The Snow Queen

The First Story: The Mirror and the Splinters

Long ago there was a wicked goblin — the wickedest of all, for he was the devil himself. He made a mirror with a strange power: everything good and beautiful shrank to nothing in it, while everything ugly grew large and plain. The loveliest face looked hideous in that glass, and a freckle seemed to spread across a whole nose.

His pupils carried the mirror everywhere, until no land and no person was left untwisted in it. At last they flew up toward heaven to mock the angels, but the higher they went, the more wildly the mirror grinned, until it slipped from their hands and fell to earth, shattering into countless pieces.

Now came the real trouble. Some pieces were no bigger than a grain of sand and blew about in the wind. Wherever one flew into a person's eye, it stayed, and that person saw everything crooked, or only what was wrong. Worse still, some splinters lodged in hearts, and such a heart turned slowly to a lump of ice. And still the splinters drifted, looking for somewhere to land.

The Second Story: A Little Boy and a Little Girl

In a great crowded city, where most people had only a flowerpot for a garden, two children were lucky enough to share something grander. They were not brother and sister, but they loved each other just as dearly. Their families lived across from each other, and where the roofs nearly touched, a flower-box on each sill held a rose-bush, so that in summer they made an arch of roses where the children played for hours.

His name was Kay, and hers was Gerda. In winter, when the panes froze over, they warmed pennies on the stove and pressed them to the glass to melt a little peep-hole, and through it their two soft eyes would meet.

"Those are the white bees swarming," Kay's grandmother told them one snowy day. "They have a queen bee too, larger than all the rest, who never rests on the earth. On many a winter night she passes through the town and looks in at the windows, and that is why the frost makes such flower-shapes on the glass."

"Just let her try," laughed Kay. "I'll set her on the warm stove, and she'll melt away."

That evening, as Kay peeped through his hole, he saw a snowflake settle on the window-box and grow and grow, until it became a tall, beautiful woman all of glittering ice. Her eyes shone like clear stars, but held no rest. She nodded and beckoned — and Kay, frightened, jumped down, while it seemed a great bird flew past the window.

The frost passed, spring came, and the children played once more among their roses. Gerda had learned a little song, which she sang, and Kay sang along:

"Roses bloom and fade away, but we shall see Christ's face one day."

One day, as they looked at a picture-book, Kay suddenly cried, "Ow! Something has stung my heart — and flown into my eye!" "I think it's gone," he said, blinking. But it was not: a splinter of that wicked mirror had flown into his eye, and worse, one had lodged in his heart, where it would slowly turn to ice.

"Why are you crying? It makes you look ugly," he said sharply. "Ugh — that rose has a worm in it, and this one's all crooked." And he kicked the flower-box and tore two roses off. "Kay, what are you doing?" cried Gerda; and at her frightened face he tore off one more and sprang through his window, away from her.

After that he was different. He mimicked his grandmother's stories, mocked how people walked and talked, and teased gentle little Gerda, who loved him with all her heart. His games grew cold and clever; a snowflake under his magnifying glass, he said, was finer than any real flower — if only it wouldn't melt.

Soon after, Kay took his sledge to the great square, where the boys tied theirs to farmers' carts for a ride. A large sledge came by, painted all in white, with a driver wrapped in white fur; it circled twice, and Kay quickly tied on behind. Faster and faster it went, out through the town gate, into snow so thick he couldn't see his hand. He pulled at the cord, but it held fast, and on they flew.

At last the sledge stopped, and the driver stood up — a tall, slender woman all in dazzling white. It was the Snow Queen. "We have driven well," she said, "but you are cold. Come into my fur." She wrapped him close and kissed his forehead, and the kiss was colder than ice, going straight to his half-frozen heart, so that for a moment he felt he might die. Then the cold no longer troubled him.

"Only one more kiss," she said, "or I should kiss you to death." And warm in her arms, Kay forgot Gerda, his grandmother, and everyone at home. They flew up into the black clouds, over forests and seas, while below the wolves howled, and Kay slept at the Snow Queen's feet.

The Third Story: The Garden of the Woman Who Knew a Little Magic

Where had Kay gone? No one could say — only that he had tied his sledge to a great one that vanished through the gate. Gerda wept bitterly, and when spring came she said, "I will wear my new red shoes and go and ask the river about him."

She went alone to the riverbank. "Have you taken my little friend? I'll give you my best red shoes if you give him back." She threw them in, but the waves washed them back. Thinking she hadn't thrown far enough, she climbed into a boat among the reeds — but it was not tied, and drifted away before she could climb out.

Only the sparrows heard her cry, and they could not carry her to land. The boat drifted past green banks all day, until it reached a cherry orchard with a little house with strange colored windows, where an old, old woman leaned on a crutch, wearing a sun-hat painted with flowers.

"You poor child," said the woman, and drew the boat ashore with her crutch. She listened to Gerda's whole story, said Kay had not passed this way but might yet come, and led her in to eat cherries and have her hair combed with a golden comb — and Gerda thought less and less of Kay.

For the old woman knew a little magic — not wicked, only enough to please herself — and she longed to keep this dear little girl. Fearing that roses would make Gerda remember her own, and Kay besides, she touched every rose-bush with her crutch, and they sank out of sight into the black earth. Then she led her into a garden more splendid than any picture-book, where every flower of every season bloomed at once, and there Gerda played many happy days.

One day she noticed a rose painted on the old woman's sun-hat — the one flower she had forgotten to charm away. "Why are there no roses here?" Gerda cried, and searched every bed, and found none, and wept. Her tears fell where a rose-bush had sunk, and at once it shot up in full bloom. Gerda threw her arms around it. "Do you know where Kay is? Is he dead?"

"Dead he is not," said the roses. "We have been down among the dead, and he was not there."

Gerda ran to ask the other flowers, and each told its own dreaming little story, but none knew of Kay. At last she reached the garden's far gate and ran out barefoot into the world. Summer had gone; it was late autumn — she had never noticed the seasons pass in that enchanted garden. "I have wasted so much time!" she said, and hurried on, her feet sore and the world gray.

The Fourth Story: The Prince and the Princess

Resting on a stone, Gerda saw a great crow hop near. "Caw, caw — good day," it said, and asked where she was going all alone. She told it her whole story, and asked if it had seen Kay.

"That might be," said the crow, and told her that in this kingdom a clever princess had wished to marry a husband clever enough to answer when spoken to. Young men came by the hundreds, but each grew tongue-tied before the throne. "But on the third day, a boy came marching up cheerfully, in poor clothes but with shining eyes and long hair —"

"That was Kay!" cried Gerda, clapping her hands.

The crow told how the boy had spoken so wisely that the princess liked him at once, and he liked her. "Oh, take me to him!" Gerda begged. So that night the crow led her in by a back stair to a bedchamber where two beds hung like lilies from a golden stem. Gerda crept to the red one, certain of Kay — but by her lamp it was only a prince who resembled him a little.

Gerda wept and told her story again, and the prince and princess were so touched that they gave her warm clothes, a golden coach, and servants, so she might go on searching. The crow flew beside her a while, then, with sorrow, said farewell.

The Fifth Story: The Little Robber Girl

As the golden coach shone through a dark forest, robbers rushed out, seized the horses, and pulled Gerda from the coach. The old robber-woman meant to harm her — but her own wild little daughter, clinging to her back, bit her ear so hard she had to let go.

"She shall play with me," said the little robber girl, and so it was decided: Gerda would not be harmed. The girl was fierce and spoiled, but not unkind at heart; she wiped Gerda's tears and let her wear her soft warm muff.

They came to a crumbling robber castle full of growling dogs and cooking-fires, and that night the robber girl kept Gerda close and told her not to be afraid. Up in the rafters, tame wood-pigeons cooed: "We have seen little Kay! A white sledge carried him off toward Lapland, where there is always snow and ice." And a tethered reindeer added, "The Snow Queen's grandest castle stands far to the north, toward the Pole."

In the morning, while her mother slept, the little robber girl went to the reindeer. "I'll set you free if you carry this girl safely to the Snow Queen's castle." She tied Gerda on its back, gave her warm boots, mittens, and bread, kept the muff for herself, and cut the reindeer loose. "Run, and take good care of her!" And it bounded off, day and night, beneath the northern lights.

The Sixth Story: The Lapp Woman and the Finn Woman

They stopped at a poor little hut, where an old Lapp woman fed them and, having no paper, wrote a message on a dried fish to send them on to a wiser woman in Finland. There, in a hut so hot the Finn woman went half-dressed, she read the message three times, then dropped the fish into her soup pot.

"Can't you give the girl the strength of twelve strong men, to defeat the Snow Queen?" asked the reindeer.

"That would help very little," said the Finn woman, and drew the reindeer aside. "Little Kay believes he is happy, because he has a splinter of glass in his eye and another in his heart; until those are gone, he cannot be himself. Don't you see how far Gerda has come, barefoot, through the whole world? Her power is simply this — that she is a dear and innocent child. If her own love cannot free him, nothing we could give would help."

So she carried them the last two miles to a bush of red berries at the edge of the Snow Queen's garden. There the reindeer set Gerda down, kissed her, and with tears in its eyes ran back the way it had come.

Alone now, without shoes or mittens, Gerda pressed on through the bitter cold. Strange living snowflakes — shaped like spiny creatures and coiling serpents — swarmed toward her, the Snow Queen's guards. But Gerda said the Lord's Prayer, and her breath turned to a troop of small shining angels, who scattered the shapes and warmed her hands and feet as she hurried on.

The Seventh Story: The Snow Queen's Palace

The Snow Queen's castle was built of drifting snow, its windows and doors of cutting wind — over a hundred halls, empty, vast, and glittering under the northern lights. In the largest lay a frozen lake cracked into a thousand perfect pieces, where the Snow Queen sat when home, calling it her Mirror of Reason.

Little Kay, blue with cold though he no longer felt it, sat alone fitting flat pieces of ice into patterns, trying to spell one word — Eternity — for the Snow Queen had promised that if he solved it, he would be his own master, with the whole world and a new pair of skates. She had flown off to whiten far-off volcanoes, and Kay sat so stiff and still that he seemed frozen through — until Gerda ran in through the great gate and threw her arms around him.

"Kay! Dear Kay! I've found you!" But he only sat there, cold and silent. Gerda wept, and her warm tears fell on his chest and sank into his heart, melting the icy lump and washing away the splinter hidden there. He looked at her at last, and she sang their old song:

"Roses bloom and fade away, but we shall see Christ's face one day."

At that Kay burst into tears himself, and wept until the fleck of glass floated from his eye. "Gerda! Where have I been? How empty it is here!" And he held onto her, laughing and crying together, while the pieces of ice danced for joy — and when they settled, they had spelled the very word the Snow Queen had asked for. Kay was free.

Gerda kissed his cheeks until they bloomed again, his eyes until they shone, his hands and feet until he was strong and well. Hand in hand they walked from the castle, and wherever they passed the wind grew still and the sun broke through. At the red-berry bush the reindeer waited with a young doe whose warm milk fed the children, and they journeyed home by way of the Finn and Lapp women.

At the edge of the green country the reindeer said farewell, and soon after, out of the budding forest came the little robber girl herself, restless as ever. "You're a fine one, running off like that," she told Kay, but she was glad to see them both. "Snip, snap, snurry — all's well now!" she said, and rode off to see the world, promising to visit one day.

Gerda and Kay walked on, and wherever they went it was glorious spring, until they saw the tall towers of their own town. They climbed to the grandmother's room, where everything stood as they'd left it — but stepping through the door, they found they had grown into a young man and a young woman. Their small childhood chairs still stood there, roses bloomed in at the open window, and the grandmother read aloud from the Bible: "Unless you become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."

Kay and Gerda looked at each other and understood, at last, the old song they had always sung — that roses fade, but love and wonder do not — and they sat together, grown up and yet still children at heart, while summer, warm and gentle, shone all around them.