The Moomins and the Great Flood

by Tove Jansson

  Contents

  Title Page

  THE MOOMINS AND THE GREAT FLOOD

  About the Author

  Other Tove Jansson titles

  Copyright

  The Moomins and the Great Flood

  was the first ever Moomin book,

  originally published in Finland in 1945.

  Tove Jansson wrote the following preface,

  when the story was reprinted in Scandinavia

  in 1991, after being out of print for many years.

  It was the winter of war, in 1939. One’s work stood still; it felt completely pointless to try to create pictures.

  Perhaps it was understandable that I suddenly felt an urge to write down something that was to begin with “Once upon a time.”

  What followed had to be a fairytale – that was inevitable – but I excused myself with avoiding princes, princesses and small children and chose instead my angry signature character from the cartoons, and called him the Moomintroll.

  The half-written story was forgotten until 1945. Then a friend pointed out that it could become a children’s book; just finish it and illustrate it; maybe they will want it.

  I had thought that the title should connect to the Moomintroll and his search for his father – in the style of the search for Captain Grant – but the publisher wanted to make it easier for the readers by calling it Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood).

  The story is quite influenced by the childhood books I had read and loved, a bit of Jules Verne, some Collodi (the girl with the blue hair), and so on. But why not?

  Anyhow, here was my very first happy ending!

  THE MOOMINS

  AND THE

  GREAT FLOOD

  It must have been late in the afternoon one day at the end of August when Moomintroll and his mother arrived at the deepest part of the great forest. It was completely quiet, and so dim between the trees that it was as though twilight had already fallen. Here and there giant flowers grew, glowing with a peculiar light like flickering lamps, and furthest in among the shadows moved tiny dots of cold green.

  “Glow-worms,” said Moominmamma, but they had no time to stop and take a closer look at them. They were out searching for a snug, warm place where they could build a house to crawl into when winter came. Moomins cannot stand the cold at all, so the house would have to be ready by October at the latest.

  So they walked on, further and further into the silence and the darkness. Little by little, Moomintroll began to feel anxious, and he asked his mother in a whisper if she thought there were any dangerous creatures in there. “I shouldn’t think so,” she said, “though perhaps we’d better go a little faster anyway. But I hope we’re so small that we won’t be noticed if something dangerous should come along.”

  Suddenly Moomintroll gripped his mother tightly by the arm. “Look!” he said, so frightened that his tail stuck straight out. From the shadows behind a tree-trunk two eyes were staring at them.

  At first Moominmamma was frightened too, but then she said soothingly: “It’s really a very little creature. Wait, and I’ll shine a light on it. Everything looks worse in the dark, you know.”

  And so she picked one of the big glowing flowers and lit the shadow up with it. Then they saw that there really was a very little creature sitting there, and that it looked friendly and a little scared. “There, you see,” said Moominmamma.

  “What sort of thing are you?” asked the little creature.

  “I’m a moomintroll,” answered Moomintroll, who had had time to feel brave again. “And this is my mother. I hope we didn’t disturb you.” (You can see that his mother had taught him to be polite.)

  “Not at all,” said the little creature. “I was sitting here feeling rather sad and longing for company. Are you in a big hurry?”

  “Yes,” said Moominmamma. “You see, we’re looking for a nice, sunny place where we can build a house. But perhaps you’d like to come with us?”

  “And how!” said the little creature, leaping out towards them. “I’d got lost and thought I’d never see the sun again!”

  So they continued, all three, taking a large tulip with them to light the way. But around them the darkness thickened all the time, the flowers glowed more faintly beneath the trees, and finally the very last one went out. In front of them gleamed a black stretch of water, and the air was heavy and cold.

  “Oo, how horrid,” said the little creature. “That’s the swamp. I don’t dare go there.”

  “Why not?” asked Moominmamma.

  “Because that’s where the Great Serpent lives,” said the little creature in a very low voice, looking about him in all directions.

  “Pooh!” said Moomintroll, wanting to show how brave he was. “We are so small that we wouldn’t be noticed. How will we ever find the sunshine if we don’t dare cross it? Just come along with us.”

  “Perhaps a bit of the way,” said the little creature. “But be careful. On your own heads be it!”

  So they took long strides as quietly as they could from tussock to tussock. The black mud bubbled and whispered all around them, but as long as the tulip lamp burned they felt calm. At one point, Moomintroll slipped and nearly fell in, but his mother caught hold of him at the last moment.

  “We shall have to go on by boat,” she said. “Now your feet are soaked. You’re sure to catch cold.” Then she got out a pair of dry socks for him from her handbag, and lifted him and the little creature up onto a big, round water-lily leaf. They all three stuck their tails in the water as paddles and then they steered straight out into the swamp. Beneath them they glimpsed dark creatures that swam in and out between the roots of the trees, there were splashing and diving sounds, and the mist came stealing over them. Suddenly the little creature said: “I want to go home now!”

  “Don’t be scared, little creature,” said Moomintroll in a quavering voice. “We’ll sing something cheerful and …”

  At that very moment their tulip went out and it was completely dark. And out of the darkness they heard a hissing, and felt the water-lily leaf bobbing up and down. “Quick, quick!” cried Moominmamma. “The Great Serpent is coming!”

  They stuck their tails in deeper, and paddled with all their might so that the water gushed around the bows. Now they could see the Serpent swimming up behind them. It looked wicked, and its eyes were cruel and yellow.

  They paddled as hard as they could, but it kept gaining on them, and was already opening its mouth, with its long, flickering tongue. Moomintroll put his hands in front of his eyes and cried: “Mamma!” and then he waited to be eaten up.

  But nothing happened. Then he looked cautiously between his fingers. Something very remarkable had happened. Their tulip was glowing again, it had opened all its petals and in the midst of them stood a girl with bright blue hair reaching right down to her feet.

  Brighter and brighter glowed the tulip. The Serpent began to blink, and suddenly it turned right round with an angry hissing and slid down into the mud.

  Moomintroll, his mother and the little creature were so agitated and surprised that for a long time they couldn’t say a word.

  At last Moominmamma said solemnly: “Thank you so very much for your help, lovely lady.” And Moomintroll bowed more deeply than he had ever done before, for the blue-haired girl was the most beautiful thing he had seen in all his life.

  “Were you inside the tulip all the time?” asked the little creature shyly. “It’s my house,” she said. “You may call me Tulippa.”

  And so they paddled slowly over to the other side of the swamp. Here the ferns were thick, and beneath them Moominmamma made a nest in the moss for them to sleep in. Moomin
troll lay close beside his mother, listening to the song of the frogs out in the swamp. The night was full of strange, desolate sounds, and it was a long time before he fell asleep.

  Next morning Tulippa led the way in front of them, and her blue hair shone like the brightest daylight lamp. The path climbed steeper and steeper, and at last the mountain rose straight up, so high that they could not see where it ended. “I expect there’s sunshine up there,” the little creature said, longingly. “I’m so dreadfully cold.”

  “Me too,” said Moomintroll. And then he sneezed.

  “What did I tell you?” said his mother. “Now you’ve got a cold. Please sit here while I make a fire.” And then she gathered together an enormous heap of dry branches and lit it with a spark from Tulippa’s blue hair. They sat, all four of them, looking into the fire while Moominmamma told them stories. She told them about what it was like when she was young, when moomintrolls did not need to travel through fearsome forests and swamps in order to find a place to live in.

  In those days they lived together with the house-trolls in people’s houses, mostly behind their tall stoves. “Some of us still live there now, I’m sure,” said Moominmamma. “But only where people still have stoves, I mean. We’re not happy with central heating.”

  “Did the people know we were there?” asked Moomintroll.

  “Some did,” said his mother. “They felt us mostly as a cold draught on the back of their necks sometimes – when they were alone.”

  “Tell us something about Moominpappa,” asked Moomintroll.

  “He was an unusual moomintroll,” said his mother, thoughtfully and sadly. “He was always wanting to move, from one stove to the next. He was never happy where he was. And then he disappeared – took off with the Hattifatteners, the little wanderers.”

  “What sort of folk are they?” asked the little creature.

  “A kind of little troll-creature,” explained Moominmamma. “They’re mostly invisible. Sometimes they can be found under people’s floors, and you can hear them pattering about in there when it’s quiet in the evenings. But mostly they wander round the world, don’t stay anywhere and don’t care about anything. You can never tell if a Hattifattener is happy or angry, sad or surprised. I am sure that they have no feelings at all.”

  “And has Moominpappa become a Hattifattener now?” asked Moomintroll.

  “No, of course not!” said his mother. “Surely you realize that they simply tricked him into going along with them.”

  “Imagine if we were to meet him one day!” said Tulippa. “He’d be pleased, wouldn’t he?”

  “Of course,” said Moominmamma. “But I don’t expect we shall.” And then she cried. It sounded so sad that they all began to sob, and as they cried they began to think about a lot of other things that were sad, too, and that made them cry more and more. Tulippa’s hair turned pale with sorrow and lost all its shine. When they had gone on like this for a good while, a stern voice suddenly rang out, saying: “What are you howling for down there?” They stopped at once and looked around them in all directions, but could not discover who it was who was talking to them.

  At the same time a rope-ladder came dangling down the rock face. High up, an old gentleman stuck his head out through a door in the mountain. “Well?” he shouted.

  “Excuse me,” said Tulippa, curtseying. “But you see, sir, it’s really all very sad. Moominpappa has disappeared, and we’re freezing and can’t get over this mountain to find the sunshine, and we haven’t anywhere to live.”

  “I see,” said the old gentleman. “You’d better come up to my place, then. My sunshine is the finest you could imagine.”

  It was quite hard to climb up the rope-ladder, especially for Moomintroll and his mother, as they had such short legs. “Now you must wipe your feet,” said the old gentleman, and drew the ladder up after them. Then he closed the door very carefully, so that nothing harmful could sneak inside. They all went up an escalator that carried them right inside the mountain.

  “Are you sure this gentleman is to be trusted?” whispered the little creature. “Remember, on your own heads be it.” And then he made himself as small as he could and hid behind Moominmamma. Then a bright light shone towards them, and the escalator took them straight into a wonderful landscape.

  The trees sparkled with colour and were full of fruits and flowers they had never seen before, and below them in the grass lay gleaming white snowflakes. “Hurrah!” cried Moomintroll, and ran out to make a snowball.

  “Be careful, it’s cold!” called his mother. But when he ran his hands through the snow he noticed that it was not snow at all, but ice-cream. And the green grass that gave way under his feet was made of fine-spun sugar. Criss-cross over the meadows ran brooks of every colour, foaming and bubbling over the golden sand. “Green lemonade!” cried the little creature, who had stooped down to drink. “It’s not water at all, it’s lemonade!” Moominmamma went straight over to a brook that was completely white, since she had always been very fond of milk. (Most moomintrolls are, at least when they get a bit older.) Tulippa ran from tree to tree picking armfuls of chocolates and sweets, and as soon as she had plucked one of the shining fruits, another grew at once.

  They forgot their sorrows and ran further and further into the enchanted garden. The old gentleman slowly followed them and seemed very pleased by their wonder and admiration. “I made all this myself,” he said. “The sun, too.” And when they looked at the sun, they noticed that it really was not the real sun but a big lamp with fringes of gold paper.

  “I see,” said the little creature, and was disappointed. “I thought it was the real sun. Now I can see that it has a slightly peculiar light.”

  “Well, that was the best I could do,” said the old gentleman, offended. “But you like the garden, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes,” said Moomintroll, whose mouth was full of pebbles just then. (They were actually made of marzipan.) “If you would like to stay here, I will build you a candy-house to live in,” said the old gentleman. “I get a bit bored here sometimes all on my own.”

  “That would be very nice,” said Moominmamma, “but if you don’t mind, we must really be on our way. We were thinking of building a house in the real sunshine, you see.”

  “No, let’s stay!” cried Moomintroll, the little creature and Tulippa. “Well, children,” said Moominmamma. “Wait and see.” And she lay down to sleep under a chocolate bush.

  When she woke up again she heard a fearful groaning, and realized at once that it was her Moomintroll, who had a tummy-ache. (Moomins get tummy-aches very easily.) It had become quite round from all he had eaten, and it hurt dreadfully. Beside him sat the little creature, who had got toothache from all the sweets, and was moaning even worse. Moominmamma did not scold, but took two powders from her handbag and gave them one each, and then she asked the old gentleman if he didn’t have a pool of nice, hot porridge.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” he said. “But there’s one of whipped cream, and another one of jam.”

  “Hm,” said Moominmamma. “You can see for yourself that it’s proper hot food they need. Where’s Tulippa?”

  “She says she can’t get to sleep because the sun never goes down,” said the old gentleman, looking unhappy. “I’m truly sorry that you don’t like it here.”

  “We’ll come back again,” Moominmamma consoled him. “But now I really must see to it that we get out in the fresh air again.” And so she took Moomintroll by one hand, and the little creature by the other, and called to Tulippa.

  “You’ll do best to take the switch-back railway,” said the old gentleman politely. “It goes right through the mountain and comes out in the middle of the sunshine.”

  “Thank you,” said Moominmamma. “Goodbye then.”

  “Goodbye then,” said Tulippa. (Moomintroll and the little creature were not able to say anything, as they felt so horribly sick.)

  “Don’t mention it,” said the old gentleman.

  And t
hen they took the switch-back railway through the whole mountain at a dizzying speed. When they came out on the other side they were quite giddy and sat on the ground for a long time, recovering. Then they looked around.

  Before them lay the ocean, glittering in the sunshine. “I want to go for a swim!” cried Moomintroll, for now he felt all right again. “Me too,” said the little creature, and so they ran right out into the sunbeam on the water. Tulippa tied her hair up so it would not go out, and then she followed them and stepped in very cautiously.

  “Ugh, it’s so cold,” she said.

  “Don’t stay in too long,” called Moominmamma, and then she lay down to sunbathe, for she was still quite tired.

  All at once an ant-lion came strolling across the sand. He looked very cross and said: “This is my beach! You must go away!”

  “We certainly shan’t,” said Moominmamma. “So there!” Then the ant-lion began to kick sand in her eyes, he kicked and scratched until she could not see a thing. Closer and closer he came, and suddenly he began to dig himself into the sand, making the hole deeper and deeper around him. At last only his eyes could be seen at the bottom of the hole, and all the while he continued to throw sand at Moominmamma. She had begun to slide down into the hole, and was trying desperately to climb up again. “Help, help!” she cried, spitting sand. “Save me!”

  Moomintroll heard her and came rushing up out of the water. He managed to catch hold of her ears and pulled and struggled with all his might while he shouted rude names at the ant-lion. The little creature and Tulippa came and helped too, and then, at last, they managed to haul Moominmamma over the edge, and she was rescued. (The ant-lion continued to dig himself in out of pure annoyance, and no one knows if he ever found the way up again.) It was a long while until they got the sand out of their eyes and managed to calm down a little. But by then they had lost all their desire to swim, and instead continued along the seashore in order to look for a boat. The sun was already going down and behind the horizon threatening black clouds were gathering. It looked as though there was going to be a storm. Suddenly they caught sight of something moving further along the shore.