The Complete Fairy Tales

  Night fell and the passengers began to give up hope, when through the darkness was seen a rocket. It had been sent up from the shore and a rope was attached to it. It landed on the far side of the vessel, and eager hands grabbed it. Now the ship was connected to the shore, and a cable strong enough to carry a breeches buoy was soon rigged. A beautiful young girl was carried above the heavy, rolling waves to the beach. And how inexpressibly happy she was a few minutes later when her husband stood once more beside her. Everyone on board was saved, and that before daybreak.

  We slept undisturbed in Copenhagen, and thought neither of danger nor sorrow. In the morning at breakfast we heard a rumor—someone had received a telegram—that an English ship had been stranded on the west coast of Jutland. We all grew frightened. But within an hour, a telegram came from the young couple that they had been saved and soon would be with us.

  Everybody cried; I cried too, and so did Great-grandfather. He folded his hands and I am sure he blessed the new times. That day Great-grandfather gave two hundred marks to the committee that was collecting money for a monument in honor of Hans Christian Oersted.

  When Frederik heard about it, after he and his wife had come home, he said to Great-grandfather: “Good for you! And now I’ll read to you what Oersted said about earlier ages and our own.”

  “He agreed with you, I suppose,” said the old man.

  “You know that,” Frederik said, and smiled. “And so do you, or you wouldn’t have given money to erect a monument to him!”

  145

  The Candles

  There once was a big wax candle that knew who it was. “I am made of wax and have been cast, not dipped,” it said. “My light is clearer and I burn longer than other candles, I belong in a chandelier or a silver candlestick.”

  “That must be lovely,” said a tallow candle. “I am only made from tallow, but I have been dipped eight times and have a decent-sized waistline; some tallow candles are only dipped twice. I am satisfied! Though I admit it is better to be born in wax than in tallow; but you cannot decide yourself how and where to be born. Wax candles are put in the living room and I have to stay in the kitchen, but that is a good place too, all the food for the whole house is made there.”

  “There is something more important than food,” said the wax candle, “and that is social life. To shine while others shine. There is going to be a ball tonight, any moment they will come for me and my whole family.”

  Hardly had this been said when the lady of the house came to get the wax candles, but she took the little tallow candle too. She brought it out into the kitchen. There stood a little boy with a basket on his arm; it was filled with potatoes, and a few apples had been put in it, too. All this the kind mistress had given to the poor boy. “Here, my little friend,” she said, and she put the tallow candle into his basket. “I know that your mother often works so late into the night.” Her little daughter, who was standing nearby, smiled when she heard her mother say “so late into the night.”

  “We are going to have a party, a ball, and my dress has red bows on it, and I will be allowed to be up, so late into the night,” she said joyfully. Her eyes sparkled with expectation, she was so happy. No wax candles can shine like the eyes of a child.

  “That was a blessed sight,” thought the tallow candle. “I shall never forget it, nor am I likely ever to see such happiness again.”

  The boy went on his way and the tallow candle went with him.

  “I wonder where I am going,” it thought. “Probably to people so poor that they don’t even have a brass candlestick; while the wax candle sits in silver and is in the finest company. Well, it was my lot to be tallow and not wax.”

  And the tallow candle was brought to a poor home where a widow lived with her three children. From their rooms, with their low ceilings and narrow windows, one could look across the street into the great house.

  “God bless her who gave you this,” said the boy’s mother when she saw the candle. “It will burn late into the night.”

  And the candle was lit. “Phew!” it said. “Those sulphur matches smell awful. I am sure they don’t dare light the wax candle with such things.”

  In the rich house also the candles were lit. From the windows their light fell out into the street. Coaches rumbled along the cobblestones as they arrived, bringing the elegantly dressed guests, and soon music could be heard.

  “Now the ball is starting,” thought the tallow candle, and recalled the little rich girl and how her eyes had sparkled even brighter than wax candles. “I shall never see eyes like those again.”

  The youngest of the poor woman’s children was a girl too. She put her arms around her brother and sister and whispered to them, “We are going to have hot potatoes for dinner.” Her eyes looked bright and happy too, just as happy as the little girl’s across the street had looked when she said, “We are going to have a ball tonight, and my dress has red bows on it.”

  “I wonder,” thought the tallow candle, “whether to get hot potatoes for dinner is as good. The two little ones seem equally pleased.” The tallow candle sneezed; that is to say, it sputtered, for a tallow candle can’t do much to express itself.

  The table was set. The potatoes were eaten. How good they tasted! And then there were apples for dessert. The youngest child recited a little verse:

  “Dear God, thanks to Your will,

  I once more my stomach did fill.

  Amen.

  “Did I say it nicely?” the girl asked her mother.

  The mother smiled and shook her head. “That you mustn’t ask or think about. What is important is to be thankful to God for what He does for us.”

  The children were put to bed and each given a kiss, and they fell right to sleep. The mother stayed up and sewed late into the night. She had to earn a living for herself and her children. Over in the house of the rich the candles were still burning and the music played. Above in the sky the stars shone, and they shone as brightly on the poor home as on the rich one.

  “That was a nice evening,” thought the tallow candle. “I wonder if the wax candle has had a better time in the silver candlesticks? That is a question I would like to have answered before I am burned out.” Then it thought of the two equally happy faces: one shining in the light of a wax candle and the other in the light of a tallow one.

  Well, that is really the end of the story, there is no more, just as there is no more left of either the wax or the tallow candle.

  146

  The Most Incredible

  The one who could accomplish the most incredible was to marry the king’s daughter and have half the kingdom.

  Everybody tried, not only the young but the old as well. They all exhausted their brains, their sinews, and their muscles trying to do something incredible. Two men ate themselves to death, and a third did the same with drink. That was doing the most unbelievable according to their taste, but it was hardly the right way to go about it. The street urchins practiced spitting on their own backs; that, they thought, was doing the most incredible.

  A day had been set when everyone could come forward and show what he considered his most incredible accomplishment. Judges had been appointed. The youngest was three years old, and the oldest over ninety. There was a great exhibition of the strangest things, but all the judges and the people, too, soon agreed that the most incredible was a great clock. It was most cunningly and artfully constructed both inside and out. Every time the clock struck the hour, little figures enacted a story to tell what the time was: twelve performances in all.

  “It is quite incredible!” everyone said.

  When the clock struck one, Moses came out and wrote down the first commandment: “There is only one God.”

  When it struck two, you saw the garden of Eden, with both Adam and Eve as happy as kings, and that without owning so much as a wardrobe, or having need of it.

  When the clock struck three, the holy three kings appeared with all their costly gifts. One of them was black. r />
  At four, the seasons of the year came out. Spring carried a cuckoo and a beech branch that had just come into leaf; summer a grasshopper on a straw of wheat ready for harvest; fall held an empty stork’s nest—the bird had flown; winter had an old crow who could tell stories in the long cold nights: old memories.

  When the clock struck five, the senses came. Sight was an optometrist; hearing, a coppersmith; smell, an old woman selling violets; taste was a cook; and feeling was dressed as an undertaker with black crepe right down to his heels.

  At the stroke of six, a gamester came out; he rolled his dice and they showed six!

  Then came the seven days of the week or the seven deadly sins, no one was quite sure which they were. But they belong together and you cannot tell them apart.

  At eight a choir of monks sang vespers.

  At nine the muses came. One had steady employment at an observatory, another worked in the historical archives, the rest were engaged in the theater.

  When the clock struck ten, Moses appeared again with the tablets of the law; God’s commandments are ten.

  Again the clock struck and this time children came out. They played and sang and there were exactly eleven of them.

  Now there was only the last performance left, twelve o’clock. The night watchman came, carrying the spiked mace of his office; he sang his midnight song:

  “It was near the middle of the night

  That our Saviour, Jesus Christ, was born.”

  As he sang roses grew, changed, and became the heads of angels with wings that were all the colors of the rainbow.

  It was beautiful to look at and lovely to listen to. It was a unique work of art. It was the most incredible; about that everyone agreed. The artist was a young man: goodhearted, as happy as a child, friendly and helpful to everyone, and kind to his poor old parents. He certainly deserved a princess and half a kingdom.

  The day for announcing the winner of the competition had come. The whole town had been decorated. The princess sat on the throne of state. It had been restuffed with horsehair, but that hadn’t made it any more comfortable to sit on. The judges all glanced slyly at the young man and tittered among themselves. He looked happy and had reason to be; after all, he had created “the most incredible.”

  “No! I will do the most incredible,” shouted a tall, gangly, strong man who had just entered the hall. “I am just the man for it.” Then he swung the ax he had brought with him and smashed the clock. Crash! There it lay, wheels and springs and figures all broken into tiny bits, completely spoiled!

  “Only I could do that!” he said, turning toward the judges. “He could create it, but I could and dared destroy it, that is the most incredible of all!”

  “To break such a work of art,” the judges all agreed, “that was the most unbelievable deed of all.” The people said the same. Now he must have the princess and half the kingdom. The law is the law, even when it is incredible!

  The heralds blew their trumpets; the marriage was announced. The princess was most unhappy. Still she looked beautiful, dressed in her costly robes. All the candles in the church were lit. It was to be an evening wedding; that is the most fashionable. Young noblewomen escorted the princess, and young noblemen the groom. They sang as they walked up to the altar.

  The groom looked about arrogantly. He walked as straight as if his back could never bend.

  The singing ceased. The church was so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. Then the stillness was broken by the great doors of the church being thrown open.

  “Boom, boom!” The great clock that the young man had made came marching up the aisle. It stepped between the bride and bridegroom. That the dead do not rise to haunt the living we all know; but a work of art can. The body had been hurt, but the spirit of a work of art no ax can break.

  The clock looked exactly as it had before it was destroyed. It began to strike the hours, one after the other, and all the figures came out. First came Moses; he threw the heavy stone tablets of the law at the feet of the bridegroom. He looked so angry that it appeared as if flames were darting from his eyes. “I cannot pick them up again, for you have broken my arms,” he said, and the bridegroom felt that he could not move, his feet were held by the stone tablets.

  Adam and Eve, the holy three kings, and the four seasons now appeared; and all of them told him the truth about himself and cried: “Shame!”

  But the bridegroom did not feel any shame.

  As the figures appeared, they grew in size until they seemed so large that they filled the church. When the twelve strokes of midnight sounded, the night watchman came forth and everyone stepped aside. He walked straight to the bridegroom and dealt him such a resounding blow with his spiked mace that he fell to the floor.

  “Stay there!” the watchman shouted. “And never rise again. We are revenged and so is our master. Now we will be gone.”

  And the clock disappeared and was never seen again. But the candles in the church formed great flowers of light, and the golden star in the ceiling sparkled as if it were on fire, and the organ began to play by itself. Everybody who was there declared that this was the most incredible thing they had ever seen.

  “Now,” said the princess, “let me marry the right one. He who created the clock is the one I want as a husband and master.”

  He was there in the church and the people became his attendants. Everyone was happy, everyone blessed him, and not one person envied him, and that is incredible!

  147

  What the Whole Family Said

  What did the family say? Let us hear first what little Maria said. It was her birthday and Maria thought that it was the most wonderful day of the year. All her little friends came to visit her and she had her best dress on, the one her grandmother had sewn. The table in her room was filled with presents. There were a beautiful little kitchen with pots and pans, and a dolly that could cry when you pressed its stomach. There was also a book with pictures in it and the loveliest stories to read, when one had learned the words by heart—little Maria couldn’t read yet. But better than even the best of fairy tales was a birthday, and preferably, many of them.

  “It is lovely to live,” said little Maria, and her godfather added that life was the best of all fairy tales.

  Her brothers were in the next room. They were older: one was nine, the other eleven. They also thought that life was pleasant, but it had to be lived as theirs was, not the way the little children managed it. A friendly fight with another schoolboy, a good report card, skating in the wintertime, and bicycling in the summer: that was the life. As for reading, books about knights and castles with dungeons in them, or an explorer who went to Africa—they were things worth learning the alphabet for. One of the boys had a secret fear; he was worried that everything would be discovered by the time he grew up and was ready for adventure.

  “Yes,” said Godfather, “life is the best fairy tale, for one is in it oneself.”

  These children lived on the ground floor of the house. Above them lived another branch of the family. They had children too, but they were grown up and had flown from the nest. The youngest of them was seventeen, the second twenty, and the third—they were boys, all three of them—he was terribly old, according to little Maria: he was twenty-five and engaged. They were fortunate children; they had kind parents, good clothes, were clever, and they knew what they wanted.

  “Advance! Tear down all the old walls so that one can get a view of the world! The world is good, Godfather is right, life is the best of all fairy tales!”

  Their father and mother were older people; naturally, they had to be older than their children, they had once said, and smiled. “How terribly young the young ones are. Everything won’t work out just as they want it to, but it is true that life is the most amazing fairy tale of all.”

  Above that family, a little nearer to heaven, as one might say, lived Godfather. He was old and yet his spirit was young and he could tell stories; he knew so many, even long ones. He ha
d traveled far and wide in the world, and his room was filled with things he had brought back from foreign countries. His walls were covered with paintings, and the glass in his windows was colored red and yellow. The room seemed to be always bathed in sunshine, even on the grayest days. He had an aquarium with goldfish in it, and they looked at one as if they knew a whole lot of things that they weren’t going to tell anyone about. Even in the wintertime the room was filled with the fragrance of flowers, and he would keep a fire burning in the fireplace. It was so nice to sit in front of it and look into the flames and listen to the fire crackle. “It is telling me stories from times past, old memories,” said Godfather. And little Maria thought that she understood what he meant, for she could see pictures in the flames.

  His bookshelf was filled with books, and one of them, which he called the book of books, he read often. It was the Bible, and in that was the whole history of the world and humanity: the creation, the flood, the kings, and the King of Kings.

  “Everything that has happened or will happen is written about in that book,” claimed Godfather. “So much in one book, that is worth thinking about! Everything that is worth praying for is laid down in the Lord’s Prayer, that is a pearl of comfort which God has given us. It is put inside the cradle, near the child’s heart. Don’t lose it when you grow up, for then you will never be alone on the changing roads that you will walk. It will glow inside you and you will never be lost.”