The Snow Queen

Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we do now. There was once a wicked goblin, one of the very worst, who was really a demon. One day he was in a particularly mischievous mood, and he fashioned a mirror with the peculiar property that everything good and beautiful reflected in it shrank to almost nothing, while everything worthless and ugly stood out and became even worse. The goblin and his pupils found this enormously entertaining. They carried the mirror everywhere, and at last they wanted to fly up to heaven itself to make fun of the angels. But the higher they rose, the more the mirror shook and grinned, until it slipped from their hands and shattered into billions upon billions of tiny pieces. Some of these splinters were no larger than a grain of sand, and they blew all over the world. Some got into people's eyes, and from that moment those people saw only the worst in everything. Others pierced their hearts, and those hearts became frozen and cold like blocks of ice.

In a large town where many people lived, two children named Gerda and Kay were the closest of friends. They played together every day among the roses that grew in the window boxes between their parents' attics, and they loved each other as dearly as brother and sister. One winter evening, Kay was looking out the window at the snowflakes when one of the demon's mirror splinters lodged in his eye and another pierced his heart. From that moment, Kay changed. He became cruel, mocking, and cold. He no longer cared for the roses or for Gerda's company. He found everything ugly and tiresome.

One day Kay went sledding in the market square and tied his sled to a magnificent white sleigh that glided through the streets. The driver was the Snow Queen herself, wrapped in white fur. She seized Kay and carried him off to her palace far to the north, a vast and glittering hall of ice and snow, lit by the aurora borealis. There Kay sat on the frozen lake, trying to spell the word 'eternity' with pieces of ice, but he could never quite manage it. The Snow Queen told him that if he could spell the word, he would be free and she would give him the whole world and a new pair of skates.

When Kay did not return, Gerda set out to find him. She asked the river and the flowers and the birds if they had seen him. An old enchantress who kept a magical garden tried to keep Gerda with her forever, but Gerda's tears caused the hidden roses to bloom again, reminding her of Kay. She fled the garden and continued her search. She traveled through a dark forest where she was captured by a robber girl, a wild but kind-hearted child who gave her a reindeer to ride northward. The robber girl also gave Gerda a pair of fur boots and warned her about the Snow Queen.

The reindeer carried Gerda across the frozen tundra to the hut of a Lappish woman, who gave her a letter to take to a Finnish woman farther north. The Finnish woman told the reindeer that Gerda's own innocent heart was the greatest power she possessed. At last Gerda reached the Snow Queen's palace. The icy winds howled around her, but she prayed, and the winds became gentle. She found Kay sitting on the floor of the vast ice hall, still trying to spell 'eternity' with the blocks of ice. He was blue with cold and did not recognize her at all.

Gerda threw her arms around Kay and wept. Her warm tears fell upon his chest, melting the splinter of ice in his heart. Kay looked at her, and at last the mirror splinter fell from his eye. 'Gerda!' he cried. 'My dear little Gerda! Where have we been?' He burst into tears himself, and the splinter of glass was washed away. Then he recognized the ice blocks and spelled the word 'eternity.' The Snow Queen's spell was broken. The two children flew home together on the reindeer's back. When they arrived, they found the roses blooming in the window boxes and realized they had both grown taller. They sat hand in hand, and they knew they were children no longer, yet they were happier than they had ever been.