n\"How interestingly you tell it!\" said the dusting-brush; \"one can\nimmediately tell that the narrator is a lady, such a thread of purity\nalways runs through their relations.\"\n\n\"Yes, that one can feel!\" said the water-bucket, and made a little skip\nof pleasure on the floor.\n\nAnd the earthen jug continued her story, and the end of it was like the\nbeginning.\n\nAll the talkers shook for pleasure; and the dusting-brush took green\nparsley leaves from the dust-heap, and crowned the jug; for he knew\nthat it would vex the others; and thinks he to himself, \"If I crown her\nto-day, she will crown me to-morrow!\"\n\n\"Now we will dance,\" said the fire-tongs; and began dancing. Yes,\nindeed! and it is wonderful how he set one leg before the other; the\nold shoehorn, which hung on a hook, jumped up to see it. \"Perhaps I,\ntoo, may get crowned,\" said the fire-tongs; and it was crowned.\n\n\"They are only the rabble!\" thought the brimstone matches.\n\nThe tea-urn was then asked to sing; but it said it had got a cold,\nand it could not sing unless it was boiling; but it was nothing but\nan excuse, because it did not like to sing, unless it stood upon the\ntable, in grand company.\n\nIn the window there sat an old pen, which the servant-girl was\naccustomed to write with: there was nothing remarkable about it; it was\ndipped deep into the ink-stand. \"If the tea-urn will not sing,\" said\nthe pen, \"then she can let it alone! Outside there hangs a nightingale\nin a cage, which can sing, and which has not regularly learned any\nthing; but we will not talk scandal this evening!\"\n\n\"I think it highly unbecoming,\" said the tea-kettle, which was the\nkitchen singer, and half-sister to the tea-urn, \"that such a foreign\nbird should be listened to! Is it patriotic? I will let the coal-box\njudge.\"\n\n\"It only vexes me,\" said the coal-box; \"it vexes me so much, that no\none can think! Is this a proper way to spend an evening? Would it not\nbe much better to put the house to rights? Every one go to his place,\nand I will rule; that will produce a change!\"\n\n\"Yes, let us do something out of the common way!\" said all the things\ntogether.\n\nAt that very moment the door opened. It was the servant-girl, and so\nthey all stood stock still; not a sound was heard; but there was not a\npot among them that did not know what they might have done, and how\ngenteel they were.\n\n\"If I might have had my way,\" thought they, \"then it would have been a\nregularly merry evening!\"\n\nThe servant-girl took the brimstone matches, and put fire to them.\nBless us! how they sputtered and burst into a flame!\n\n\"Now every one can see,\" thought they, \"that we take the first rank!\nWhat splendor we have! what brilliancy!\"--and with that they were burnt\nout.\n\n\n\n\nLITTLE IDA'S FLOWERS.\n\n\n\"My poor flowers are quite dead,\" said little Ida. \"They were so\nbeautiful last evening, and now all their leaves hang withered. How can\nthat be?\" asked she from the student who sat on the sofa. She was very\nfond of him, for he knew the most beautiful tales, and could cut out\nsuch wonderful pictures; he could cut out hearts with little dancing\nladies in them; flowers he could cut out, and castles with doors that\nwould open. He was a very charming student.\n\n\"Why do the flowers look so miserably to-day?\" again asked she, and\nshowed him a whole bouquet of withered flowers.\n\n\"Dost thou not know what ails them?\" said the student; \"the flowers\nhave been to a ball last night, and therefore they droop so.\"\n\n\"But flowers cannot dance,\" said little Ida.\n\n\"Yes, when it is dark, and we are all asleep, then they dance about\nmerrily; nearly every night they have a ball!\" said the student.\n\n\"Can no child go to the ball?\" inquired Ida.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the student, \"little tiny daisies and lilies of the valley.\"\n\n\"Where do the prettiest flowers dance?\" asked little Ida.\n\n\"Hast thou not,\" said the student, \"gone out of the city gate to the\ngreat castle where the king lives in summer, where there is a beautiful\ngarden, with a great many flowers in it? Thou hast certainly seen the\nswans which come sailing to thee for little bits of bread. There is a\nregular ball, thou mayst believe!\"\n\n\"I was in the garden yesterday with my mother,\" said Ida, \"but all the\nleaves were off the trees, and there were hardly any flowers at all!\nWhere are they? In summer I saw such a many.\"\n\n\"They are gone into the castle,\" said the student. \"Thou seest, as\nsoon as the king and all his court go away to the city, the flowers go\ndirectly out of the garden into the castle, and are very merry. Thou\nshouldst see them! The two most beautiful roses sit upon the throne,\nand are king and queen; all the red cockscombs place themselves on\neach side, and stand and bow, they are the chamberlains. Then all the\nprettiest flowers come, and so there is a great ball; the blue violets\nrepresent young midshipmen and cadets, they dance with hyacinths and\ncrocuses, which they call young ladies. The tulips and the great yellow\nlilies, they are old ladies who look on, and see that the dancing goes\non properly, and that every thing is beautiful.\"\n\n\"But is there nobody who gives the flowers any thing while they dance\nin the king's castle?\" asked little Ida.\n\n\"There is nobody who rightly knows about it,\" said the student. \"In the\nsummer season at night the old castle-steward goes regularly through\nthe castle; he has a great bunch of keys with him, but as soon as\never the flowers hear the jingling of his keys, they are quite still,\nhide themselves behind the long curtains, and peep out with their\nlittle heads. 'I can smell flowers somewhere about,' says the old\ncastle-steward, 'but I cannot see them!'\"\n\n\"That is charming!\" said little Ida, and clapped her hands; \"but could\nnot I see the flowers?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the student, \"only remember the next time thou art there to\npeep in at the window, and then thou wilt see them. I did so one day;\nthere lay a tall yellow Turk's-cap lily on a sofa; that was a court\nlady.\"\n\n\"And can the flowers in the botanic garden go out there? Can they come\nsuch a long way?\" asked Ida.\n\n\"Yes, that thou mayst believe,\" said the student; \"for if they like\nthey can fly. Hast thou not seen the pretty butterflies, the red, and\nyellow, and white ones, they look almost like flowers,--and so they\nhave been; they have grown on stalks high up in the air, and have shot\nout leaves as if they were small wings, and so they fly, and when they\ncan support them well, then they have leave given them to fly about by\nday. That thou must have seen thyself! But it is very possible that the\nflowers in the botanic garden never have been into the king's castle,\nnor know how merry they are there at night. And now, therefore, I will\ntell thee something that will put the professor of botany who lives\nbeside the garden into a perplexity. Thou knowest him, dost thou not?\nNext time thou goest into his garden, do thou tell one of the flowers\nthat there will be a great ball at the castle; it will tell it to its\nneighbor, and it to the next, and so on till they all know, and then\nthey will all fly away. Then the professor will come into the garden,\nand will not find a single flower, and he will not be able to imagine\nwhat can have become of them.\"\n\n\"But how can one flower tell another? flowers cannot talk,\" said little\nIda.\n\n\"No, they cannot properly talk,\" replied the student, \"and so they have\npantomime. Hast not thou seen when it blows a little the flowers nod\nand move all their green leaves; that is just as intelligible as if\nthey talked.\"\n\n\"Can the professor understand pantomime?\" inquired Ida.\n\n\"Yes, that thou mayst believe! He came one morning down into his\ngarden, and saw a tall yellow nettle pantomiming to a beautiful red\ncarnation, and it was all the same as if it had said, 'Thou art\nso handsome, that I am very fond of thee!' The professor was not\npleased with that, and struck the nettle upon its leaves, which are\nits fingers; but they stung him so, that from that time he has never\nmeddled with a nettle again.\"\n\n\"That is delightful!\" said little Ida, and laughed.\n\n\"Is that the stuff to fill a child's mind with!\" exclaimed the tiresome\nchancellor, who was come in on a visit, and now sat on the sofa. He\ncould not bear the student, and always grumbled when he saw him cutting\nout the beautiful and funny pictures,--now a man hanging on a gallows,\nwith a heart in his hand, because he had stolen hearts; and now an\nold lady riding on a horse, with her husband sitting on her nose. The\ncross old chancellor could not bear any of these, and always said as he\ndid now, \"Is that the stuff to cram a child's head with! It is stupid\nfancy!\"\n\nBut for all that, little Ida thought that what the student had told her\nabout the flowers was so charming, that she could not help thinking\nof it. The flowers hung down their heads, because they had been at the\nball, and were quite worn out. So she took them away with her, to her\nother playthings, which lay upon a pretty little table, the drawers of\nwhich were all full of her fine things. In the doll's bed lay her doll,\nSophie, asleep; but for all that little Ida said to her, \"Thou must\nactually get up, Sophie, and be thankful to lie in the drawer to-night,\nfor the poor flowers are ill, and so they must lie in thy bed, and,\nperhaps, they will then get well.\"\n\nWith this she took up the doll, but it looked so cross, and did not say\na single word; for it was angry that it must be turned out of its bed.\n\nSo Ida laid the flowers in the doll's bed, tucked them in very nicely,\nand said, that now they must lie quite still, and she would go and get\ntea ready for them, and they should get quite well again by to-morrow\nmorning; and then she drew the little curtains close round the bed,\nthat the sun might not blind them.\n\nAll the evening long she could not help thinking about what the\nstudent had told her; and then when she went to bed herself, she drew\nback the curtains from the windows where her mother's beautiful flowers\nstood, both hyacinths and tulips, and she whispered quite softly to\nthem, \"I know that you will go to the ball to-night!\" but the flowers\nlooked as if they did not understand a word which she said, and did not\nmove a leaf--but little Ida knew what she knew.\n\nWhen she was in bed, she lay for a long time thinking how delightful it\nwould be to see the beautiful flowers dancing in the king's castle.\n\n\"Can my flowers actually have been there?\" and with these words she\nfell asleep. In the night she woke; she had been dreaming about the\nflowers, and the student, who the chancellor said stuffed her head\nwith nonsense. It was quite silent in the chamber where Ida lay; the\nnight lamp was burning on the table, and her father and her mother were\nasleep.\n\n\"Are my flowers now lying in Sophie's bed?\" said she to herself; \"how\nI should like to know!\" She lifted herself up a little in bed, and\nlooked through the door, which stood ajar, and in that room lay the\nflowers, and all her playthings. She listened, and it seemed to her as\nif some one was playing on the piano, which stood in that room, but so\nsoftly and so sweetly as she had never heard before.\n\n\"Now, certainly, all the flowers are dancing in there,\" said she; \"O,\nhow I should like to go and see!\" but she did not dare to get up, lest\nshe should wake her father and mother. \"If they would only just come in\nhere!\" said she; but the flowers did not come, and the music continued\nto play so sweetly. She could not resist it any longer, for it was so\ndelightful; so she crept out of her little bed, and went, quite softly,\nto the door, and peeped into the room. Nay! what a charming sight she\nbeheld!\n\nThere was not any night lamp in that room, and yet it was quite light;\nthe moon shone through the window into the middle of the floor, and\nit was almost as light as day. All the hyacinths and tulips stood\nin two long rows along the floor; they were not any longer in the\nwindow, where stood the empty pots. All the flowers were dancing so\nbeautifully, one round another, on the floor; they made a regular\nchain, and took hold of one another's green leaves when they swung\nround. But there sat at the piano a great yellow lily, which little Ida\nhad certainly seen in the summer, for she remembered very well that the\nstudent had said, \"Nay, how like Miss Lina it is!\" and they had all\nlaughed at him. But now it seemed really to Ida as if the tall yellow\nlily resembled the young lady, and that she, also, really did just as\nif she were playing; now she laid her long yellow face on one side, now\non the other, and nodded the time to the charming music. Not one of\nthem observed little Ida.\n\nShe now saw a large blue crocus spring upon the middle of the table\nwhere the playthings lay, go straight to the doll's bed, and draw aside\nthe curtains, where lay the sick flowers; but they raised themselves up\nimmediately, and nodded one to another, as much as to say, that they\nalso would go with them and dance. The old snapdragon, whose under lip\nwas broken off, stood up and bowed to the pretty flowers, which did not\nlook poorly at all, and they hopped down among the others, and were\nvery merry.\n\nAll at once it seemed as if something had fallen down from the table.\nIda looked towards it; it was the Easter-wand, which had heard the\nflowers. It was also very pretty; upon the top of it was set a little\nwax-doll, which had just such a broad hat upon its head as that which\nthe chancellor wore. The Easter-wand hopped about upon its three wooden\nlegs, and stamped quite loud, for it danced the mazurka; and there was\nnot one of the flowers which could dance that dance, because they were\nso light and could not stamp.\n\nThe wax-doll upon the Easter-wand seemed to become taller and stouter,\nand whirled itself round above the paper flowers on the wand, and\nexclaimed, quite loud, \"Is that the nonsense to stuff a child's mind\nwith! It is stupid fancy!\"--And the wax-doll was precisely like the\ncross old chancellor with the broad hat, and looked just as yellow\nand ill-tempered as he did; but the paper flowers knocked him on the\nthin legs, and with that he shrunk together again, and became a little\ntiny wax-doll. It was charming to see it! little Ida could hardly help\nlaughing. The Easter-wand continued to dance, and the chancellor was\nobliged to dance too; it mattered not whether he made himself so tall\nand big, or whether he were the little yellow wax-doll, with the great\nblack hat. Then came up the other flowers, especially those which had\nlain in Sophie's bed, and so the Easter-rod left off dancing.\n\nAt that very moment a great noise was heard within the drawer where\nIda's doll, Sophie, lay, with so many of her playthings; and with this\nthe snapdragon ran up to the corner of the table, lay down upon his\nstomach, and opened the drawer a little bit. With this Sophie raised\nherself up, and looked round her in astonishment.\n\n\"There is a ball here!\" said she, \"and why has not anybody told me of\nit?\"\n\n\"Wilt thou dance with me?\" said the snapdragon.\n\n\"Yes, thou art a fine one to dance with!\" said she, and turned her back\nupon him. So she seated herself upon the drawer, and thought that to\nbe sure some one of the flowers would come and engage her, but not one\ncame; so she coughed a little, hem! hem! hem! but for all that not one\ncame. The snapdragon danced alone, and that was not so very bad either!\n\nAs now none of the flowers seemed to see Sophie, she let herself\ndrop heavily out of the drawer down upon the floor,--and that gave a\ngreat alarum; all the flowers at once came running up and gathered\naround her, inquiring if she had hurt herself; and they were all so\nexceedingly kind to her, especially those which had lain in her bed.\nBut she had not hurt herself at all, and all Ida's flowers thanked her\nfor the beautiful bed, and they paid her so much attention, and took\nher into the middle of the floor, where the moon shone, and danced with\nher, while all the other flowers made a circle around them. Sophie was\nnow very much delighted; and she said they would be very welcome to her\nbed, for that she had not the least objection to lie in the drawer.\n\nBut the flowers said, \"Thou shalt have as many thanks as if we used it,\nbut we cannot live so long! To-morrow we shall be quite dead; but now\ntell little Ida,\" said they, \"that she must bury us down in the garden,\nwhere the canary-bird lies, and so we shall grow up again next summer,\nand be much prettier than ever!\"\n\n\"No, you shall not die,\" said Sophie, and the flowers kissed her. At\nthat very moment the room door opened, and a great crowd of beautiful\nflowers came dancing in. Ida could not conceive where they came from;\nthey must certainly have been all the flowers out of the king's castle.\nFirst of all went two most magnificent roses, and they had little gold\ncrowns on; they were a king and a queen; then came the most lovely\ngilliflowers and carnations, and they bowed first on this side and\nthen on that. They had brought music with them; great big poppies\nand pionies blew upon peapods till they were red in the face. The\nblue-bells and the little white convolvuluses rung as if they were\nmusical bells. It was charming music. Then there came in a many other\nflowers, and they danced all together; the blue violets and the red\ndaisies, the anemones and the lilies of the valley; and all the flowers\nkissed one another: it was delightful to see it!\n\nAt last they all bade one another good-night, and little Ida also went\nto her bed, where she dreamed about every thing that she had seen.\n\nThe next morning, when she got up, she went as quickly as she could\nto her little table, to see whether the flowers were there still;\nshe drew aside the curtains from the little bed;--yes, there they all\nlay together, but they were quite withered, much more than yesterday.\nSophie lay in the drawer, where she had put her; she looked very sleepy.\n\n\"Canst thou remember what thou hast to tell me?\" said little Ida; but\nSophie looked quite stupid, and did not say one single word.\n\n\"Thou art not at all good,\" said Ida, \"and yet they all danced with\nthee.\"\n\nSo she took a little paper box, on which were painted beautiful birds,\nand this she opened, and laid in it the dead flowers.\n\n\"This shall be your pretty coffin,\" said she, \"and when my Norwegian\ncousins come, they shall go with me and bury you, down in the garden,\nthat next summer you may grow up again, and be lovelier than ever!\"\n\nThe Norwegian cousins were two lively boys, who were called Jonas and\nAdolph; their father had given them two new cross-bows, and these they\nbrought with them to show to Ida. She told them about the poor flowers\nwhich were dead, and so they got leave to bury them. The two boys went\nfirst, with their cross-bows on their shoulders; and little Ida came\nafter, with the dead flowers in the pretty little box. Down in the\ngarden they dug a little grave. Ida kissed the flowers, and then put\nthem in their box, down into the earth, and Jonas and Adolph stood with\ntheir cross-bows above the grave, for they had neither arms nor cannon.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONSTANT TIN SOLDIER.\n\n\nThere were, once upon a time, five-and-twenty tin soldiers; they were\nall brothers, for they were born of an old tin spoon. They held their\narms in their hands, and their faces were all alike; their uniform was\nred and blue, and very beautiful. The very first word which they heard\nin this world, when the lid was taken off the box in which they lay,\nwas, \"Tin soldiers!\" This was the exclamation of a little boy, who\nclapped his hands as he said it. They had been given to him, for it was\nhis birthday, and he now set them out on the table. The one soldier was\njust exactly like another; there was only one of them that was a little\ndifferent; he had only one leg, for he had been the last that was made,\nand there was not quite tin enough; yet he stood just as firmly upon\nhis one leg as they did upon their two, and he was exactly the one who\nbecame remarkable.\n\nUpon the table on which he had set them out, there stood many other\nplaythings; but that which was most attractive to the eye, was a pretty\nlittle castle of pasteboard. One could look through the little windows\nas if into the rooms. Outside stood little trees, and round about it a\nlittle mirror, which was to look like a lake; swans of wax swam upon\nthis, and were reflected in it. It was altogether very pretty; but the\nprettiest thing of all was the little young lady who stood at the open\ncastle door, for she was a dancer; and she lifted one of her legs so\nhigh in the air, that the tin soldier might almost have fancied that\nshe had only one leg, like himself.\n\n\"That is a wife for me!\" thought he, \"but she is a great lady;\nshe lives in a castle, I in nothing but a box; and then we are\nfive-and-twenty of us, there is no room for her! Yet I must make her\nacquaintance!\"\n\nAnd so he set himself behind a snuff-box, which stood on the table, and\nfrom thence he could very plainly see the pretty little lady, which\nremained standing upon one leg, without ever losing her balance.\n\nThat continued all the evening, and then the other tin soldiers were\nput into their box, and the people of the house went to bed. The\nplaythings now began to amuse themselves; they played at company\ncoming, at fighting, and at having a ball. The tin soldiers rattled\nabout in their box, for they wanted to be with the rest of the things,\nbut they could not get the box lid off. The nutcrackers knocked about\nthe gingerbread nuts, and the slate-pencil laughed with the slate; it\nwas so entertaining that the canary-bird awoke, and began to chatter\nwith them also, but she chattered in verse. The only two which did not\nmove from their place were the tin soldier and the little dancing lady.\nShe kept herself so upright, standing on the point of her toe, with\nboth her arms extended; and he stood just as steadily upon his one leg,\nand his eyes did not move from her for one moment.\n\nIt now struck twelve o'clock, and crash! up sprang the lid of the\nsnuff-box, but there was no snuff in it; no, there was a little black\nimp--it was a jack-in-the-box.\n\n\"Tin soldier!\" said the imp, \"keep thy eyes to thyself!\"\n\nBut the tin soldier pretended that he did not hear.\n\n\"Yes, we shall see in the morning!\" said the imp.\n\nAnd now it was the next morning, and the children got up, and they set\nthe tin soldier in the window,--and either it was the imp, or else it\nwas a sudden gust of wind, but the casement burst open, and out went\nthe tin soldier, head foremost, down from the third story! It was a\nhorrible fall, he turned head over heels, and remained standing with\nhis one leg up in the air, and with his bayonet down among the stones\nof a sink.\n\nThe maid-servant and the little boy went down directly to seek for him,\nbut although they almost trod upon him, still they could not see him.\nIf the tin soldier had only shouted out, \"Here I am!\" they would have\nfound him; but he did not think it would be becoming in him to shout\nout when he had his uniform on.\n\nIt now began to rain; one drop fell heavier than another; it was a\nregular shower. When it was over there came up two street boys.\n\n\"Look here!\" said one of them, \"here lies a tin soldier. He shall have\na sail!\"\n\nSo they made a boat of a newspaper, and set the tin soldier in it, and\nnow he sailed down the kennel; the two lads ran, one on each side, and\nclapped their hands. Dear me! what billows there were in the uneven\nkennel, and what a torrent there was, for it had poured down with rain!\nThe paper boat rocked up and down, and whirled round so fast! The tin\nsoldier must have trembled, but he showed no fear at all, he never\nchanged his countenance, and stood holding his weapon in his hand.\n\nJust then the boat was driven under a large arch of the kennel, and it\nwas as dark to the tin soldier as if he had been in his box.\n\n\"Where am I now come to?\" thought he; \"yes, yes, it is all that imp's\ndoing! Ah! if the little dancing lady were only in the boat, I would\nnot mind if it were twice as dark!\"\n\nAt that moment up came a great big water-rat, which lived under the\nkennel's archway.\n\n\"Have you a passport?\" asked the rat. \"Out with your passport!\"\n\nBut the tin soldier said not a word, and stood stock still, shouldering\nhis arms. The boat shot past, and the rat came after. Ha! how he set\nhis teeth, and cried to the sticks and the straws,--\n\n\"Stop him! stop him! he has not paid the toll! He has not shown his\npassport!\"\n\nBut the stream got stronger and stronger. The tin soldier could already\nsee daylight at the end of the tunnel, but at the same time he heard a\nroaring sound, which might well have made a bolder man than he tremble.\nOnly think! where the tunnel ended, the water of the kennel was poured\ndown into a great canal; which would be, for him, just as dangerous as\nfor us to sail down a great waterfall!\n\nHe was now come so near to it that he could no longer stand upright.\nThe boat drove on; the tin soldier held himself as stiff as he could;\nnobody could have said of him that he winked with an eye. The boat\nwhirled round three times, and filled with water to the very edge--it\nmust sink! The tin soldier stood up to his neck in water! Deeper and\ndeeper sank the boat, the paper grew softer and softer! Now went the\nwater above the soldier's head!--he thought of the little dancing lady,\nwhom he should never see more, and it rung in the tin soldier's ear,--\n\n    \"Fare thee well, thou man of war!\n    Death with thee is dealing!\"\n\nThe paper now went in two, and the tin soldier fell through; and at\nthat moment was swallowed by a large fish!\n\nNay, how dark it was now in there! It was darker than in the kennel\narchway, and much narrower. But the tin soldier was steadfast to his\nduty; and he lay there, shouldering his arms. The fish twisted about,\nand made the most horrible sort of movements; at last it became quite\nstill; a flash of lightning seemed to go through it. Light shone quite\nbright, and some one shouted aloud, \"Tin soldier!\"\n\nThe fish had been caught, taken to market, sold, and brought into the\nkitchen, where the servant-girl cut it up with a great knife. She\ntook the soldier, who was as alive as ever, between her two fingers,\nand carried it into the parlor, where she showed them all what a\nremarkable little man had been travelling about in the stomach of the\nfish! But the tin soldier was not proud. They set him upon the table,\nand there--Nay, how wonderfully things happen in this world!--the tin\nsoldier was in the self-same room he had been in before; he saw the\nself-same child, and the self-same playthings on the table; the grand\ncastle, with the pretty little dancing lady standing at the door. She\nwas standing still upon one leg, with the other raised; she also was\nconstant. It quite affected the tin soldier, he was ready to shed tin\ntears, only that would not have been becoming in him. He looked at her,\nand she looked at him, but neither of them said a word.\n\nAt that very moment one of the little boys took up the tin soldier, and\nthrew it into the stove. There was no reason for his doing so; it must\ncertainly have been the jack-in-the-box that was the cause of it.\n\nThe tin soldier stood amid the flames, and felt a great heat, but\nwhether it was actual fire, or love, he knew not. All color was quite\ngone out of him; whether from his long journeying, or whether from\ncare, there is no saying. He looked at the little dancing lady, and\nshe looked at him; he felt that he was melting away, but for all that,\nhe stood shouldering his arms. With that the door of the room suddenly\nopened, and a draught of wind carried away the dancer. Like a sylph she\nflew into the stove to the tin soldier; became, all at once, flame,\nand was gone! The tin soldier melted to a little lump; and when the\nservant, the next day, was carrying out the ashes, she found him like\na little tin heart: of the dancing lady, on the contrary, there was\nnothing but the ground on which she had stood, and that was burned as\nblack as a coal.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORKS.\n\n\nUpon the last house in a little town there stood a stork's nest. The\nstork-mother sat in the nest, with her four young ones, which stuck out\ntheir heads, with their little black beaks, for their beaks had not yet\nbecome red. Not far off, upon the ridge of the house roof, stood the\nstork-father, as stiffly and proudly as possible; he had tucked up one\nleg under him, for though that was rather inconvenient, still he was\nstanding as sentinel. One might have fancied that he was carved out of\nwood, he stood so stock still.\n\n\"It looks, certainly, very consequential,\" thought he to himself, \"that\nmy wife should have a sentinel to her nest! Nobody need know that I am\nher husband; they will think, of course, that I commanded the sentinel\nto stand here. It looks so very proper!\" And having thus thought, he\ncontinued to stand on one leg.\n\nA troop of little boys were playing down in the street below, and when\nthey saw the storks, the boldest lad amongst them began to sing, and\nat last they all sang together, that old rhyme about the storks, which\nthe children in Denmark sing; but they sang it now, because it had just\ncome into their heads:--\n\n    \"Stork, stork on one leg,\n    Fly home to thy egg;\n    Mrs. Stork she sits at home,\n    With four great, big young ones;\n    The eldest shall be hung,\n    The second have its neck wrung;\n    The third shall be burned to death,\n    The fourth shall be murdered!\"\n\n\"Only hear what those lads sing!\" said the little storks; \"they sing\nthat we shall be hanged and burned!\"\n\n\"Do not vex yourselves about that,\" said the stork-mother; \"don't\nlisten to them, and then it does not matter.\"\n\nBut the boys continued to sing, and they pointed with their fingers\nto the stork; there was one boy, however, among them, and his name was\nPeter, and he said that it was a sin to make fun of the storks, and he\nwould not do it.\n\nThe stork-mother consoled her young ones thus: \"Don't annoy yourselves\nabout that. Look how funnily your father stands on one leg!\"\n\n\"We are so frightened!\" said the young ones, and buried their heads\ndown in the nest.\n\nThe next day, when the children assembled again to play, they saw the\nstorks, and they began their verse:--\n\n    \"The second have its neck wrung;\n    The third shall be burned to death!\"\n\n\"Shall we be hanged and burned?\" asked the young storks.\n\n\"No, certainly not!\" said the mother. \"You will learn to fly; I will\nexercise you; and so we shall take you out into the meadows, and go a\nvisiting to the frogs, that make courtesies to us in the water; they\nsing--'koax! koax!' and so we eat them up; that is a delight!\"\n\n\"And how so?\" asked the young storks.\n\n\"All the storks which are in the whole country assemble,\" said the\nmother, \"and so the autumn manoeuvres begin; every one must be clever\nat flying; that is of great importance, for those that cannot fly are\npecked to death by the general, with his beak; and, therefore, it is\nwell to learn something before the exercise begins.\"\n\n\"And so we really may be murdered! as the boys said; and hark! now they\nare singing it again.\"\n\n\"Listen to me, and not to them!\" said the stork-mother. \"After the\ngreat manoeuvre, we fly away to the warm countries--O, such a long\nway off, over mountains and woods! We fly to Egypt, where there are\nthree-cornered stone houses, which go up in a point above the clouds;\nthey are called pyramids, and are older than any stork can tell. There\nis a river which overflows its banks, and so the country becomes all\nmud. One goes in the mud, and eats frogs.\"\n\n\"O!\" said all the young ones.\n\n\"Yes, that is so delightful! One does nothing at all but eat, all day\nlong; and whilst we are so well off, in this country there is not a\nsingle green leaf upon the trees; here it is, then, so cold; and the\nvery clouds freeze into pieces, and fall down in little white rags!\"\n\nThat was the snow which she meant, but she could not explain it more\nintelligibly.\n\n\"Will it freeze the naughty boys into bits?\" asked the young ones.\n\n\"No, it will not freeze them into bits, but it will pretty nearly do\nso; and they will be obliged to sit in dark rooms and cough. You, on\nthe contrary, all that time, can be flying about in the warm countries,\nwhere there are flowers and warm sunshine!\"\n\nSome time had now passed, and the young ones were so large that they\ncould stand up in the nest and look about them, and the stork-father\ncame flying every day with nice little frogs and snails, and all the\nstork-delicacies which he could find. O, it was extraordinary what\ndelicious morsels he got for them. He stretched out his head, clattered\nwith his beak, as if it had been a little rattle, and thus he told them\ntales about the marshes.\n\n\"Listen to me; now you must learn to fly,\" said the stork-mother, one\nday; and so all the four young ones were obliged to get out of the\nnest upon the ridge of the house; and how dizzy they were; how they\nbalanced themselves with their wings, and for all that were very near\nfalling!\n\n\"Look at me,\" said the mother, \"you must hold your heads thus! and thus\nmust you set your wings! Now! one, two! one, two! This it is which must\nhelp you out into the world!\"\n\nWith this she flew a little way, and the young ones made a little\nclumsy hop--bump!--there lay they, for their bodies were heavy.\n\n\"I cannot fly!\" said one of the young ones; \"it's no use my trying!\"\nand crept up to the nest again.\n\n\"Wilt thou be frozen to death here, when winter comes?\" asked the\nmother. \"Shall the boys come and hang thee, and burn thee, and wring\nthy neck? Shall I go and call them?\"\n\n\"O, no!\" said the young stork; and so hopped again on the roof, like\nthe others.\n\nOn the third day after that it could regularly fly a little, and so\nthey thought that they could now rest awhile in the air. They tried to\ndo so, but--bump!--there they tumbled, and so they were obliged to\nflutter their wings again.\n\nThe boys were now down in the street once more, and sung their rhyme:--\n\n    \"Stork, stork, fly.\"\n\n\"Shall not we fly down and peck their eyes out?\" said the young ones.\n\n\"No, let them be,\" said the mother, \"and listen to me, that is far\nwiser. One, two, three! Now we fly round, higher than ever! One, two,\nthree! Now to the left of the chimney!--see, that was very well done!\nand the last stroke of the wings was so beautiful and correct, that I\nwill give you leave to go down to the marsh with me, to-morrow! There\nwill come a great number of pleasant stork-families there, with their\nchildren; let me have the happiness of seeing that mine are the nicest,\nand that they can make a bow and courtesy; that looks so well, and\ngains respect!\"\n\n\"But shall we not have revenge on the naughty boys?\" inquired the young\nstorks.\n\n\"Let them sing what they like!\" said the mother; \"you will fly amid the\nclouds, go to the land of the pyramids, when they must freeze, and\nneither have a green leaf left, nor a sweet apple!\"\n\n\"Yes, but we will be revenged!\" whispered they one to another, and then\nwent out again to exercise.\n\nOf all the boys in the street there was not one who sung the jeering\nrhymes about the storks so much as he who first began it; and he was a\nvery little one, and was not more than six years old. The young storks\nthought to be sure that he must be a hundred years old, for he was so\nmuch larger than either their mother or their father; and they, poor\nthings, knew nothing about how old children and great men might be. All\ntheir revenge, they determined, should be taken upon this boy; he was\nthe first to begin, and he it was who always sang. The young storks\nwere very much irritated, and the more they were determined on revenge,\nthe less they said of it to their mother. Their mother, they thought,\nwould at last grant their wishes, but they would leave it till the last\nday they were in the country.\n\n\"We must see how you conduct yourselves in the great manoeuvre,\"\nsaid the mother; \"if you fail in that, then the general will run you\nthrough with his beak, and then the boys will be right in one way, at\nleast. Now let us see.\"\n\n\"Yes, thou shalt see!\" said the young ones; and so they took great\npains and practised every day, and flew so beautifully and so lightly\nthat it was charming to see them.\n\nNow came the autumn; and all the storks began to assemble to fly away\ninto the warm countries, while we have winter. That was a manoeuvre!\nOver wood and town went they, just to see how they could fly. The young\nstorks performed so expertly that they could discern very well both\nfrogs and snakes. That was the very best test of skill. \"Frogs and\nsnakes, therefore, they should eat;\" and they did so.\n\n\"Now let us have revenge,\" said they.\n\n\"Leave off talking of revenge,\" said the mother. \"Listen to me, which\nis a great deal better. Do not you remember the good little boy who\nsaid, when the others sung, 'that it was a sin to make fun of the\nstorks?' let us reward him, that is better than having revenge.\"\n\n\"Yes, let us reward him,\" said the young storks.\n\n\"He shall have, next summer, a nice little sister, such a beautiful\nlittle sister as never was seen!--Will not that be a reward for him?\"\nsaid the mother.\n\n\"It will,\" said the young ones; \"a sweet little sister he shall have!\"\n\n\"And as he is called Peter,\" continued the mother, \"so shall you also\nbe called Peter altogether.\"\n\nAnd that which she said was done. The little boy had the loveliest\nof little sisters next year; and, from that time, all the storks in\nDenmark were called Peter; and so are they to this day.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n\nObvious spelling, typographical and punctuation errors have been\ncorrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the\ntext and consultation of external sources.\n\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n  The oe ligature has been expanded (phoenix; manoeuvre).\n\n  Archaic spelling retained:\n  Pg 29 et al. 'pionies' for peonies.\n  Pg 45 et al. 'courtesied' for curtsied.\n  Pg 88. 'good-by' for goodbye.\n  Pg 120. 'alarum' for alarm.\n  Spacing retained in all occurrences of 'any thing',\n  'every thing', 'every where' and 'every one'.\n\n  Changes for consistency:\n  Pg 10. 'green wood' changed to 'green-wood'.\n  Pg 16 et al. Changed 'tin-soldier' to 'tin soldier'.\n  Pg 48. 'rose-leaf' changed to 'rose leaf'.\n  Pg 50. 'field-mouse' changed to 'fieldmouse'.\n  Pg 116. 'night-lamp' changed to 'night lamp'.\n  Pg 130. 'servant girl' changed to 'servant-girl'.\n\n  Other notes and changes:\n  TITLE. Author's name is misspelled 'ANDERSON'; changed to 'ANDERSEN'.\n  TOC. Accents added for consistency (OL\u00c9 LUCKOI\u00c8).\n  TOC. Removed comma, 'AT NIGHT,' to 'AT NIGHT'.\n  Pg 14. Single quote ' changed to \"; 'do thou ask!'' to 'do thou ask!\"'.\n  Pg 25. 'is caled' changed to 'is called'.\n  Pg 25. 'Huzzar' changed to 'Hussar'.\n  Pg 54. 'crysanthemum' changed to 'chrysanthemum'.\n  Pg 95. German form of yodelled 'jodelled' retained.\n  Pg 95. 'Hecla' retained, but probably meant to be 'Hekla'.\n  Pg 110. Single quote ' changed to \"; ''Thou seest' to '\"Thou seest'.\n  Pg 121. 'anemonies' changed to 'anemones'.","title":"Wonderful Stories for Children","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":26220}