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Little Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his
eyes; but as soon as the confusion of colors was somewhat
over, all of a sudden there appeared a wooded slope close
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to the bay, and high up above stood a magnificent old
church, with two high pointed towers. From out the hillside
spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that
there was a continual splashing; and close beside them sat
an old king with a golden crown upon his white head:
that was King Hroar, near the fountains, close to the town
of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And up the slope into the
old church went all the kings and queens of Denmark,
hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ
played and the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard
all. ‘Do not forget the diet,’ said King Hroar.*
* Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town
takes its name from King Hroar, and the many fountains
in the neighborhood. In the beautiful cathedral the greater
number of the kings and queens of Denmark are interred.
In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet
assemble.

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knowledge I have, not to speak of my position in life, my
excellent circumstances—I certainly wish that you would
say YOU* to me!’
* It is the custom in Denmark for intimate
acquaintances to use the second person singular, ‘Du,’
(thou) when speaking to each other. When a friendship is
formed between men, they generally affirm it, when
occasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking to
each other and exclaiming, ‘thy health,’ at the same time
striking their glasses together. This is called drinking
‘Duus": they are then, ‘Duus Brodre,’ (thou brothers) and
ever afterwards use the pronoun ‘thou,’ to each other, it
being regarded as more familiar than ‘De,’ (you). Father
and mother, sister and brother say thou to one another—
without regard to age or rank. Master and mistress say
thou to their servants the superior to the inferior. But
servants and inferiors do not use the same term to their
masters, or superiors—nor is it ever used when speaking to
a stranger, or anyone with whom they are but slightly
acquainted —they then say as in English—you.

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And she pressed the thorn-bush to her breast, so firmly,
that it might be thoroughly warmed, and the thorns went
right into her flesh, and her blood flowed in large drops,
but the thornbush shot forth fresh green leaves, and there
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came flowers on it in the cold winter night, the heart of
the afflicted mother was so warm; and the thorn-bush told
her the way she should go.
She then came to a large lake, where there was neither
ship nor boat. The lake was not frozen sufficiently to bear
her; neither was it open, nor low enough that she could
wade through it; and across it she must go if she would
find her child! Then she lay down to drink up the lake,
and that was an impossibility for a human being, but the
afflicted mother thought that a miracle might happen
nevertheless.

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The Sunday following, the little boy took something,
and wrapped it up in a piece of paper, went downstairs,
and stood in the doorway; and when the man who went
on errands came past, he said to him—
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‘I say, master! will you give this to the old man over
the way from me? I have two pewter soldiers—this is one
of them, and he shall have it, for I know he is so very,
very lonely.’
And the old errand man looked quite pleased, nodded,
and took the pewter soldier over to the old house.
Afterwards there came a message; it was to ask if the little
boy himself had not a wish to come over and pay a visit;
and so he got permission of his parents, and then went
over to the old house.
And the brass balls on the iron railings shone much
brighter than ever; one would have thought they were
polished on account of the visit; and it was as if the
carved-out trumpeters-for there were trumpeters, who
stood in tulips, carved out on the door—blew with all
their might, their cheeks appeared so much rounder than
before. Yes, they blew—‘Trateratra! The little boy comes!
Trateratra!’—and then the door opened.

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‘‘To be sure,’ said he. ‘And there in the corner stood a
waterpail, where I used to swim my boats.’
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‘‘True; but first we went to school to learn somewhat,’
said she; ‘and then we were confirmed. We both cried;
but in the afternoon we went up the Round Tower, and
looked down on Copenhagen, and far, far away over the
water; then we went to Friedericksberg, where the King
and the Queen were sailing about in their splendid barges.’
‘‘But I had a different sort of sailing to that, later; and
that, too, for many a year; a long way off, on great
voyages.’
‘‘Yes, many a time have I wept for your sake,’ said she.
‘I thought you were dead and gone, and lying down in the
deep waters. Many a night have I got up to see if the wind
had not changed: and changed it had, sure enough; but
you never came. I remember so well one day, when the
rain was pouring down in torrents, the scavengers were

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down just over the wood, as we lay in our nest. She blew
upon us young ones; and all died except we two. Coo!
Coo!’
‘What is that you say up there?’ cried little Gerda.
‘Where did the Snow Queen go to? Do you know
anything about it?’
‘She is no doubt gone to Lapland; for there is always
snow and ice there. Only ask the Reindeer, who is
tethered there.’
‘Ice and snow is there! There it is, glorious and
beautiful!’ said the Reindeer. ‘One can spring about in the
large shining valleys! The Snow Queen has her summertent
there; but her fixed abode is high up towards the
North Pole, on the Island called Spitzbergen.’
‘Oh, Kay! Poor little Kay!’ sighed Gerda.
‘Do you choose to be quiet?’ said the robber maiden.
‘If you don’t, I shall make you.’

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She now led Gerda into the flower-garden. Oh, what
odour and what loveliness was there! Every flower that
one could think of, and of every season, stood there in
fullest bloom; no picture-book could be gayer or more
beautiful. Gerda jumped for joy, and played till the sun set
behind the tall cherry-tree; she then had a pretty bed, with
a red silken coverlet filled with blue violets. She fell asleep,
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and had as pleasant dreams as ever a queen on her
wedding-day.
The next morning she went to play with the flowers in
the warm sunshine, and thus passed away a day. Gerda
knew every flower; and, numerous as they were, it still
seemed to Gerda that one was wanting, though she did
not know which. One day while she was looking at the
hat of the old woman painted with flowers, the most
beautiful of them all seemed to her to be a rose. The old
woman had forgotten to take it from her hat when she
made the others vanish in the earth. But so it is when
one’s thoughts are not collected. ‘What!’ said Gerda. ‘Are
there no roses here?’ and she ran about amongst the

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‘It is dreadfully cold,’ said the Mouse. ‘But for that, it
would be delightful here, old Fir, wouldn’t it?’
‘I am by no means old,’ said the Fir Tree. ‘There’s
many a one considerably older than I am.’
‘Where do you come from,’ asked the Mice; ‘and what
can you do?’ They were so extremely curious. ‘Tell us
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about the most beautiful spot on the earth. Have you
never been there? Were you never in the larder, where
cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from above;
where one dances about on tallow candles: that place
where one enters lean, and comes out again fat and
portly?’
‘I know no such place,’ said the Tree. ‘But I know the
wood, where the sun shines and where the little birds
sing.’ And then he told all about his youth; and the little
Mice had never heard the like before; and they listened
and said,

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constabulary force without a chastisement. Besides, you
good-for-nothing rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch
birds in the royal gardens of Fredericksburg; but your blue
uniform betrays where you come from.’ This fine tirade
sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere
‘Pippi-pi.’ He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak,
and walked on.
He was soon met by two schoolboys of the upper classthat
is to say as individuals, for with regard to learning
they were in the lowest class in the school; and they
bought the stupid bird. So the copying-clerk came to
Copenhagen as guest, or rather as prisoner in a family
living in Gother Street.
‘‘Tis well that I’m dreaming,’ said the clerk, ‘or I really
should get angry. First I was a poet; now sold for a few
pence as a lark; no doubt it was that accursed poetical
nature which has metamorphosed me into such a poor
harmless little creature. It is really pitiable, particularly

THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES(Page 3)

*A Danish mile is nearly 4 3/4 English.
In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two
thousand of our miles up to the moon, which, as everyone
knows, was formed out of matter much lighter than our
earth; and is, so we should say, as soft as newly-fallen
snow. He found himself on one of the many circumjacent
mountain-ridges with which we are acquainted by means
of Dr. Madler’s ‘Map of the Moon.’ Within, down it sunk
perpendicularly into a caldron, about a Danish mile in
depth; while below lay a town, whose appearance we can,
in some measure, realize to ourselves by beating the white
of an egg in a glass Of water. The matter of which it was
built was just as soft, and formed similar towers, and
domes, and pillars, transparent and rocking in the thin air;
while above his head our earth was rolling like a large fiery
ball.

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* A.D. 1482-1513
While the conversation turned on this subject, and was
only for a moment interrupted by the arrival of a journal
that contained nothing worth reading, we will just step
out into the antechamber, where cloaks, mackintoshes,
sticks, umbrellas, and shoes, were deposited. Here sat two
female figures, a young and an old one. One might have
thought at first they were servants come to accompany
their mistresses home; but on looking nearer, one soon
saw they could scarcely be mere servants; their forms were
too noble for that, their skin too fine, the cut of their dress
too striking. Two fairies were they; the younger, it is true,
was not Dame Fortune herself, but one of the waitingmaids
of her handmaidens who carry about the lesser good
things that she distributes; the other looked extremely
gloomy—it was Care. She always attends to her own
serious business herself, as then she is sure of having it
done properly.
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Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so
excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his
money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least
about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the
theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then
afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a
different suit for each hour of the day; and as of any other
king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, ‘he is sitting in
council,’ it was always said of him, ‘The Emperor is sitting
in his wardrobe.’
Time passed merrily in the large town which was his
capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day,
two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their
appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave
stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns,
the clothes manufactured from which should have the
wonderful property of remaining invisible to everyone
who was unfit for the office he held, or who was
extraordinarily simple in character.