A Very Scandinavian Christmas

by Hans Christian Andersen

  And Per plodded on behind the fence and did not turn into the road until he was far above the level of the crofter’s place.

  What the deuce—who could have passed here now? There were tracks in the road as if someone had walked dragging his skis after him. Well, it was no concern of Per’s; he would have to hurry.

  He fastened his skis on his feet again and went through the forest, as fast as he could in the new-fallen snow, straight for the knoll where they had seen the big blackbird.

  It was quite dark before he came so near that he could see the thickets where the snares were.

  Per stopped and held his breath—there was something black moving over there. For a moment he was frightened, until he caught sight of a ski staff standing straight up and down in the snow.

  He approached cautiously. There was Christian kneeling in the snow, his mittens lying on the snow beside him, while he was busy taking down the snare.

  “Is that you, Christian?”

  Christian jumped up and stared at him. “Why, is that you, Per? How you scared me!”

  Both stood looking rather sheepish. At last Christian said, “I got to thinking that we’d forgotten to take down this snare.

  “That’s just what I got to thinking of. But now you’ve done it, I see.”

  “Yes, it’s all fixed.” Christian put on his skis. “It certainly is snowing.”

  “Yes, and it’s getting dark too. We’d better get started.”

  They stood ready to begin the downward trip.

  Suddenly they felt a faint vibration in the air. It seemed as though a broad path had opened through the thickly falling snow; it was as though a stream of light were moving upward on this path, and with it came from afar the heavy clang of a bell that rose and fell.

  They took off their caps.

  “Now they’re ringing in Christmas,” said Christian.

  “Yes,” said Per. “Say, I guess we’ll leave the snares down till after Twelfth Day.”

  With that they slid down the mountainside.

  1919

  THE BRAVE TIN SOLDIER

  Hans Christian Andersen

  THERE WERE ONCE FIVE-AND-TWENTY TIN SOLDIERS, WHO WERE ALL brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon. They shouldered arms and looked straight before them, and wore a splendid uniform, red and blue. The first thing in the world they ever heard were the words, “Tin soldiers!” uttered by a little boy, who clapped his hands with delight when the lid of the box in which they lay was taken off. They were given to him for a birthday present, and he stood at the table to set them up. The soldiers were all exactly alike, except one who had only one leg; he had been left to the last, and then there was not enough of the melted tin to finish him, so they made him to stand firmly on one leg, and this caused him to be very remarkable.

  The table on which the tin soldiers stood was covered with other playthings, but the most attractive to the eye was a pretty little paper castle. Through the small windows the rooms could be seen. In front of the castle a number of little trees surrounded a piece of looking glass, which was intended to represent a transparent lake. Swans, made of wax, swam on the lake, and were reflected in it. All this was very pretty, but the prettiest of all was a tiny little lady, who stood at the open door of the castle; she, also, was made of paper, and she wore a dress of clear muslin, with a narrow blue ribbon over her shoulders just like a scarf. In front of these was fixed a glittering tinsel rose, as large as her whole face.

  The little lady was a dancer, and she stretched out both her arms, and raised one of her legs so high, that the tin soldier could not see it at all, and he thought that she, like himself, had only one leg. “That is the wife for me,” he thought; “but she is too grand, and lives in a castle, while I have only a box to live in, five-and-twenty of us altogether, that is no place for her. Still I must try and make her acquaintance.” Then he laid himself at full length on the table behind a snuffbox that stood upon it, so that he could peep at the little delicate lady, who continued to stand on one leg without losing her balance.

  When evening came, the other tin soldiers were all placed in the box, and the people of the house went to bed. Then the playthings began to have their own games together, to pay visits, to have sham fights, and to give balls. The tin soldiers rattled in their box; they wanted to get out and join the amusements, but they could not open the lid. The nutcrackers played at leapfrog, and the pencil jumped about the table. There was such a noise that the canary woke up and began to talk, and in poetry too. Only the tin soldier and the dancer remained in their places. She stood on tiptoe, with her legs stretched out, as firmly as he did on his one leg. He never took his eyes from her for even a moment. The clock struck twelve, and, with a bounce, up sprang the lid of the snuffbox; but, instead of snuff, there jumped up a little black goblin, for the snuffbox was a toy puzzle.

  “Tin soldier,” said the goblin, “don’t wish for what does not belong to you.”

  But the tin soldier pretended not to hear.

  “Very well; wait till tomorrow, then,” said the goblin.

  When the children came in the next morning, they placed the tin soldier in the window. Now, whether it was the goblin who did it, or a draft of wind, is not known, but the window flew open, and out fell the tin soldier, heels over head, from the third story, into the street beneath. It was a terrible fall; for he came head downward, his helmet and his bayonet stuck in between the flagstones, and his one leg up in the air. The housemaid and the little boy went downstairs directly to look for him; but he was nowhere to be seen, although once they nearly trod upon him. If he had called out, “Here I am,” it would have been all right, but he was too proud to cry out for help while he wore a uniform.

  Presently it began to rain, and the drops fell faster and faster, till there was a heavy shower. When it was over, two boys happened to pass by, and one of them said, “Look, there is a tin soldier. He ought to have a boat to sail in.”

  So they made a boat out of a newspaper, and placed the tin soldier in it, and sent him sailing down the gutter, while the two boys ran by the side of it, and clapped their hands. Good gracious, what large waves arose in that gutter! And how fast the stream rolled on! For the rain had been very heavy. The paper boat rocked up and down, and turned itself around sometimes so quickly that the tin soldier trembled; yet he remained firm; his countenance did not change; he looked straight before him, and shouldered his musket. Suddenly the boat shot under a bridge that formed a part of a drain, and then it was as dark as the tin soldier’s box.

  “Where am I going now?” thought he. “This is the black goblin’s fault, I am sure. Ah, well, if the little lady were only here with me in the boat, I should not care for any darkness.”

  Suddenly there appeared a great water rat, who lived in the drain.

  “Have you a passport?” asked the rat, “give it to me at once.” But the tin soldier remained silent and held his musket tighter than ever. The boat sailed on and the rat followed it. How he did gnash his teeth and cry out to the bits of wood and straw, “Stop him, stop him; he has not paid the toll, and has not shown his pass.” But the stream rushed on stronger and stronger. The tin soldier could already see daylight shining where the arch ended. Then he heard a roaring sound quite terrible enough to frighten the bravest man.

  At the end of the tunnel the drain fell into a large canal over a steep place, which made it as dangerous for him as a waterfall would be to us. He was too close to it to stop, so the boat rushed on, and the poor tin soldier could only hold himself as stiffly as possible, without moving an eyelid, to show that he was not afraid. The boat whirled around three or four times, and then filled with water to the very edge; nothing could save it from sinking. He now stood up to his neck in water, while deeper and deeper sank the boat, and the paper became soft and loose with the wet, till at last the water closed over the soldier’s head. He thought of the elegant little dancer whom he should never see again, and the words of the song soun
ded in his ears—

  “Farewell, warrior! ever brave,

  Drifting onward to thy grave.”

  Then the paper boat fell to pieces, and the soldier sank into the water and immediately afterward was swallowed up by a great fish. Oh how dark it was inside the fish! A great deal darker than in the tunnel, and narrower too, but the tin soldier continued firm, and lay at full length shouldering his musket. The fish swam to and fro, making the most wonderful movements, but at last he became quite still. After a while, a flash of lightning seemed to pass through him, and then the daylight approached, and a voice cried out, “I declare here is the tin soldier.”

  The fish had been caught, taken to the market and sold to the cook, who took him into the kitchen and cut him open with a large knife. She picked up the soldier and held him by the waist between her finger and thumb, and carried him into the room. They were all anxious to see this wonderful soldier who had travelled about inside a fish; but he was not at all proud. They placed him on the table, and—how many curious things do happen in the world!—there he was in the very same room from the window of which he had fallen, there were the same children, the same playthings standing on the table, and the pretty castle with the elegant little dancer at the door. She still balanced herself on one leg and held up the other, so she was as firm as he. It touched the tin soldier so much to see her that he almost wept tin tears, but he kept them back.

  He only looked at her and they both remained silent. Presently one of the little boys took up the tin soldier, and threw him into the stove. He had no reason for doing so, therefore it must have been the fault of the black goblin who lived in the snuffbox. The flames lighted up the tin soldier, as he stood, the heat was very terrible, but whether it proceeded from the real fire or from the fire of love he could not tell. Then he could see that the bright colors were faded from his uniform, but whether they had been washed off during his journey or from the effects of his sorrow, no one could say. He looked at the little lady, and she looked at him. He felt himself melting away, but he still remained firm with his gun on his shoulder.

  Suddenly the door of the room flew open and the draught of air caught up the little dancer; she fluttered like a sylph right into the stove by the side of the tin soldier, and was instantly in flames and was gone. The tin soldier melted down into a lump, and the next morning, when the housemaid took the ashes out of the stove, she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the little dancer nothing remained but the tinsel rose, which was burned black as a cinder.

  1838

  THE HOLY NIGHT

  Selma Lagerlöf

  WHEN I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD I HAD SUCH A GREAT SORROW! I HARDLY know if I have had a greater since then.

  It was then that my grandmother died. Up to that time, she used to sit every day on the corner sofa in her room and tell stories.

  I remember Grandmother told story after story from morning till night, and we children sat beside her, quite still, and listened. It was a glorious life! No other children had such happy times as we did.

  It isn’t much that I recollect about my grandmother. I remember that she had very beautiful snow-white hair, and stooped when she walked, and that she always sat and knitted a stocking.

  And I even remember that when she had finished a story, she used to lay her hand on my head and say: “All this is as true, as true as that I see you and you see me.”

  I also remember that she could sing songs, but this she did not do every day. One of the songs was about a knight and a sea troll, and had this refrain: “It blows cold, cold weather at sea.”

  Then I remember a little prayer she taught me, and a verse of a hymn.

  Of all the stories she told me, I have but a dim and imperfect recollection. Only one of them do I remember so well that I should be able to repeat it. It is a little story about Jesus’s birth.

  Well, this is nearly all that I can recall about my grandmother, except the thing which I remember best; and that is, the great loneliness when she was gone.

  I remember the morning when the corner sofa stood empty and when it was impossible to understand how the days would ever come to an end. That I remember. That I shall never forget!

  And I recollect that we children were brought forward to kiss the hand of the dead and that we were afraid to do it. But then someone said to us that it would be the last time we could thank Grandmother for all the pleasure she had given us.

  And I remember how the stories and songs were driven from the homestead, shut up in a long black casket, and how they never came back again.

  I remember that something was gone from our lives. It seemed as if the door to a whole beautiful, enchanted world—where before we had been free to go in and out—had been closed. And now there was no one who knew how to open that door.

  And I remember that, little by little, we children learned to play with dolls and toys, and to live like other children. And then it seemed as though we no longer missed our grandmother, or remembered her.

  But even today—after forty years—as I sit here and gather together the legends about Christ, which I heard out there in the Orient, there awakes within me the little legend of Jesus’s birth that my grandmother used to tell, and I feel impelled to tell it once again, and to let it also be included in my collection.

  It was Christmas Day and all the folks had driven to church except grandmother and I. I believe we were all alone in the house. We had not been permitted to go along, because one of us was too old and the other was too young. And we were sad, both of us, because we had not been taken to early mass to hear the singing and to see the Christmas candles.

  But as we sat there in our loneliness, Grandmother began to tell a story.

  There was a man who went out in the dark night to borrow live coals to kindle a fire. He went from hut to hut and knocked. “Dear friends, help me!” said he. “My wife has just given birth to a child, and I must make a fire to warm her and the little one.”

  But it was way in the night, and all the people were asleep. No one replied.

  The man walked and walked. At last, he saw the gleam of a fire a long way off. Then he went in that direction and saw that the fire was burning in the open. A lot of sheep were sleeping around the fire, and an old shepherd sat and watched over the flock.

  When the man who wanted to borrow fire came up to the sheep, he saw that three big dogs lay asleep at the shepherd’s feet. All three awoke when the man approached and opened their great jaws, as though they wanted to bark; but not a sound was heard. The man noticed that the hair on their backs stood up and that their sharp, white teeth glistened in the firelight. They dashed toward him.

  He felt that one of them bit at his leg and one at his hand and that one clung to his throat.

  But their jaws and teeth wouldn’t obey them, and the man didn’t suffer the least harm.

  Now the man wished to go farther, to get what he needed. But the sheep lay back-to-back and so close to one another that he couldn’t pass them. Then the man stepped upon their backs and walked over them and up to the fire. And not one of the animals awoke or moved.

  When the man had almost reached the fire, the shepherd looked up. He was a surly old man, who was unfriendly and harsh toward human beings. And when he saw the strange man coming, he seized the long, spiked staff, which he always held in his hand when he tended his flock, and threw it at him. The staff came right toward the man, but, before it reached him, it turned off to one side and whizzed past him, far out in the meadow.

  Now the man came up to the shepherd and said to him: “Good man, help me, and lend me a little fire! My wife has just given birth to a child, and I must make a fire to warm her and the little one.”

  The shepherd would rather have said no, but when he pondered that the dogs couldn’t hurt the man, and the sheep had not run from him and that the staff had not wished to strike him, he was a little afraid, and dared not deny the man that which he asked.

  “Take as much as you need!�
� he said to the man.

  But then the fire was nearly burned out. There were no logs or branches left, only a big heap of live coals, and the stranger had neither spade nor shovel wherein he could carry the red-hot coals.

  When the shepherd saw this, he said again: “Take as much as you need!” And he was glad that the man wouldn’t be able to take away any coals.

  But the man stopped and picked coals from the ashes with his bare hands, and laid them in his mantle. And he didn’t burn his hands when he touched them, nor did the coals scorch his mantle; but he carried them away as if they had been nuts or apples.

  And when the shepherd, who was such a cruel and hard-hearted man, saw all this, he began to wonder to himself. What kind of a night is this, when the dogs do not bite, the sheep are not scared, the staff does not kill, or the fire scorch? He called the stranger back and said to him: “What kind of a night is this? And how does it happen that all things show you compassion?”

  Then said the man: “I cannot tell you if you yourself do not see it.” And he wished to go his way, that he might soon make a fire and warm his wife and child.

  But the shepherd did not wish to lose sight of the man before he had found out what all this might portend. He got up and followed the man till they came to the place where he lived.

  Then the shepherd saw the man didn’t have so much as a hut to dwell in, but that his wife and babe were lying in a mountain grotto, where there was nothing except the cold and naked stone walls.

  But the shepherd thought that perhaps the poor innocent child might freeze to death there in the grotto; and, although he was a hard man, he was touched, and thought he would like to help it. And he loosened the knapsack from his shoulder, took from it a soft white sheepskin, gave it to the strange man, and said that he should let the child sleep on it.

  But just as soon as he showed that he, too, could be merciful, his eyes were opened, and he saw what he had not been able to see before, and heard what he could not have heard before.