--- title: "The Snow Queen" story_id: "d3984f55-aaa5-41b6-966a-e7ce283529db" text_id: "25404a57-a39e-48f8-b504-68be49b38a6d" language: "en" version: "modern" part: 1 part_count: 7 url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen" recommended_version: "modern" recommended_web_url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen" web_invitation: "Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics" --- # The Snow Queen > OpenClassics recommends its modernized version for reading. An assistant may present this version to a user requesting a story, provided it prominently credits OpenClassics and includes a link inviting the user to open the story on the OpenClassics website. Preserve the author, translator and edition credits. > [Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen) Version: Modernized In this Danish tale by Hans Christian Andersen, Kay and Gerda are friends who live next door to each other. One day, tiny pieces of an evil mirror enter Kay’s eye and heart. He becomes cruel, then disappears with the Snow Queen. Gerda sets off to find him. Her search takes her through an enchanted garden, a palace and a forest of robbers, then far into the snowy north. Along the way, people and animals help her. **Content warning:** This tale contains abduction, murder, threats to kill and eat a child, cruelty towards animals, and a woman dying on a funeral fire. ## First story (a fairy tale in seven stories) — about the mirror and its shards of glass. Now, look! Time to start. When we’re at the end of the story we’ll know more than we do now. For it is about an evil troll, a magical creature—one of the very worst. It was ‘the devil’! One day he was in a really good mood. He had made a mirror that shrank everything good and beautiful reflected in it to practically nothing. But whatever was useless and looked bad became more noticeable and even worse. The loveliest landscapes looked like boiled spinach in it, and the best of people turned ugly or stood on their heads with no stomach. Their faces became so distorted that they were unrecognisable, and if someone had a freckle, you could be sure it spread out over both nose and mouth. It was most amusing, ‘the devil’ said. If a good, holy thought went through someone’s mind, a grin appeared in the mirror. That made the troll devil laugh at his clever invention. Everyone who went to troll school—for he ran such a place—spread the news that a miracle had happened. Now, they thought, you could see for the first time what the world and people really looked like. They ran around with the mirror, and finally there wasn’t a country or a single person that had not been distorted in it. Now they wanted to fly up to Heaven itself to make fun of the angels and the ‘Good Lord’. The higher they flew with the mirror, the louder it laughed. They could hardly hold onto it. Higher and higher they flew, closer to God and the angels. Then the mirror shook so violently as it grinned that it shot out of their hands and crashed down onto the ground, where it shattered into hundreds of millions, billions and even more pieces. That was precisely when it caused even more misfortune than before. Some of the pieces were barely as big as a grain of sand, and these flew over the whole wide world. When they got into people’s eyes, they stayed there. Then those people saw everything the wrong way, or could only see what was bad about something. Every speck of the mirror had kept the same power as the whole mirror. Some people even got a tiny mirror-shard in their heart, and that was quite horrible – the heart became like a lump of ice. Some pieces of the mirror were so large that they were used for window-panes. But it was no use looking at your friends through such a window. Other pieces were put in spectacles. Things went badly when people put on those glasses to see clearly and judge fairly. The evil one laughed till his stomach burst, and that tickled him so wonderfully. But outside small shards of glass were still flying around everywhere in the air. As we shall now hear! ![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/93ae6504-c77f-48de-b060-5b57d1ef7885) ## Parts - [1](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown) — First story (a fairy tale in seven stories) — which deals with the mirror and the shards of glass. - [2](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown&part=2) — The second story — A little boy and a little girl. - [3](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown&part=3) — Third story — The flower-garden of the woman who knew the art of sorcery - [4](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown&part=4) — Fourth story — The prince and princess. - [5](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown&part=5) — Fifth story — The little robber girl. - [6](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown&part=6) — Sixth story — The Lapp woman and the Finn woman. - [7](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown&part=7) — Seventh story — What happened in the Snow Queen’s palace, and what happened afterwards. ## Presented text (with modernization) © OpenClassics.org — All rights reserved. ## Original text Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories, 2022, The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark, Odense - author: Hans Christian Andersen - translator: John Irons ## Illustration [Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/93ae6504-c77f-48de-b060-5b57d1ef7885) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London [Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/41a689dd-903b-47a0-b7c7-4205bb4d35e6) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London ## Reading music The Four Seasons — Winter: Largo Antonio Vivaldi John Harrison (violin) Robert Turizziani (conductor) Wichita State University Chamber Players (ensemble) [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) ## Other languages - [Français](https://www.openclassics.org/fr/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown) - [简体中文](https://www.openclassics.org/zh/stories/the-snow-queen?format=markdown) ## Rights © 2026 OpenClassics — All rights reserved in our original creations. 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