Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Sleeping Prince

A king had only his daughter, his wife having died, and had to go to war. The princess promised to stay with her nurse while he was gone. One day, an eagle came by and said she would have a dead man for a husband; it came again the next day. She told her nurse, and her nurse told her to tell the eagle to take her to him. The third day, it came, and she asked; it brought her to a palace, where a prince slept like the dead, and a paper said that whoever had pity on him must watch for three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, and three half-hours without sleeping, and then, when he sneezed, she must bless him and identify herself as the one who watched. He and the whole castle would wake, and he would marry the woman.

She watched three months, three weeks, and three days. Then she heard someone offering to hire maids. She hired one for company. The maid persuaded her to sleep, the prince sneezed, and the maid claimed him. She told him to let the princess sleep and when she woke, set to tend the geese. (The fairy tale starts to refer to the prince as the king.)

The king had to go to war. He asked the queen what she wanted, and she asked for a golden crown. He asked the goose-girl, and she asked for the millstone of patiences, the hangman's rope, and the butcher's knife, and if he did not bring them, his ship would go neither backward nor forward. He forgot them, and his ship would not move; an old man asked him if he had promised anything, so he bought them. He gave his wife the crown and the other things to the goose-girl. That evening, he went down to her room. She told her story to the things, and asked them what she should do. The butcher's knife said to stab herself; the rope, to hang herself; the millstone, to have patience. She asked the rope again and went to hang herself. The king broke in and saved her. He declared she was his wife and he would hang the other on the rope. She told him only to send her away. They went to her father for his blessing.

The Snake Prince

A poor woman, with nothing to eat, went to bathe. When she came out of the river, she found a poisonous snake in her pot. She took it home, so it would bite her and end her misery. When she opened the pot, she found a rich necklace. She sold it to the king. The king put it in a chest, but when he opened it to show the queen, he found a baby boy. He and the queen raised it as their son, and the old woman was the nurse. She spoke a little of how that boy came about.

The king had concluded with a neighboring king that his son should marry that king's daughter, and when the daughter came to marry, her mother warned her to ask about the magic. She refused to speak until he told her. He told her the story, that he was prince from far off who had been turned into a snake, and then he became a snake again. The princess mourned for the prince where he had vanished, and the snake came to her. He told that if she put bowls of milk and sugar in the four corners of the room, snakes would come, led by the Queen of the Snakes. If she stood in the queen's way, she could ask for her husband, but if she were frightened and did not, she could not have him back.

The princess did as he said, and won back her husband.

The Snow Queen

An evil "troll," "actually the devil himself",[1] makes a magic mirror that has the power to distort the appearance of things reflected in it. It fails to reflect all the good and beautiful aspects of people and things while it magnifies all the bad and ugly aspects so that they look even worse than they really are. The devil teaches a "devil school," and the devil and his pupils delight in taking the mirror throughout the world to distort everyone and everything. They enjoy how the mirror makes the loveliest landscapes look like "boiled spinach." They then want to carry the mirror into heaven with the idea of making fools of the angels and God, but the higher they lift it, the more the mirror grins and shakes with delight. It shakes so much that it slips from their grasp and falls back to earth where it shatters into billions of pieces — some no larger than a grain of sand. These splinters are blown around and get into people's hearts and eyes, making their hearts frozen like blocks of ice and their eyes like the troll-mirror itself, only seeing the bad and ugly in people and things.
Vilhelm Pedersen illustration.

Years later, a little boy, Kay, and a little girl, Gerda, live next door to each other in the garrets of buildings with adjoining roofs in a large city. One could get from Kay's to Gerda's home just by stepping over the gutters of each building. The two families grow vegetables and roses in window boxes placed on the gutters. Kay and Gerda have a window-box garden to play in, and they become devoted in love to each other as playmates.

Kay's grandmother tells the children about the Snow Queen, who is ruler over the snowflakes, that look like bees — that is why they are called "snow bees." As bees have a queen, so do the snow bees, and she is seen where the snowflakes cluster the most. Looking out of his frosted window, Kay, one winter, sees the Snow Queen, who beckons him to come with her. Kay draws back in fear from the window.

By the following spring, Gerda has learned a song that she sings to Kay: Where the roses deck the flowery vale, there, infant Jesus thee we hail! Because roses adorn the window box garden, Gerda is always reminded of her love for Kay by the sight of roses.

It was on a pleasant summer's day that splinters of the troll-mirror get into Kay's heart and eyes while he and Gerda are looking at a picture book in their window-box garden. Kay's personality changes: he becomes cruel and aggressive. He destroys their window-box garden, he makes fun of his grandmother, and he no longer cares about Gerda, since all of them now appear bad and ugly to him. The only beautiful and perfect things to him now are the tiny snowflakes that he sees through a magnifying glass.

The following winter he goes out with his sled to the market square and hitches it—as was the custom of those playing in the snowy square—to a curious white sleigh carriage, driven by the Snow Queen, who appears as a woman in a white fur-coat. Outside the city she shows herself to Kay and takes him into her sleigh. She kisses him only twice: once to numb him from the cold, and the second time to cause him to forget about Gerda and his family. She does not kiss him a third time as that would kill him. Kay is then taken to the Snow Queen's palace on Spitsbergen, near the North Pole where he is contented to live due to the splinters of the troll-mirror in his heart and eyes.

The people of the city get the idea that Kay has been drowned in the river nearby, but Gerda, who is heartbroken at Kay's disappearance, goes out to look for him. She questions everyone and everything about Kay's whereabouts. Gerda offers her new red shoes to the river in exchange for Kay; by not taking the gift at first, the river seems to let her know that Kay is not drowned. Gerda next visits an old sorceress, who wants Gerda to stay with her forever. She causes Gerda to forget all about her friend and, knowing that the sight of roses will remind Gerda of Kay, the sorceress causes all the roses in her garden to sink beneath the earth. At the home of the old sorceress, a rosebush raised from below the ground by Gerda's warm tears tells her that Kay is not among the dead, all of whom it could see while it was under the earth. Gerda flees from the old woman's beautiful garden of eternal summer and meets a crow, who tells her that Kay was in the princess's palace. She subsequently goes to the palace and meets the princess and her prince, who appears very similar to Kay. Gerda tells them her story and they help by providing warm clothes and a beautiful coach. While traveling in the coach Gerda is captured by robbers and brought to their castle, where she is befriended by a little robber girl, whose pet doves tell her that they had seen Kay when he was carried away by the Snow Queen in the direction of Lapland. The captive reindeer, Bae, tells her that he knows how to get to Lapland since it is his home.
Vilhelm Pedersen illustration.

The robber girl, then, frees Gerda and the reindeer to travel north to the Snow Queen's palace. They make two stops: first at the Lapp woman's home and then at the Finn woman's home. The Finn woman tells the reindeer that the secret of Gerda's unique power to save Kay is in her sweet and innocent child's heart:
“ I can give her no greater power than she has already," said the woman; "don't you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her ...[2] ”


Vilhelm Pedersen illustration.

When Gerda gets to the Snow Queen's palace, she is first halted by the snowflakes which guard it. The only thing that overcomes them is Gerda's praying the Lord's Prayer, which causes her breath to take the shape of angels, who resist the snowflakes and allow Gerda to enter the palace. Gerda finds Kay alone and almost immobile on the frozen lake, which the Snow Queen calls the "Mirror of Reason" on which her throne sits. Gerda finds Kay engaged in the task that the Snow Queen gave him: he must use pieces of ice as components of a Chinese puzzle to form characters and words. If he is able to form the word "eternity" (Danish: Evigheden) the Snow Queen will release him from her power and give him a pair of skates. Gerda finds him, runs up to him, and weeps warm tears on him, which melt his heart, burning away the troll-mirror splinter in it. Kay bursts into tears, dislodging the splinter from his eye. Gerda kisses Kay a few times, and he becomes cheerful and healthy again, with sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks: he is saved by the power of Gerda's love. He and Gerda dance around on the lake of ice so joyously that the splinters of ice Kay has been playing with are caught up into the dance. When the splinters tire of dancing they fall down to spell the very word Kay was trying to spell, "eternity." Even if the Snow Queen were to return, she would be obliged to free Kay. Kay and Gerda then leave the Snow Queen's domain with the help of the reindeer, the Finn woman, and the Lapp woman. They meet the robber girl after they have crossed the line of vegetation, and from there they walk back to their home, "the big city." They find that all is the same at home, but they have changed! They are now grown up, and they are delighted to see that it is summertime. At the end, the grandmother reads a passage from the Bible:

"Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

Snow-White and Rose-Red

Snow-White and Rose-Red tells the story of Snow White and Rose Red, two girls living with their mother, a poor widow, in a small cottage. Both sisters are very good little girls, and they love each other dearly. Their mother is very fond of them. As for their personalities, Rose Red is very outspoken and cheerful, and loves to play outside; on the other hand, her sister Snow-White is more quiet and shy, and prefers doing housework and reading.

One winter night, there is a knock at the door. Rose Red opens the door to find a bear. At first she is terrified, but the bear tells her not to be afraid. "I'm half frozen and I merely want to warm up a little at your place," he says. They let the bear in and he lies down in front of the fire. Snow White and Rose Red beat the snow off the bear; they quickly become quite friendly with him. They play with the bear and roll him around playfully. They let the bear spend the night in front of the fire, and in the morning, he leaves, trotting out into the woods. The bear comes back every night for the rest of that winter and the family grows used to him.

When summer comes, the bear tells them that he must go away for a while to guard his treasure from a wicked dwarf. During the summer the girls are walking through the forest, when they find a dwarf who has his beard stuck in a tree. The girls rescue him by cutting his beard free, but the dwarf is ungrateful, and yells at the girls for cutting his beautiful beard. The girls encounter the dwarf several times that summer, rescue him from some peril, and each time the dwarf is ungrateful. Then one day they meet the dwarf once again; this time he is terrified because the bear is about to kill him. The dwarf pleads with the bear, begs it to eat the girls instead of him, but the bear pays no heed and kills the dwarf with one swipe of his paw. Then the bear turns into a prince; the dwarf had bewitched the prince by stealing his gold and turning him into a bear, but the curse is broken with the death of the dwarf. Snow White marries the prince and Rose Red marries his brother.

The Snowman

"The Snowman" begins with its eponymous hero standing in the garden of a manor house watching the sun set and the moon rise. He is only a day old, and quite naive and inexperienced. His sole companion is a watchdog who warns him that the sun will make him run into the ditch. The dog senses a change in the weather, enters his kennel and goes to sleep.

At dawn, the land is covered in frosty whiteness when a young couple enter the garden to admire the scene and the Snowman. When they leave, the dog tells the Snowman the couple are sweethearts who will someday move into "the same kennel and share their bones". He then recounts happier days when he slept under the stove in the housekeeper‘s room as a pampered pet. The Snowman can see the stove through a window in the house and believes it is female. He falls in love. The Snowman longs to be in the room with the stove, but the dog warns him he would melt.

All day the Snowman gazes upon the stove, and, at twilight, the stove glows. When the door of the room is opened, the flames leap out of the stove and glow upon the snowman's face and chest. He is delighted. In the morning, the window is covered with frost and the Snowman cannot see the stove. He is stove-sick and cannot enjoy the frosty weather. The dog warns the snowman of an imminent change in the weather. A thaw descends, and, one morning, the snowman collapses. The dog finds a stove poker used to build the snowman within his remains, and then understands why the snowman longed for the stove, "That's what moved inside him...Now he is over that, too!" The girls in the house sing a springtime carol and the snowman is forgotten.

Soria Moria Castle

A poor couple had a son named Halvor who was like the Ash Lad (Norwegian:Askeladden), good for nothing but to sit about groping in the ashes. One day, a skipper asked him if he would like to go to sea. He went, and a storm blew them far off course. When Halvor got off the ship, he walked and found a castle. When he reached it, a princess warned him that a troll with three heads lived there and would eat him. Halvor refused to leave. The princess fed him and asked him to try to wield a sword. He could not, and she advised him to drink from a flask; afterwards, he could wield it. He killed the troll on its return. The princess told him of her two other sisters, also held captive by trolls, and Halvor rescued them as well, though one troll had six heads and the other nine.

They offered that any of them would marry him, and he chose the youngest princess, but he missed his parents and wanted to tell them what had happened. The princesses gave him a ring to wish himself there and back but warned him not to name them. His parents took a long time to recognize this grand lord as their son, but they were very pleased with him. The young women were abashed before him, because they used to mock him. He wished the princesses were there to show them how abashed they should be. They appeared. The youngest princess persuaded Halvor to lie down and sleep, put a ring on his finger, took the wishing ring and wished them back to Soria Moria Castle.

He set out to find them, bought a horse, and found a cottage with an old couple where the woman had a nose long enough to stir the fire with. He asked if they knew the way to Soria Moria Castle, and they did not, nor did the Moon when the old woman asked it, but the old woman traded him a pair of boots that took twenty miles a step for his horse, and asked him to wait for the West Wind. It knew where Soria Moria Castle was, and that there was to be a wedding there. Halvor set out with the West Wind to reach it. There, Halvor put the ring the princess had given him into a cup and had it brought to the princess. She recognized it and married Halvor instead of the new bridegroom.[3]

The Spirit in the Bottle

Once upon a time, there was an old woodcutter and his young son. The woodcutter always wanted his son to go to school and become a doctor, but his son did not want to study. The son insisted on going to the woods and instead of cutting down a tree, he found a bottle with a demon in it. Instead of letting the demon stay in the bottle, the young lad decided to release the demon. He opened it, and a spirit sprang out and declared it would break his neck and kill him. The young woodcutter then declared that the spirit/demon did not have the ability to get back inside the bottle. So the spirit, to show that he really could do whatever he wanted, re-entered the bottle to show the boy how strong he was, and the boy stopped the bottle up again. The demon, shocked, began begging the woodcutter's son to open the bottle again, but he refused unless the spirit promised to benefit the boy. The spirit pleaded with him and offered to make him rich. The boy decided it was worth the risk and released the demon. The spirit gave him a cloth that would turn any object into pure silver. He cut a tree with his axe, then turned the axe to silver with the cloth, and the axe bent on the tree.

The boy told his father that he did not need to work any more because the young son was rich due to the cloth, but his father advised him to go school and be a doctor and depend on his own hands and hard work. While the woodcutter's son was gambling and spending his money, his father was working so hard that he became ill. The old woodcutter on his deathbed told his son that he had to throw away the cloth and depend only on hard work. The next day, the young woodcutter, while mourning his father's death, decided to burn the magic cloth, but then remembered the money and power the cloth had given to him. As the cloth burned, the woodcutter's son said, "I'm a fool for throwing this cloth away." The son returned to the forest to ask the demon for a new magic cloth, but to his surprise and horror, he fell into the ground. The young woodcutter paid for all his sins by becoming stuck in the same bottle as the demon.